This Week in Explainers: What does Tarique Rahman’s return mean for Bangladesh-India ties?

Sigh… It’s the last week of the year and 2025 has been a rollercoaster ride.

The final week of 2025 has seen further violence unfold in Bangladesh — another Hindu has been lynched, days after Dipu Chandra Das was beaten to death. Also India’s neighbouring nation saw the return of Tarique Rehman, the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, after 17 years of self-exile.

Away from the turmoil in Bangladesh, the Epstein files continue to garner headlines. A second batch of documents were released this week. Nearly 30,000 more pages of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including many that reference President Donald Trump, were released, causing quite a stir in the US.

And on the topic of Donald Trump, the US president also announced a new class of naval ships this week, named after himself. These new vessels, Trump said, would be “the best in the world. They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built”.

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This week also saw the Trump administration announcing the revamp of the H-1B visa lottery system. The US government said that starting February 27, 2026, the longstanding H-1B work visa lottery system would be replaced with a new weighted approach that prioritises skilled, higher-paid foreign workers.

Also, in the week gone by, India announced the conclusion of talks on yet another Free Trade Agreement — this time with New Zealand. The new FTA between India and New Zealand is likely to come into force in 2026. However, not everyone is on board for this deal.

We discuss all of this and more in our weekly wrap of the news from around the world.

1) The country of Bangladesh is embroiled in turmoil. Since the death of student leader Sharif Osman Hadi after he was shot on December 12, the country has been witnessing violence and protests.

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Dipu Chandra Das and Amrit Mondal: The tale of 2 lynchings in Bangladesh

Amid the protests, a Hindu man, identified as Dipu Chandra Das, was lynched after he was accused of making blasphemous remarks. And now this week, another Hindu man — Amrit Mondal alias Samrat — was thrashed to death.

What led to the second lynching in Bangladesh? Was it a communally motivated crime? Our explainer provides the answers.

2) The week gone by also saw the return of Bangladesh’s ‘dark prince’ Tarique Rahman, the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, after 17 years. On Christmas, the 60-year-old got down at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, alongside his wife Zubaida and daughter Zaima, and beloved pet, Jebu the cat, and stood barefoot on Bangladeshi soil amid heavy security.

He later addressed thousands of supporters, saying: “I have a plan for the people of my country and for my country,” referencing Martin Luther King’s famous speech. He added, “This plan is for the interest of the people, for the development of the country, for changing the lot of the country. To implement the plan, I need the support of all the people of the country. If you stand beside us, god willing, we will be able to implement my plan.”

He also said he wanted to make a safe Bangladesh where people irrespective of castes, creeds and faiths can live in a peaceful environment.

But what does his return to Bangladesh politics mean for India? Read the full report here.

3) The saga of the Epstein files continue. This week, the US Department of Justice released a new batch of records related to Jeffrey Epstein, a wide array of documents that shed light on alleged co-conspirators and the late sex offender’s ties to the former Prince Andrew as well as US President Donald Trump.

Among the released documents was one notable email from a federal prosecutor about Trump’s flights with the convicted financier. Trump flew on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported”, read an email from a New York prosecutor.

Here are the other notable takeaways from the latest batch of Epstein files.

4) Donald Trump loves himself. And this was clearly on display when the US president announced that the country would commission a new series of heavily armed navy battleships named after himself, as part of a revamped ‘Golden Fleet’.

Trump’s eponymous battleships, with the first being named USS Defiant, will be armed with guns and missiles, as well as hypersonic weapons, electronic rail guns and high-powered -lasers, he announced from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Will these ships transform the US navy? Here’s more on the ‘Trump class of ships’.

5) US President Donald Trump continues to revamp the immigration policies of America. And the latest change in this effort is scrapping the decades-long lottery system, replacing it with a wage-weighted model that fundamentally changes who gets a shot.

From 2026, H-1B visas will no longer be handed out purely by chance. Instead, applications offering higher wages will get better odds of selection. Speaking on the change, US Citizenship and Immigration Services Spokesperson Matthew Tragesser said that the lottery system had been “exploited and abused by US employers who were primarily seeking to import foreign workers at lower wages than they would pay American workers”.

This could be particularly impact Indians who travel abroad to live out their American Dream. Our report explains how.

6) This week also saw the conclusion of talks between India and New Zealand with both sides announcing that they reached a free trade agreement that is expected to boost trade between the two countries by hundreds of millions of dollars.

New Delhi and Wellington said the deal is expected to be formally signed in the first quarter of next year. This is the seventh FTA negotiated by the Modi government and the third major trade pact concluded in 2025.

The India-New Zealand FTA is a win-win for both nations, as it will create greater opportunities for small businesses, students, women, farmers, and youth across India.

However, not everyone is happy with the deal. New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters has slammed the agreement, calling it “neither free nor fair”. In a statement, Peters said his party, New Zealand First, was “regrettably opposed” to the agreement, arguing that it gives away too much – particularly on immigration – while failing to secure adequate gains for Wellington, especially in the critical dairy sector.

Read more here.

7) Pakistan is cash-strapped with its citizens struggling to pay for fuel and food. So, how does Islamabad stay afloat? By begging for funds from countries and international agencies. Data shows that Pakistan received foreign assistance of over $3 billion (Rs 2.69 lakh crore) in the first few months of this financial year. This is a 14 per cent hike from the same period in the previous financial year, when foreign assistance stood at around $2.66 billion (Rs 2.39 lakh crore).

Such is the country’s condition that Pakistani economists have warned the government against debt sustainability risks. But who is Islamabad’s biggest helping hand?

And that’s it from us for this week. We wish our dear readers a very happy new year. If you want to read such explainers in the coming year, here’s the page to visit.