Ittefaq Report
Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina has ranked higher this year on the Forbes list of most powerful women in the world.
The Bangladesh premier, seeking the fourth term as PM for the first time in the country, has jumped four places to the 26th position on the Power Women 2018 list published by the magazine on Tuesday.
Back in 2015, she was 59th, 36th in 2016 and 30th in 2017.
Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, who recently announced that she will not seek re-election in 2021, tops the list for the eighth consecutive year.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has come second and IMF’s Christine Lagarde third while Melinda Gates has dropped to sixth position.
Mary Barra, CEO, General Motors is on the fourth position on the list, Fidelity Investments CEO Abigail Johnson fifth, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki seventh, Banco Santander Chair and Executive Director Ana Patricia Botín eighth, Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson ninth and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty 10th.
Ivanka Trump, the US first daughter, holds the 24th spot as a key advisor to Donald Trump’s administration.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar has dramatically been dropped off the list after coming in at 33 last year. Her being mum at the brutal military crackdown on minority Rohingyas in Myanmar and her inaction in the refugee crisis in Bangladesh has resulted in the worldwide condemnation.
In PM Sheikh Hasina’s profile in the magazine, Forbes commented that her role in providing aid to Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar and allotting 2,000 acres of land in Bangladesh for the refugees has garnered praise for her worldwide.
“Citing Bangladesh’s own state sanctioned genocide during 1971’s Liberation War, Hasina is ‘proud to bear the bulk of the cost’ of the relocation of these refugees to her country,” the magazine added.
Christina Vuleta, who leads editorial at Forbes Women, has made a list of 22 Most Powerful Women in Politics and Policy and placed premier Sheikh Hasina on the seventh position.