In 2006, Forbes ranked Mrs Khaleda Zia at number 33 in the list of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World. In the same year Time published a cover story with her picture entitled Rescue Mission wherein the magazine listed her success as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. And again in the same year, London’s The Observer in a special report on six women leaders across the world, wrote how as the widow of assassinated President Ziaur Rahman, she struggled and succeeded to become the first wom an Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Khaleda Zia was Prime Minister, twice, from 1991 to 1996 and again for the third term from 2001 to 2006. She is now the Chairperson of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by her husband and is also the Leader of the Opposition in the parliament. She has been elected to, maximum permissible, five separate parliamentary constituencies in the general elections of January 1991, February 1996, June 1996 and October 2001, and maximum permissible, three separate constituencies in the general elections of December 2008. In other words, she won all the elections she contested in 23 parliamentary constituencies, a feat unachieved by any other politician in Bangladeshi history. EARLY LIFE Khaleda Zia was born to Iskandar Majumder and Taiyaba Majumder in the northern district, Dinajpur on 15 August 1945. The family originally hails from south-eastern district Feni. She studied in Dinajpur Government Girls High School. In 1960, she married Ziaur Rahman who was an officer in the Armed Forces of Pakistan. Pakistan was a country whose two wings were separated by India by nearly 1200 miles. By 1970, people of East Pakistan were demanding more democratic and economic rights. Their demands were resisted by successive military regimes in West Pakistan. The ongoing political crisis reached its climax in March 1971, when negotiations between East Pakistani political leaders and West Pakistani military/political leaders failed. On 25 March 1971, West Pakistani army launched an attack on the Bengali population. At this point, Major Ziaur Rahman, who was then posted in the port city of Chittagong, took the bold initiative to declare Bangladesh as an independent state. After a Liberation War that lasted for nearly nine months, West Pakistani army was defeated and East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh on 16 December 1971. Ziaur Rahman later became Chief of the Armed Forces and subsequently assumed power as Chief Martial Law Administrator following a series of military coups. He took steps to restore multi-party democracy, independence of judiciary and freedom of press in the country by forming the BNP and becoming democratically elected as President. He made Bangladesh self sufficient in food.