Hasina on Foreign Policy list of 100 top Global Thinkers of the decade

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been named among the 100 leading Global Thinkers of the decade from 2009, a list made by Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine.

She is on the list in the defence and security category.

“Sheikh Hasina has responded to the greatest security challenge facing Bangladesh with a generosity that she has not always shown her opponents at home,” the magazine said about her.

“Rather than turn away the approximate 700,000 Rohingya who fled persecution in Myanmar, Hasina welcomed them and allowed them to remain in her country,” it added.

File Photo: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina presiding over the first meeting of her new cabinet at her office in Dhaka on Jan 21, 2019. Photo: Saiful Islam Kallol

Though the date of the publication is not mentioned on the Foreign Policy website, it appears to have been made before the Dec 30 general election when Bangladesh was preparing to start the Rohingya repatriation process.

“There are signs, however, that she may not stay the course as elections near: Despite opposition from UN officials and human rights groups, her government is making moves to repatriate several thousand Rohingya,” the magazine said about Hasina.

It made a Twitter post on the full list on Tuesday after a series of posts about the Global Thinkers separately.

 

Hasina jumped four places to the 26th position on the Forbes Power Women 2018 list published by the magazine on Dec 6 before the general election. Her position on the list improved to 30th last year from 36th in 2016 and 59th in 2015.

In 2015, the Bangladesh leader was named among the 13 top global thinkers by Foreign Policy in the category "DECISION-MAKERS" for her outstanding contribution to addressing the issue of climate change.

Since this is the 10th anniversary of Global Thinkers, the Foreign Policy decided to split the 2019 list of 100 into 10 groups.

It singled out 10 nominees who have had the greatest impact on the past decade, the magazine said.

"After that are people 40 and under, followed by the most influential minds in the areas of defence and security, energy and climate, technology, economics and business, science and health, and activism and the arts."

On the top of the list of 100 Global Thinkers of the decade, Foreign Policy has put “The Strongman”.

“These strongmen—and they are all men—are finding strength in each other’s success and the lack of a coordinated pushback. Expect more aspiring authoritarians to follow in their stead,” it said after naming Vladimir Putin of Russia, Rodrigo Duterte of Philippines, Xi Jinping of China, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Viktor Orban of Hungary, “and even” Donald Trump of America.

Foreign Policy included “The Women of the #MeToo Movement” in the top 10 list.

The others on the list of top 10 Global Thinkers of the last 10 years are German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former US president Barack Obama, Alibaba’s co-founder and Executive Chairman Jack Ma, IMF chief Christine Lagarde, European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager, author and TV host Fareed Zakaria, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates, the co-chairs of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.