Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: India’s strikes against Pakistan should be seen as part of a long-term plan, India and the United Kingdom sign a long-awaited free trade agreement, and former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s return home raises questions about her son’s political future.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: India’s strikes against Pakistan should be seen as part of a long-term plan, India and the United Kingdom sign a long-awaited free trade agreement, and former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s return home raises questions about her son’s political future.

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Two weeks after terrorists gunned down 26 tourists near the town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, India retaliated with military action against Pakistan, which it blames for support the militants. (Islamabad denies involvement in the attack.)

Early Wednesday morning local time, airstrikes targeted nine terrorist sites in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and the neighboring province of Punjab, according to an Indian government statement. The statement also said that the strikes had avoided military targets and were intended to be nonescalatory.

Pakistan denounced the Indian strikes as an act of war, saying that they hit civilian facilities, including a mosque, and killed at least 26 people. It then immediately responded, staging heavy shelling across the countries’ disputed border in Kashmir and claiming that it downed five Indian jets. New Delhi acknowledged that at least two of its aircraft had crashed but did not elaborate.

Failing to take military action would have been politically costly for Indian........

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