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Hello and welcome to NewsAar from the BBC World Service.

We're coming to you live from London.

I'm James Menendez.

And we're going to begin in Bangladesh,

where the Bangladesh National Party has scored a landslide victory in what was a

pivotal election, the first real contest for years. It means that the party's leader, Tariq Rahman,

becomes Prime Minister, itself a remarkable turnaround for a man who'd been living in self-imposed

exile in London for the past 17 years.

His mother, Khalidazir, who died late last year, was a former Bangladeshi Prime Minister and a bit of rival of Sheikh Hasina, the woman who governed the country with an iron fist during that time.

And whose brutal crackdown on student protesters in 2024 sparked fury, killed hundreds of people and ended

with her fleeing into exile. Well, this was the first election since that period of violent

upheaval. Rashna Mazabin was one of those who took part in the protest and she has mixed

feelings about today's result. I don't think the experience of July has yet left my body.

It was a battleground.

You didn't know in the morning when you were going out

whether you would be alive or arrested by the end of the day.

And now when you're seeing an election

where you can have a publicized political discourse of whom you want,

whom you don't, at open places, within your rooms and having discussions, supporting whomever you want,

even if you like someone or don't like someone, it came with such a bloodshed.

Such a bloodshed that has yet not left my body.

...