On February 15, 2020, the Supreme Court of India made a landmark verdict on civil suit ‘The Secretary, Ministry of Defence versus Babita Punia and Others’ (civil appeals nos. 9367-9369 of 2011 read along with nos. 1127-1128 of 2013 and no. 1210 of 2020) by allowing permanent commission status to women officers in the Indian armed forces and making them eligible for command positions (which enables them now to perform all types of military roles – full combat, combat support and services). The government has been granted a three-month period to implement the ruling.

This is the second year, consecutively that Bangladesh has witnessed less than 50 violent incidents and terrorist-related fatalities. In a year-end assessment, the Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU) of the Bangladesh police claimed that the year 2019 witnessed a lesser number of terrorist attacks due to a strong counter-insurgency policy. This policy focussed on counter-narratives, de-radicalization and awareness programmes to curb the militancy alongside regular activities like arrests and intelligence gathering on the terrorist groups in the post Holey Bakery incident in Dhaka in 2016.