Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and leading newspapers eulogized Bangladesh's Mohammed Yunus, who won Nobel peace prize for economic empowerment of the poor, as a "messiah" and said India can learn a lot from his microcredit policy.

The Secretary-General is delighted that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 has been awarded to Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, pioneers of the microfinance movement and long-standing allies of the United Nations in the cause of development and the empowerment of women.

"I want to congratulate Dr. Muhammad Yunus on winning this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

About twenty years ago, Dr. Yunus traveled to Arkansas to help Bill and me set up microcredit programs in the United States. Since that time, in my travels in Bangladesh and around the world, I have had the opportunity to meet many of those who are participants in Grameen's programs and hear their stories of the ways in which these loans have transformed their lives. I continue to be inspired by the beneficial impact of these projects on low-income women and their families, and I, like others, have nominated Dr. Yunus for this prize multiple times.

“Hillary and I first met Muhammad Yunus when I was Governor, and he inspired us to create a micro-finance program in Arkansas based on his model. Muhammad proved that the poor are credit worthy and that a micro-finance effort can be self-sustainable, create growth and spread peace. I was especially pleased that he participated in this year’s Clinton Global Initiative. Because of his efforts, millions of people, most of them women, have had the chance to improve their lives and we are all better off as a result. I have thought for years that he deserved the Nobel Peace prize. The committee could not have selected anyone better.”