March 02, 2026

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NEW ORDER OLD TENSIONS

To take oath as the new prime minister of Bangladesh, Tarique Rahman decided to break with convention. Instead of Bangabhaban, the official residence of the President, he and his cabinet were sworn in at the expansive and public-facing Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, home to the country's Parliament. It signalled the return of parliamentary democracy after more than a year and a half of rule by an interim administration that many in Bangladesh viewed as technocratic, opaque and increasingly unaccountable. Rahman walked to the venue in a black suit and white shirt, flanked by his wife, Dr Zubaida, and their daughter, Zaima. Those close to him remarked on the remarkable calm he exuded--one that he has built over the years and which has come to define his demeanourBoth his parents, the late General Ziaur Rahman and Begum Khaleda Zia, had presided over Bangladesh's political destiny during crucial periods, giving the young Tarique both extraordinary exposure and easy familiarity with power. During Khaleda's second term as prime minister (2001-2006), Rahman began to take control of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) that she headed. But soon after, the military-backed interim government in 2007 charged him with heinous crimes, and the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League won the 2008 election, forcing him to go into self-imposed exile to London. But though Rahman was away from the country, he was never far from its politics (see box, The Long Walk to Premiership). The Hasina government convicted him on multiple charges, and it would take 17 years for Rahman to return to Bangladesh, to take charge of the BNP campaign for the 2026 general election. He lost his mother to illness soon after but has now led the BNP alliance to a phenomenal victory, winning 212 out of the 300

REMOVING THE ROADBLOCKS

For years, Vinay Rawat, a 37-year-old schoolteacher in Dehradun, has been planning his visits to Delhi like a small military operation. Seven hours on a good day. Longer if traffic near Meerut is clogged up or roadwork has turned the highway into a bottlenecked trench. His parents in Delhi are getting older. Time, he says, is never enough and it is the only thing that stops him from visiting them often. By mid-2026, that grim arithmetic of distance and delay may change forever. The Delhi- Dehradun Expressway promises to cut the journey to roughly two and a half hours. Not merely a saving of time--it promises a fundamentally different life. Behind such changing realities lies the Bharatmala Pariyojana, the government's flagship highway development programme started a decade ago to overhaul India's road network through a corridor-based approach. It covers about 34,800 km of highways at an estimated cost of Rs 5.35 lakh crore. As of January, projects covering 21,783 km out of the awarded 26,425 km stand constructed, spending a little over 99 per cent of that money. With new project sanctions discontinued a couple of years ago, the entire road-building machinery moved to completion and enterprise mode. The result: after years of missed deadlines, some of India's most ambitious projects are finally inching toward completion. If most of them open as scheduled, it would be the largest change in highway connec- tivity since the Golden Quadrilateral, impacting India's every cornerThe Delhi-Dehradun Expressway cuts through the Shivaliks via long tunnels (see The Last Mile), while the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway forms the spine of a new northwest logistics axis. Ahmedabad is drawn closer to the proposed industrial city of Dholera. Halfday journeys between Bengaluru and Chennai are compressed into a single four-hour run. Amritsar is brought closer to Jamnagar via Bathinda, connecting energy, port and refinery hubs. The Lucknow-Kanpur stretch will be a swift 30-45-minute drive. When the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway opens, Amritsar will be just four hours from Delhi, and Katra six--down from a gruelling 13-hour journey. The Gurugram-Pataudi highway provides direct access to the Dwarka Expressway, easing connectivity around one of the NCR's most persistent choke pointsATHE PAYOFF 2025 government-commissioned study by IIM Bangalore has found that Bharatmala has already improved logistics efficiency, reduced freight costs,