Tarique Rahman was sworn in as Bangladesh's new prime minister following the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's landslide victory in the national elections. The swearing-in ceremony, administered by President Mohammed Shahabuddin, took place at the south plaza of the parliament building in Dhaka on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, evening.
Bangladesh held its 13th general election on February 12, 2026, with voters across Dhaka casting ballots in a significant democratic exercise.
Tarique Rahman is Bangladesh's first male prime minister in more than three decades, ending an era of female leadership that began in 1991.
Bangladesh Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus paid tribute to Dr Manmohan Singh at the Indian high commission in Dhaka.
Religious structures, Bengali traditions, and 'graffiti' drawn during the July uprising will be included on the currency notes.
Professor Yunus is in New York, accompanied by young Bangladeshis who led the student uprising against Hasina, and the bon homie he shared with two US presidents, current and past, will add masala to the conspiracy theorists.
Muhammad Yunus proved that he was neither an armchair economist nor a slogan mongering political activist, but a doer destined to do what Mahatma Gandhi said -- to remove every tear from every eye, recalls Rup Narayan Das.
'The present generation, either due to historical amnesia or political propaganda, has been fed a narrative that paints India as an adversary rather than an ally.'
Bangladesh descended into chaos on Monday as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina surreptitiously resigned and fled the country in a military aircraft while the Army stepped in to fill the power vacuum.
'The dominance of her party also meant that the institutions became lopsided -- whether it was the bureaucracy or the courts or the military.' 'She centralised power to the extent that you would see her representatives or her party office bearers having overly represented in these institutions.' 'That perhaps would have been the biggest blunder that she committed.'
Bangladesh is in turmoil, which is not good news for India, which shares a porous 4000 km border with it. There is a danger of fundamentalism growing there, and India has to move in to reset its ties with the new dispensation before China and Pakistan make capital out of it, alerts Ramesh Menon.
Bangladesh Central Bank in an order on March 2 removed Dr Muhammad Yunus as head of the bank, which he founded, citing that he had violated country's retirement age.
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