This year produced many surprising developments in South Asia. In May, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu made good on a campaign pledge to expel all Indian troops from his country, a close partner of New Delhi. In August, Pakistan for the first time arrested a former chief of intelligence—retired Army Gen. Faiz Hameed—in a country where top military officials are rarely held accountable. In October, India signed a border deal with China despite serious mistrust between the two rivals since a deadly clash along their disputed Himalayan frontier in 2020. And in November, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Gautam Adani, an Indian billionaire with a massive business empire, on fraud charges. But four surprises stood out from the rest. We round them up here.