Mr Yunus was appointed to the position by Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin after he held a meeting with student leaders and commanders of the three services, local media reported late on Tuesday.

Yunus, 84, and his Grameen Bank, a microcredit organization, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for their efforts to lift millions of people out of poverty by providing small loans of less than $100 to poor people in rural Bangladesh.

Student leaders have said they want Yunus to be the chief adviser to the interim government and a spokesman for Yunus said he had agreed. Yunus is in Paris for a medical procedure and is expected to return to Dhaka soon.

Earlier on Tuesday, President Shahabuddin dissolved parliament, paving the way for an interim government and new elections. His office also announced that the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, had been released from house arrest.

The movement to oust Ms Hasina stemmed from protests over public sector job quotas for families of veterans of Bangladesh's 1971 independence war.

About 300 people have been killed and thousands injured in violent protests across the country since July.

After protesters stormed and ransacked Prime Minister Hasina's residence on Monday, the streets of the capital Dhaka were calm again on Tuesday. Many schools and businesses remained closed.

However, the Garment Manufacturers Association said garment factories, which supply some of the world's top brands and are a mainstay of the economy, would reopen on Wednesday after being shut down due to the riots.

Ms Hasina's escape ends her second 15-year reign in the country of 170 million people, where she has led 20 of the past 30 years as head of the political party of her father, state founder Mujibur Rahman, after he was assassinated in 1975.

Hasina has flown to India and is staying at a safe house on the outskirts of Delhi. Indian media reported that Hasina may go to the UK, where she has family, including a niece who is a government minister.

Hindus make up about 8% of Bangladesh's 170 million people and have traditionally supported Ms Hasina's Awami League party, rather than the opposition bloc that includes a hardline Islamist party.

Bui Huy (according to Reuters, AP, AJ)