NewsBytes

Ousted Bangladesh PM Hasina sentenced to death for "crimes against humanity"   

Bangladesh's deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina was on Monday sentenced to death in absentia by a special tribunal for "crimes against humanity" over her government's brutal crackdown on student-led protests last year.   In its verdict that followed a months-long trial, the country's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) described the 78-year-old Awami League leader as the "mastermind and principal architect" of the violent repression that killed hundreds of protesters. It also handed the death sentence to former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on similar charges. Hasina has been living in India since she fled Bangladesh on August 5 last year in the face of the massive protests.  She was earlier declared a fugitive by the court.

Hours after the verdict, Bangladesh's foreign ministry demanded that Hasina and former home minister Kamal be immediately handed over under an extradition treaty in view of their sentencing. "We call on the Indian government to immediately hand over these two convicted individuals to the Bangladeshi authorities," the foreign ministry said in a statement in Bengali.

In her reaction, Hasina said the judgement has been made by a "rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate." "They are biased and politically motivated. In their distasteful call for the death penalty, they reveal the brazen and murderous intent of extremist figures within the interim government to remove Bangladesh's last elected prime minister, and to nullify the Awami League as a political force," she said in a statement.

US sees sharp dip in new foreign students; India still leads

The number of new international students arriving in the United States has sharply declined, even as India continues to remain the top source of foreign students in American universities, a new Open Doors study revealed on Monday. According to the report, first-time enrollments across US colleges and universities fell 17 per cent in fall 2025, signalling what experts say could be a worrying trend for the country’s higher-education sector. Nearly 60 per cent of institutions reported a drop in fresh international admissions, with only 30 per cent seeing an uptick. Open Doors -- a leading data resource backed by the US State Department -- attributed the shifting pattern largely to the differing fortunes of academic levels. Undergraduate numbers rose by 5 per cent, but new graduate enrollments plunged 15 per cent, pulling the overall figures down. Despite the slowdown, the United States remains a major draw for Indian students. India sent 3,63,019 students to American campuses in the 2024-25 academic year -- a 10 per cent jump over the previous year -- topping the charts for a second consecutive year. China followed with 2,65,919 students, a 4 per cent decline. Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam were among 12 countries that recorded their highest-ever outbound figures to the US, the report said. International students made up 6 per cent of the total US higher-education population and pumped nearly $55 billion into the American economy in 2024, supporting more than 3.5 lakh jobs.