India, Nov. 30 -- A year after a bloody, student-led uprising in Bangladesh forced the then PM Sheikh Hasina into exile, now the fast-deteriorating health of her nemesis Khaleda Zia means the country is without its two main political faces, at a time when the interim administration is promising elections by April.

Begum Khaleda Zia, the former two-time prime minister and chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), is in the middle of an acute health crisis.

Zia "remains in 'very critical' condition" at a Dhaka hospital, reported Reuters on Sunday, November 30. Doctors and senior party officials said she was admitted on November 23 with a "severe chest infection affecting her heart and lungs". She is 80 years old.

Zia was rel...