Sheikh Hasina makes Time’s list of 100 most influential people of 2018

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been included on the list of Time magazine's 100 world's most influential people for 2018. She has been put on the list due to her “humanitarian role under difficult circumstances in sheltering more than a million forcibly displaced Rohingyas who fled violence in their homeland in Myanmar.”

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Source: Getty Images AsiaPac

The list was published on 19 April 2018 by the Time which is an American weekly news magazine published in the New York City. US President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, North Korean President Kim Jong-un, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, India cricket captain Virat Kohli, and Indian actress Deepika Padukone also made the list. 

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch, who wrote a profile of the Bangladesh Prime Minister for the list, said, "Bearing the legacy of her father, who led Bangladesh’s liberation war, Hasina has never been afraid of a fight. So when several hundred thousand ethnic Rohingya refugees started streaming into Bangladesh last August to escape atrocities by the Myanmar army, she accepted the humanitarian challenge."

But she had some criticism for Hasina "who is stumbling badly on human rights".

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Source: Getty Images AsiaPac

“Her government has presided over extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, including those of political opponents, and does not tolerate criticism or dissent. For one who railed against unfairness when out of office, Sheikh Hasina needs to curb this tendency toward authoritarianism and be an example to Myanmar and others to show that democracy embraces disagreement and diversity," said Ganguly.

In 2017, Sheikh Hasina ranked 30th on the list of Forbes' 100 most powerful women in the world.