Hasina conferred honorary D.Lit. by Kazi Nazrul University

Asansol (West Bengal), May 26 (IANS): Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on Saturday conferred a honorary Doctorate of Literature by the Kazi Nazrul University here.
University Vice Chancellor Sadhan Chakrabarti handed out the degree to Sheikh Hasina at a special convocation, in which a number of senior ministers of her cabinet and West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee were present.
The Vice Chancellor, who presided over the function in the absence of the indisposed Chancellor — Governor K.N. Tripathi — said the Bangladesh Prime Minister was honoured in recognition of her outstanding contribution towards building a democratic society free from exploitation and disparity, for empowering women, alleviating poverty and promoting socio-economic development, which were the ideals of poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.
Bangladesh Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali, Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor, Hasina’s advisers H.T. Imam, Gowher Rizvi and Tawfiq-e-Elahi as well as other education, cultural and political officials were among those who attended the special convocation of the university in Paschim Bardhaman district of West Bengal.
Dedicating the honour to all Bengalis, Hasina said she agreed to attend the function only because the university was named after Nazrul – the national poet of Bangladesh – whose 120th birthday was being celebrated in West Bengal on Saturday. Bangladesh had marked the occasion on Friday.
“I get requests for receiving such awards from lot of universities across the globe. But nowadays, I don’t have the time to attend them.
“I accept the honour you have given me with all humility, and dedicate it to the people of Bangladesh, and all Bengalis,” she said, as the auditorium burst into thunderous applause.
Sheikh Hasina said Bengal may have been partitioned in 1947, but “Nazrul and (Nobel laureate poet) Rabindranath Tagore belong to both Bengals. Their legacy cannot be divided”.
She said the slogan of “Joy Bangla” (Victory for Bangla) that was coined by his father and and founder of Bangladesh Mujibur Rahman during the country’s liberation war, was taken from a poem by Nazrul.
The Bangladesh Prime Minister recalled that she found Nazrul’s birthplace Churulia in a sorry state in 1999, and thanked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for renovating it.