1.) What would be the best currency to use for international transfers from the US to places like India, North Korea, the Middle East.
2.) How could the recipients turn their crypto into cash without going through a bank? For example, if we sent 10,000 worth of Rupee to India via crypto, how would the end user convert this into Rupee in their country?
these two questions are not separate from each other. they depend on one another instead.
you are looking for a cryptocurrency that you can easily send overseas while the receiver wants to easily receive them and the be able to find a place where they can sell them (convert to fiat). and do all that in the safes way possible.
the only answer is bitcoin. it has the most secure network, and more important most secure wallets (from full nodes which are the hardest to use, down to SPV/light wallets that are easiest to use. and they work on multiple platforms and devices). additionally the adoption that bitcoin has compared to anything else makes it a much easier (but still hard) thing to covert to and from cash.
the problem however is that although bitcoin is by far the most popular cryptocurrency it still has not reached mass adoption so people will always have a hard time when it comes to exchanging it with fiat.