New Delhi: India is facing what international relations scholars call a foreign-policy realignment in Bangladesh, according to an analysis in the Foreign Policy magazine.
In the article ‘India’s Fortunes Shift in Bangladesh’, Sumit Ganguly, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, warns that tensions between the two countries have morphed into accusations and resentment and could easily spiral into open “hostility”.
India was blindsided by the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, leaving it bereft of any close allies in Bangladesh. And, even as the Mohammed Yunus-led government has reiterated its desire for good bilateral relations with India, the “interim government’s overtures toward Pakistan certainly loom large over India’s misgivings about the future of its own ties with Bangladesh”, he writes.
In this new situation, the issue particularly of concern to India is the rise of Islamic militancy and its impact on Bangladeshi Hindus. “Some strands of Bangladesh’s domestic politics have long worried India regardless of the party in power in New Delhi.”
Ganguly adds, “Those who helped oust Hasina included Islamists and anti-India groups that are now feeling exhilarated. Despite its rhetorical commitment to minority rights, the interim government in Dhaka has so far failed to address the fears and misgivings of Hindus in Bangladesh.”
With Hasina’s Awami League sidelined, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)—the main opposition party with which India has had frosty ties—could play a key role in governance once new elections are held.
If it allies with the main Islamist party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, as it has done in the past, “the foreign-policy realignment is likely to become full-blown. India’s misgivings about an increasingly hostile neighbour would be realised,” writes Ganguly.
New Delhi has “few tools at its command to stave off this possible outcome,” he adds. It was a miscalculation to rely so heavily on the Awami League “to the exclusion of other parties and Bangladeshi civil society has put it in this untenable position”.
The BBC reports on India’s curious demographic conundrum: why is a country with nearly 1.45 billion encouraging people to have more children? The leaders of both Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, for instance, have in the last few months advocated more children.
And the answer? It’s because India’s fertility rate has fallen substantially—from 5.7 births per woman in 1950 to its current rate of 2. South India, in particular, is lagging behind. While all five states led India’s demographic transition, today they have the lowest fertility rates in India, matching many European countries.
“These states fear that India’s shifting demographics with varying population shares between states, will significantly impact electoral representation and state wise-allocation of parliamentary seats and federal revenues,” says the report, titled ‘Why a nation of 1.45 billion wants more children’.
The BBC highlights this development as important as India prepares for the delimitation of electoral seats in 2026—the first since 1976. Experts predict a reduction in parliamentary seats for the economically prosperous southern states and a linked change in allocations of federal revenues to them.
There are further challenges, the report says. This includes “India’s rapid ageing driven by declining fertility rates”.
“While countries like France and Sweden took 120 and 80 years, respectively, to double their ageing population from 7% to 14%, India is expected to reach this milestone in just 28 years,” the BBC reports.
Additionally, in India, fertility rates fell not due to socioeconomic progress, but due to aggressive family welfare programmes. Andhra Pradesh is a case in point: its fertility rate is on par with Sweden but its per capita income is 28 times lower, making it harder for the state to support the rapidly ageing population.
Throw migration, urbanisation, and changing labour markets into the mix and the picture gets even blurrier. According to demographers, India will need to extend retirement ages, prioritise healthy years of the younger population, and improve social infrastructure and security to meaningfully address this looming crisis.
In another article, a BBC Eye investigation has found that more than 565 children in West Bengal have either been killed or maimed by homemade bombs over the past 30 years.
The report arrives at the staggering figure by compiling articles on such incidents reported in the Anandabazar Patrika and Bartaman Patrika between 1996 and 2024. The casualties include 94 deaths and 471 injuries—which means that a child has fallen victim to bomb violence every 18 days on average in West Bengal.
Over 60 percent of these incidents involved children playing outdoors: in gardens, on the streets, and even near schools, says the report ‘We thought it was a ball’ – the bombs killing and maiming Indian children’.
The investigation details the history of crude bomb-making, beginning with the British era, to today when nearly all governments and rebel groups in the state’s history have used such bombs as tools of intimidation—especially during elections.
“Despite the terrible toll it inflicts, there is no sign of crude bomb violence in West Bengal ending,” the BBC reports. “None of the political parties admit to using bombs for political gain.”
(Edited Sanya Mathur)
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