BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Fundamental Attribution Error, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 17.8% saturation with 260 hits. Analysis detected 1,664 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,460 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 28% and a BS Rank of 11% (19,498 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 89.10% of the article peer group.
Welcome to *Foreign Policy*’s South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announces plans to return to the country in December, Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir visits Turkey amid deepening defense cooperation, and inflation rises in India after energy market shocks.
Hasina Threatens Homecoming
Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told Reuters last week that she plans to return to the country in December, along with other Awami League party leaders, and voluntarily present herself in court.
She has been in India since August 2024, when her government was ousted amid mass protests.
Last November, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Hasina to death in absentia for crimes against humanity in connection with the crackdown on protesters—charges that she rejects as politically motivated.
According to the United Nations, Hasina’s security forces used massive force against demonstrators, resulting in as many as 1,400 deaths.
“They may arrest me on my return, they may even kill me,” Hasina said.
“Still, I have to go.
… If death comes, I want it to come on my own soil.”
Hasina previously said she would return to Bangladesh sometime this year, but this is the first she has given a specific time frame.
There are a few possible reasons.
One is an expectation that her political fortunes have improved since a new government took office in February led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Prime Minister Tarique Rahman.
The Awami League and BNP are bitter rivals, and Hasina’s political feud with the late Khaleda Zia—the longtime BNP leader and Rahman’s mother—dominated Bangladeshi politics for decades.
However, the interim government that led the country from August 2024 until February took an especially hostile position toward the Awami League.
(Appointed leader Muhammad Yunus was hated by Hasina, and the two often feuded.)
It banned the party from political activities and targeted pro-Hasina media outlets.
Hasina’s sentence was handed down during the interim government’s rule.
Since Hasina’s announcement, of course, BNP officials have said they would welcome her return so that she could face justice.
(The government had previously said little about her or the Awami League.)
But in a perhaps telling aside on Tuesday, information advisor Zahed Ur Rahman suggested that the court could still review the verdict.
Hasina may also hope to bolster her party’s future prospects by playing the role of martyr: serving time in prison, gaining sympathy from the public, and galvanizing what remains of her political base.
She might symbolically link her homecoming to Dec. 16, the national holiday that mark’s Bangladesh’s victory in 1971 Liberation War.
Hasina might feel pressure to return home from India, which has signaled a desire to patch up ties with Bangladesh.
Still, on Tuesday, Indian authorities said New Delhi had not changed its stance on her self-exile, which is a major source of tension in the bilateral relationship.
If Hasina does return, the government would want to minimize political instability.
It already faces policy challenges and has little interest in a fresh political crisis.
But it will also need to be mindful of anti-Hasina sentiment, which remains strong among young people and the key opposition parties—the Islamist Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and the National Citizen Party, led by 2024 protest leaders.
That means that Hasina and the other Awami League leaders would likely face immediate arrest.
However, Dhaka would be tested, particularly in a scenario in which supporters took to the streets to celebrate her return and clashed with anti-Hasina partisans.
Hasina’s intentions are a major unknown.
Though she might hope the BNP government provides a better environment for a potential comeback, she may simply want to come home to retire—something her son has previously said.
From Dhaka’s perspective, that might be preferable.
What We’re Following
Pakistan’s Munir in Turkey.
Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir visited Turkey on Monday and Tuesday, meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan along with military officials and receiving a distinguished service medal.
Munir’s trip followed another by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Turkey this month.
Islamabad has quietly and significantly scaled up ties with Ankara in recent years, especially in defense.
Their security cooperation includes Turkey providing warships for Pakistan’s navy, upgrading Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jets, and sharing drone technology.
(According to New Delhi, Pakistan used Turkish-made drones in its conflict with India last year.)
But Pakistan-Turkey relations are expanding more broadly, from economic cooperation to cultural links.
One of the most popular TV shows in Pakistan in recent years has been *Ertugrul*, a Turkish drama about a 13th-century leader.
Bilateral relations have also benefited from India-Turkey tensions, though New Delhi and Ankara have taken steps to bolster relations this year.
Inflation spikes in India.
India’s government released data this week showing that consumer price inflation rose to nearly 4.4 percent in June, up from 3.9 percent in May.
The June figure, which exceeded economists’ predictions, was attributed to energy market shocks caused by the Iran war and a weak monsoon that produced crop shortages.
India’s central bank projects that inflation will hit 5.1 percent before the end of India’s current fiscal year in March 2027.
Inflation, like unemployment, is a long-standing economic challenge in India despite robust growth in the last decade.
New Delhi has said little about the latest data, though in recent months it has sought to downplay inflation risks.
In March, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said she didn’t expect increases in global energy prices to increase inflation.
U.S. citizen arrested on India-Nepal border.
Indian border troops arrested a man trying to enter Nepal without valid travel documents last Saturday.
According to Indian reports, the man, Jordan Brown, is a 36-year-old U.S. citizen and Navy veteran who told authorities that he entered Thailand last year with a tourist visa before losing his passport.
Brown then traveled from Thailand to Sri Lanka and eventually to India by sea, arriving last November.
He was reportedly living in Goa before he was apprehended at the border.
Brown’s possessions included a cell phone, religious books, an AI translation device, and a Chinese passport—something that likely triggered concerns among Indian officials.
The *Times of India* reported that Brown has an Indian wife.
Indian officials said they haven’t linked him to anything or anyone suspicious so far.
Still, much is strange about the story, from Brown’s Chinese passport to his reported travels.
It’s striking that a foreigner without proper travel documents was able to enter Sri Lanka and especially India without any issues, raising questions about the state of coastal security in both countries.
Under the Radar
It has been a rough year for public health in South Asia, with the region facing surges of diseases from HIV to measles and Pakistan struggling to complete its eradication of polio.
Sri Lanka is dealing with another epidemic—dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness that has become increasingly serious in South Asia in the last two decades.
It’s the worst dengue outbreak in the country in years, with more than 44,000 cases reported from January to June.
By this week, that number had risen to nearly 70,000.
Experts attribute the intensity of this year’s outbreak to Cyclone Ditwah, which hit Sri Lanka last November, creating debris that became breeding ground for mosquitoes.
There were 48 confirmed deaths from the outbreak at the start of this week, and Sri Lankan officials are taking it very seriously, with the military even deploying drones to target mosquitoes.
There is also an economic incentive for Colombo to rein in the outbreak: Sri Lanka depends heavily on tourism revenue, and it won’t want people scared away by dengue.
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Regional Voices
In the *Daily Star*, geologist Ahad Chowdhury laments how Bangladesh’s streets have continued to flood despite major investments to address the problem.
“Until the authorities manage urban drains and natural waterways as one connected system,” he writes, “Bangladesh’s multi-crore drainage projects will remain ineffective when they are needed most.”
In the *Kathmandu Post*, researcher Pragya Ghimire writes about what a U.S.-China rapprochement would mean for Nepal.
“Kathmandu should utilise any geopolitical breathing space created by a reset in major power relations to advance economic development, trade and investment,” she argues.
In *Dawn*, journalist Arifa Noor reflects on recent violence in Pakistan’s Balochistan province and comments on what she calls a “greater tragedy”: “the inability of those in power to approach the crisis in Balochistan with any empathy and political will to heal.”
“It is a political problem that needs a political solution,” she writes.
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