The Indian government’s unusual refusal to allow a top ranking British human rights lawyer Lord Alex Carlile enter India seems to be a significant political decision which will inevitably have some impact on the upcoming elections in Bangladesh. Treating opposition politicians of neighbouring countries belonging to the South Asian Regional grouping SAARC in contrasting manner certainly reflects strategic preferences of Delhi. The contrast could not be starker as when it had afforded visa to a fugitive politician of Maldives, but deported a lawyer representing the jailed opposition leader of Bangladesh.  Lord Carlile, is commissioner of the Freedom of Information Commission in the UK, has long been at the centre of controversies in Bangladesh for his criticism of the trial process of the war crimes committed during the war of independence. He had publicly lobbied against death sentences awarded to Mir Quasem Ali and other convicts. Later he courted controversy last year when Awami...