A few days after fresh instances of censorship (an actor’s claim of being disinvited from a university event for his anti-establishment views and the cancellation of a scheduled discussion on political prisoners by a prominent Mumbai cultural festival), India hosted a flamboyant visit by French President Emmanuel Macron amidst the fanfare of the Artificial Intelligence Impact Summit 2026 which was held in New Delhi. Most people would say there is no connection between the suppression of dissent and India’s staging of these high-profile events.

For many years now, it has been widely held that the relentless erosion of civil liberties in the country (seen in recurring attacks on minorities, the arrest of civil rights activists, tax raids on media houses and threats to cartoonists and stand-up comics) is attributable to the authoritarian personality of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his powerful appeal as a fundamentalist Hindu leader. Conventional wisdom within the liberal intelligentsia, articulated in numerous books, documentary films and media columns has it that the Hindutva rhetoric of historical injustice and hurt pride has turned millions of Indians into adulators of Modi and the promise he holds out for majoritarian rule.

I have long argued that this explanation, axiomatic for many, is erroneous. The diminution of democratic freedom and of secular rights in present-day India is undeniable. But their cause is far more complex than is commonly suggested.

My perspective, as a writer who combines journalistic research with deep scholarship, is based on a close observation of the socio-political trajectory of post-liberalisation India and a focused study of the western state of Gujarat which has often been described as a laboratory for Hindutva. I visited the state frequently between 2005-2010 to look into its recent socio-political history for causes of the brutal mass communal violence of 2002. I was distracted from my purpose by something peculiar taking place in the commercial capital, Ahmedabad. Every few weeks when I went there it seemed something new had come up: a giant convention centre, a luxury hotel, a flyover, a mall, a highway. A modest, provincial city was transmogrifying before my very eyes.

To call what I was witnessing “development” would have been a misleading way of communicating the complex set of strategies that were at play there, of which the physical structures were only manifestations. It was a new kind of politics being practiced by the state’s then controversial chief minister that I sensed would catapult him to national prominence and find replication at the Central level. I decided to continue looking at Gujarat’s recent past but to change my focus and study this phenomenon.

This was not as simple as it seemed. The backdrop to this unconventional politics was the mandate for development signalled by the 1991 structural reforms programme, a key component of which was the International Monetary Fund-World Bank-propelled push towards urbanisation (cities are the “engines of growth”).

Programmes like the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission provided the basis for the hyper development of a city like Ahmedabad. To make sense of the emerging politics of this developmental model I realised that I had to step outside familiar political frameworks and look instead at the substantial global scholarship on the evolution of the urban form in the neoliberal era at the turn of the 21st century.

Keeping this in mind, I studied the unusually fast-paced construction underway in Ahmedabad and found that what had struck me so vividly on my visits to the city was not a coincidental coming together of random projects but a planned operation. After the ebbing of violence in 2002, Narendra Modi had presented the adverse coverage of the riots in the national and international media to Gujaratis as a calamity, a blow to the state’s asmita, or pride, that needed to be redressed. He asked the state’s people, particularly its business community, to join him in an exercise aimed at changing the negative perception of the state.

In Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein describes how leaders often exploit a crisis to introduce potentially unpopular free market policies counting on the fact that populations may be too traumatised to participate in or resist the change. Sometimes this is done in tandem with developers keen to profit from the mandate for reconstruction.

India’s 1991 shift to a capitalist economy was propelled by a fiscal crisis which required an emergency loan of $2.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund. In 2001, development and government agencies flocked to build a new modern city of Bhuj from the rubble of an earthquake. A couple of years later, Modi embarked on an ambitious exercise to package Gujarat as an attractive business destination. The exercise involved measures such as a biannual “Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit” for potential investors, the refurbishment of ports and highways in the state and, most conspicuously, the makeover of Ahmedabad.

Hansalpur, Gujarat: PM Narendra Modi says, "The major initiative to realize the industrial potential of the India-Japan partnership began right here in Gujarat. I remember, when we started the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 20 years ago, Japan was a key partner. Just think, a small state… pic.twitter.com/JfnnyJyg1y

— IANS (@ians_india) August 26, 2025

The atmosphere of fear and grim uncertainty following the protracted mob violence of 2002 and the mythology it built around Modi enabled the packaging exercise to be pushed through with minimal oversight and resistance and with a speed that would have been unimaginable in other circumstances. In 2014, glowing claims about this exercise paved the way to his prime-ministership.

These claims were made most visibly by national television anchors in the lead-up to the 2014 parliamentary elections where they referred repeatedly and with breathless awe to the “Gujarat Model”, painting it as a picture of a high-growth, hyper-capitalist model – albeit with poor indices on conventional measures, such as health and nutrition. Had the media done a more in-depth study or looked at available scholarship on the subject, it would have found that the Gujarat Model was not only about “roads, highways and GDP”, as it vaguely claimed, but a much more elaborate global process.

Place marketing is a process evolved in the neoliberal era of making spaces, particularly cities, attractive to people and companies with money to spend, mainly transnational corporations, business travellers and tourists. Scholars have identified a number of strategies that are associated with the process, the most common of which is gentrification. Airports are made over, select neighbourhoods are beautified, and special business enclaves and recreational areas with nightclubs and cafes are created. There are several other strategies that cities use to market themselves, including staging large cultural events, sprucing up historical sites or monuments to attract tourists and fostering a service or industrial specialisation.

By 2005, Ahmedabad had acquired the status of a megacity. The state government increased the area of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation from 198 square kilometres to 500 square kilometres by merging seven municipalities and expanded the total area of the urban agglomeration to 1,300 square kilometres. Eleven-kilometre-long concrete banks with plans for highways and residential blocks came up alongside the river that snaked through the city.

A Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (“double the size of Paris’s La Défense and eight times more built up than the London Docklands”) was conceived. Ahmedabad’s pharma industry and its hospitals, some established as charitable institutions by local philanthropists, were reoriented to brand Ahmedabad as a destination for medical tourism and its old walled city was refurbished to successfully bid for Unesco World Heritage certification in 2017. Some of the projects were already discussed or underway when Modi became chief minister but by bringing them under his ambit and clubbing them with new projects he created an impression of a wide-ranging developmental plan under his leadership.

The Ahmedabad makeover borrowed every rule from the place marketing playbook. But there was a twist in that every element in the Ahmedabad makeover was infused with a Hindutva ideal. For instance, a high street emerging as the new centre of the expanding city acquired a distinctly Hindu ethos while Muslim ghettos on the city margins swelled with refugees escaping mixed neighbourhoods from the city after the 2002 violence. Public space was commodified with a distinct bias towards the Hindu middle class. A new Heritage Walk focusing on violence in the freedom struggle subtly questioned Gandhi’s legacy. Even the city’s name was differently spelt to rid it of its Islamic associations.

The remaking of Ahmedabad suggested that the key to explaining Narendra Modi was through his ideological commitments. He is committed to the Hindutva ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. And he is committed to neoliberalism. And he is committed to both at the same time.

Conventional thinking in the mainstream media projects India’s economic liberalisation programme and Hindutva as two opposing tendencies. The former is perceived as being outward- and forward-looking, cloaked in the accoutrements of modernisation and promises of economic growth and world connectivity, while the latter is seen as being insular and primitive in outlook, peopled by saffron-robed acolytes reliving a mythical past. This construct of economic liberalisation/liberalisation-led development and Hindutva as opposites in the popular media is a false binary.

Hindu nationalism made its presence felt in the early decades of the 20th century but made little headway politically for several decades. It was only in 1989 that the Bharatiya Janata Party won 86 seats in Parliament, marking an upward trend which continued in subsequent years enabling it to form governments in various states and at the Centre.

The congruence between the timeline of the political ascendancy of the BJP and the onset of structural reforms is not a coincidence. That is when the middle class, the BJP’s traditional support base, grew in size from 2.5 million households in 1990 to nearly 50 million in 201. Television freed from government ownership emerged as the trumpeter of this new consuming class which also came to be culturally defined in upper-caste Hindu terms. The communitarian underpinnings of socialism, which provided a logic to secularism by implying that the weak (minority) were entitled to the protection of the strong (majority), were overturned by a vigorously rapacious individualism.

Economic liberalisation provided a favourable climate for Hindutva to grow. And in turn, I suggest, the rise of Hindutva and the climate of religious conflict have played a critical role in realising the project of economic liberalisation.

Three of the country’s most pro-capitalist leaders (Rajiv Gandhi, Bal Thackeray and Narendra Modi) consolidated power on the back of citywide riots. The shaping of Mumbai into a world-class city beginning in the late 1990s saw mill workers forced out of the city, fishing communities displaced, the poor pushed into informal work and large stretches of coastal mangroves destroyed.

Workers of the Shiv Sena and other Hindutva affiliates maintained an atmosphere of intimidation through those years by attacking vehicles and television studios and whipping up a fury with their angry rhetoric over a perceived threat to Indian culture and national security from sources such as a Michael Jackson concert, Pakistani cricketers and Valentine’s Day celebrations.

As Zoya Hasan claims, resistance to the new economic policies of liberalisation was displaced by Hindutva adherents “from the realm of concrete economic policy to a confrontation with the cultural politics of globalization”.

Violence in a restructuring society then is a far more complicated business than it appears to be. The celebrated makeover of New York in the early 1990s, for instance, was preceded by a war against homeless people, panhandlers, prostitutes and unruly youth by then mayor Rudy Guliani. Urban geographer Neil Smith called Guiliani’s politics “revanchist”, recalling nationalist reactionaries in 19th-century Paris fighting to reinstate the bourgeois order and to wreak revenge on the working class which had “stolen” their vision of French society from them. Revanchism creates a hierarchy of claims on citizenship.

Justus Uitermark and Jan Willem Duyvendak write in their article “Civilising the City: Populism and Revanchist Urbanism in Rotterdam” that “Revanchism ... is predicated on a belief system that naturalises as universal the interests and cultural codes of the White middle class while at the same time it essentialises marginalised individuals into subjects who cannot be reformed.”

The dehumanising of those whose fortunes are destined to decline in the new economy is a common feature of restructuring. And it explains why Modi emerges stronger rather than weaker from allegations of extreme insensitivity, beginning with his harshness towards victims of the 2002 violence to his apparent unconcern for migrants forced to trudge miles after his sudden declaration of a lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Every display of callousness magnifies his aura as a capitalist moderniser and empowers him to act without blowback. He feeds off bellicosity and usefully extends it to a growing list of targets: protesting farmers, students, civil rights activists and political opponents.

As Ajay Gudavarthy wrote for Scroll: ‘The BJP views the defeated Opposition as prisoners of war. They are deliberately ignored, they are insulted, they are sermonised to, and they are dealt with unfairly. This is an essential feature of the script. … Behaving unfairly towards minorities is an essential strategy for majoritarian consolidation.’

Much of the commentary on India under Narendra Modi is either about the violence against members of religious minorities and Dalits by Hindutva activists or about the administration’s intolerance of dissent and the use of state agencies to punish political opponents and other critics. These align with perceptions of Modi himself.

Astute political analysts are thrown by his arbitrary diktats and his obduracy towards petitioners. Modi’s effusiveness in greeting foreign leaders, his love for the media glare and his penchant for buying bullet trains and building gigantic statues provoke ridicule. The Central Vista project which revamped the historic colonial era Central administrative area in Delhi had one commentator comparing him to a mid-20th century African autocrat with a vanity project; another compared him to Mungerilal, a 1980s Indian television soap opera character based on the chronic daydreamer Walter Mitty. A picture emerges of a fanatical, capricious and megalomaniacal leader, a self-aggrandizing man who is so consumed by bigotry that it is impossible to know what he will do next.

It is a compelling image but it is a myth.

Modi is not a conventional Indian politician. He belongs to the league of capitalist-modernisers like China’s Xi Jinping, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro. His motivations are systemic not opportunistic (for the most part) and cannot be understood through the familiar matrix of short-term economic gains and losses and electoral politics that is routinely applied by political analysts.

If we apply the paradigm of the remaking of Ahmedabad, which I would suggest constitutes the Gujarat model to Modi’s leadership of India, we can perceive phenomena such as Modi’s frequent foreign visits, his “Make in India” and similar campaigns to encourage manufacturing activity and his passion for the bullet train (a shiny symbol of speed) as elements of a place marketing exercise to sell India to the world.

Prime Minister Modi took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Sendai alongside Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru.

Gujarat to welcome its first Japanese bullet train around 2027. pic.twitter.com/k9iuRbSRy4

— Riccha Dwivedi (@RicchaDwivedi) August 30, 2025

All of Modi’s political moves and programmes, including demonetisation, schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana to expand the reach of banking and even huge political leaps, such as revoking Jammu and Kashmir’s special status within the Indian Constitution, become steps (ordering, enumerating, expanding opportunity, extending the formal economy) in a project of neoliberal transformation.

Some borrow directly from Gujarat: the 2014 Swachh Bharat or Clean India mission extended the logic of a 1997-1998 USAID programme in Ahmedabad to improve hygiene and create green spaces to aid the circulation of capital and healthy labour. The hasty beautification of Delhi before the G20 Summit is another instance of the neoliberal preoccupation with appearances. And Modi’s partiality to industrial giants such as the Ambanis and Adani corresponds to the heroic, entrepreneurial role marked out for the ultra-rich by Friedrich Hayek, the grandfather of neoliberalism.

The recurring violence and violent rhetoric against minorities serve to consolidate the hegemony of the majority even as Hindutva ideals find expression in the architecture of an emerging India. And Modi’s reliance on media advertising is of a piece with the surging role of marketing in the public space. One can say that if analysed through the correct framework, Modi’s thinking, far from being arbitrary and erratic, is formulaic and predictable.

India’s democratic backslide too is hardly unique in today’s world. Over the past four decades as country after country has fallen into the embrace of neoliberalism, a new mindset has taken over the world. An economic ideology which projects the market as the answer to mankind’s diverse needs and holds profit maximisation as its motto subsumes all other priorities. The state as the medium facilitating the neoliberal dream has demanded a strengthening of its powers and large enough numbers have lustily cheered it on.

Across the world environmental protections and human rights are being weakened or withdrawn. Reports of violence against racial minorities and refugees and the brazen killings of journalists from various places and an unravelling of civil rights in Donald Trump’s America confirm the fact that citizens’ rights once thought to be intrinsic to democracy are being eroded everywhere, even in the world’s leading democracy.

In India, the line of causation for these phenomena is routinely and unthinkingly drawn to majoritarianism. The widely talked about sociopolitical consequences of neoliberalism, which even filtered into an influential journal of the International Monetary Fund, the bulwark of the free market in 2016, rarely enter into the reckoning. For instance, inequality, which is raging in the world and is currently as high in India as it was in the days of the Raj, according to a recent study by Thomas Piketty and others for the World Inequality Lab.

Indeed, outside of a limited circle of academics and developmental activists, neoliberalism finds hardly any mention. The media and ordinary Indians talk blandly of “development” and “privatisation” as if they are standalone activities, not part of a powerful, multidimensional ideology favouring unfettered marketisation and a top-down approach currently dominating the world.

Most Indians, particularly the country’s fast-expanding middle class – expected to rise to 715 million in 2030-’31 – are in love with Western modernity, a feature they share with other post-colonial societies. It is a powerful dream: of unmitigated prosperity through capitalism, an infrastructure equal to the West, the efficiency of the private sector in the public realm and glossy cities resembling Asian favourites Shanghai and Singapore.

A “new” India, kickstarted by the Congress and grown with intensified zeal by Narendra Modi is coming into being. Ports, bridges, transportation facilities and buildings being constructed or upgraded at a rapid pace. Cities are exploding with towers made up of astronomically priced apartments. India’s road network is now second only to the US and seven bullet train projects are in the planning. And crores of rupees are being spent on extravagant beautification projects.

The widespread fanatical faith in the benefits of “development” means that no discussion is possible on priorities for public spending. And scant attention has been paid to consequences and the steep costs, both financial (the scale of borrowings), environmental and human, of infrastructural development is possible.

Nor has there been much said about aspects of form and aesthetics despite the powerful cultural and symbolic possibilities of place marketing and branding. The absence of public engagement has left a vacuum that Hindutva has stepped into, as one can see from initiatives such as India’s successful lobbying for the United Nations to designate an International Yoga Day and from the birth of a new tourist circuit connecting the temple towns of Ayodhya and Varanasi to Kevadia in Gujarat, the site of the Statue of Unity, a 182-metre-high state of Sardar Patel, an iconic national leader appropriated by the BJP.

Ahmedabad continues to be strategically significant as the stream of world leaders (Xi Jinping, Japan’s Shinzo Abe, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump) and plans for staging the 2030 Commonwealth Games in the giant stadium bearing the prime minister’s name shows. But the city and its remaking in the early 2000s also provides a key to understanding the political thinking shaping the country’s present.

This piece draws the author’s introductory essay to the December 2025 paperback edition of Ahmedabad: A City in the World (Bloomsbury, 2015).

Amrita Shah is a writer, journalist and scholar based in Mumbai.

The Union government on Thursday ordered the blocking of YouTube channel 4PM News, citing concerns about national security and public order.

The editor of the channel, Sanjay Sharma, alleged that the government had been repeatedly banning the portal because of its sharp criticism, The Wire reported.

A message on the homepage of the channel reads: “This content is currently unavailable in this country because of an order from the government related to national security or public order.”

Sharma said that he received an email from YouTube on Thursday morning informing him about the government’s decision. “Is speaking the truth now a crime in a democracy?” he asked in a social media post. “Is asking questions to the government now anti-national?”

The editor of 4PM News told The Wire that the email from YouTube did not provide a detailed explanation for the channel being blocked. However, he said that the decision may have been due to his recent interview with Iranian professor Abbas.

Sharma said he had recently asked on his channel why the Centre was adopting a particular approach towards Iran even though it was a friendly country, according to The Wire.

The channel’s editor noted that this was not the first time that the government had acted against his channel.

In April as well, the Union government had blocked the YouTube channel of 4PM News. At that time too, the government had cited “national security or public order”.

The channel had uploaded several videos criticising the Narendra Modi-led Union government after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.

On Friday, commenting on the blocking of 4PM News’ YouTube channel, Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh said that his party stands with the channel and with Sharma. “Silencing impartial voices in the name of national security – what is this if not thuggery”

Singh remarked: “The button that suppresses the truth has not been invented yet.”

लोकतंत्र में सवाल पूछना गुनाह कब से हो गया? नेशनल सिक्योरिटी के नाम पर निष्पक्ष आवाजों को खामोश करना गुंडागर्दी नहीं तो और क्या है? हम @Editor_SanjayS और 4PM के साथ खड़े हैं। सच को दबाने वाला बटन अभी तक बना नहीं है! https://t.co/Py6OoEwlCv

— Sanjay Singh AAP (@SanjayAzadSln) March 13, 2026

Indicating that India-bound vessels could soon receive safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s ambassador to India on Friday said that Tehran will try its “best to remove the problems”, The Indian Express reported.

“I think you can expect good news in the near future,” the newspaper quoted Mohammad Fathali as telling reporters in New Delhi about whether Iran would allow India-bound ships safe transit through the strait.

“India and I are friends…We have common interests, we have common faith,” Fathali said. “Suffering of the people of India is our suffering and vice versa. And for this reason, the Government of India helps us, and we should help the Government of India…”

Since the conflict in West Asia began on February 28, Iran has effectively blocked the strategic Strait of Hormuz for most international commercial vessels. The narrow waterbody that connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea and is the world’s biggest oil chokepoint. About 20% of global petroleum supply passes through it.

Here are more top updates from the conflict in West Asia:

• About 1.7 lakh passengers have returned to India from West Asia since the conflict started, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Saturday.
• United States President Donald Trump on Friday said that Washington had bombed “every military target” on Iran’s Kharg Island. The island is an 8-km stretch of land off the Iranian coast that handles about 90% of the country’s crude exports. Trump also threatened to attack the island’s oil infrastructure if Iran continued blocking ships from traversing the Strait of Hormuz.
• “Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every military target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island,” Trump said. “Our weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the world has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen not to wipe out the oil Infrastructure on the Island.”
• In India, IndiGo airline said it will levy fuel charges ranging from Rs 425 to Rs 2,300 on domestic and international flight tickets from Saturday, citing the rise in the price of jet fuel. The charges will be Rs 425 for domestic flights and those within the Indian subcontinent, Rs 900 for flights to West Asia, Rs 1,800 for South East Asia, China and Africa, and Rs 2,300 for Europe.
• Akasa Air also said that it will introduce a fuel surcharge ranging from Rs 199 to Rs 1,300 on domestic and international routes for booking made from Sunday.
• Lebanon condemned an Israeli strike on a primary healthcare centre in Burj Qalawiya in the southern part of the country that killed 12 medical staff, Al Jazeera reported. The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health also reiterated its “condemnation of the ongoing violent approach against health workers, which contradicts all international humanitarian laws”, Al Jazeera quoted the country’s National News Agency as saying.
• A missile struck a helipad inside the US embassy compound in Baghdad, AP quoted two security officials from Iraq as saying. The embassy complex, which is one of the largest US diplomatic facilities in the world, has been repeatedly targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias.

The conflict

The conflict in West Asia began on February 28 after Israel and the US launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government.

Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The joint attacks by Israel and the US on Iran came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

Also read: The Iran war is starting to hit India’s small manufacturers

The Union government on Saturday confirmed that two Indian-flagged vessels carrying liquefied petroleum gas have crossed the Strait of Hormuz.

The ships, which crossed the strategic waterway on Friday night and Saturday morning, are expected to reach ports in Gujarat by March 17, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said.

The ships Shivalik and Nanda Devi were among the 24 Indian-flagged vessels stranded in the Gulf after the conflict in West Asia broke out on February 28.

Iran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz for most international commercial vessels. About 20% of global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

This has affected LPG supplies in India. The country imports about 60% of its LPG demand, most of it from Gulf countries. The disruption has led to several eateries being temporarily shut, and long queues outside LPG godowns and agencies.

#WATCH | Delhi: Rajesh Kumar Sinha, Shipping Ministry, GoI says, "All Indian seafarers in the Persian Gulf region are safe, and no untoward incidents involving them have been reported over the last 24 hours. There were 24 Indian-flagged vessels in the Persian Gulf, situated to… pic.twitter.com/YY9DWZhy9J

— ANI (@ANI) March 14, 2026

On Saturday, Rajesh Kumar Sinha, special secretary at the ministry, said that the two ships that had crossed the strait are together carrying 92,700 tonnes of LPG.

India’s daily LPG consumption is about 80,000 tonnes, according to The Hindu.

The official added that one of the ships will arrive at the port in Mundra on Monday and the other at Kandla on Tuesday.

Twenty-two Indian-flagged vessels, with 611 seafarers onboard, remain in the region, the ministry said.

The ministry further said that of these 22 Indian vessels, six are carrying LPG, four crude oil, one is a liquefied natural gas tanker and one has chemical products. Three are container ships and two bulk carriers, or vessels that carry large quantities of unpackaged dry cargo.

One is a dredger and one is an empty ballast ship, or a ship without cargo. The remaining three are at dry docks, or under maintenance, the ministry added.

On Friday, the Union government acknowledged that the supply of LPG in the country was a “matter of concern”, but added that no distributor had run out of stocks.

“LPG is a matter of concern for us as most of our imports travel through the Strait of Hormuz,” Sujata Sharma, joint secretary (marketing and oil refinery) in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, had said. “But despite this, no dry out has been reported at any of our 25,000 distributors.”

The official urged citizens not to believe in rumours and to refrain from panic buying. However, she urged consumers who can shift from LPG to piped natural gas to do so immediately.

Sharma said that there are currently 60 lakh households who can make the shift.

On Friday, Iran’s ambassador to India indicated that India-bound vessels could soon receive safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, adding that Tehran will try its “best to remove the problems”.

“I think you can expect good news in the near future,” Mohammad Fathali told reporters in Delhi when asked about whether Iran would allow India-bound ships safe transit through the strait.

“India and I are friends…We have common interests, we have common faith,” Fathali said. “Suffering of the people of India is our suffering and vice versa. And for this reason, the Government of India helps us, and we should help the Government of India…”

Also read: The Iran war is starting to hit India’s small manufacturers

The Allahabad High Court has said that it is the duty of the state to ensure that every religious community is able to hold prayers peacefully at a designated place of worship or on private property without any permission.

A bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan made the observations in an order on February 27 while rejecting the decision of the administration in Uttar Pradesh to restrict the number of persons offering namaz during the Islamic holy month of Ramzan at a mosque in Sambhal district, Live Law reported.

The bench said that the officials should either resign or seek a transfer if they are unable to enforce the rule of law.

A petition had been filed in the court by a person alleging that he was being prevented from conducting prayers during Ramzan at a plot where he claimed a mosque existed.

In its order on February 27, the bench noted that the petitioner had not submitted any photographs of a mosque or a place of worship within which prayers are supposed to be offered.

The court said that the state government had disputed the ownership of the plot during the proceedings. It added that the authorities had submitted that it had granted permission for only 20 persons to offer namaz at the premises on account of the “perceived law and order situation”.

However, the bench rejected the contention by the state government. “It is the duty of the state to ensure that the rule of law prevails under every circumstance,” the court said.

It added: “If the local authorities i.e. superintendent of police and collector feels that the law and order situation could arise because of which they want to limit the number of worshippers within the premises, they should either resign from their post or seek transfer outside Sambhal if they feel they are not competent enough to enforce the rule of law.”

It said that a previous order issued by the court had already “settled that it is only where prayers or religious functions have to be held on public land or spill over [to] the public property that the involvement of the state is essential and permission must be sought”.

The bench listed the matter for further hearing on Monday.

It directed the state government to respond to the petition. The petitioner was asked to bring on record photographs and revenue records showing where prayers are to be offered.

A police officer in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut on Friday warned Muslim worshippers not to offer namaz on roads, saying that the passports of those who violate the guideline would be cancelled, The Times of India reported.

“There should be no namaz on roads, and if someone is still found flouting the rule, their passports will be cancelled, among other actions, against these violators,” Meerut Senior Superintendent of Police Avinash Pandey was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Pandey said that there are 544 mosques and 146 eidgahs in Meerut district and the management committees of all of them have agreed to comply with the rules.

The senior superintendent of police said that while there was no provision on the cancellations of passports, the police could “conduct inquiry against the violators about their criminal antecedents, which can lead to the cancellation”, The Times of India reported.

Meerut, Uttar Pradesh: SSP Avinash Pandey says, "...Prayers will not be allowed on roads. Strict action, including passport cancellation and whatever possible legal action can be taken, will be initiated against violators..." pic.twitter.com/MevTzudTNd

— IANS (@ians_india) March 13, 2026

Pandey later told the newspaper that he had not said anything new, but had only reiterated orders from previous years.

The Meerut senior superintendent of police’s statement came days after Sambhal Circle Officer Kuldeep Kumar triggered a controversy by saying at a peace meeting that those bothered by the conflict in West Asia should go to Iran and fight there, The Indian Express reported.

In a video that was widely shared on social media, Kumar was heard saying: “I am saying that many people seem to be itching over this issue – there is a conflict going on between Iran and Israel, yet they are trying to poke their noses into it. If it bothers you so much, then go ahead and board a plane.”

“When the plane goes to bring back the Indians stranded in Iran, you can sit in it, go there, fight from Iran’s side, and then come back,” he had said.

Kumar had said that no slogans should be shouted or placards held against any country during Friday prayers, and that global conflicts were for the countries involved to resolve, according to The Indian Express.

The Sambhal superintendent of police has sought an explanation from the officer for his statement, the newspaper reported.

"Lot of people have itch over Israel- Iran war and they are poking the issue. If you have problem, board the flight rescuing stranded Indians and fight for Iran," Sambhal DSP Kuldeep Kumar to Muslim locals while reviewing law and order preparedness ahead of Eid. pic.twitter.com/NUDvBjeomf

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) March 12, 2026

Commenting on Kumar’s statement, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi said that the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, and asked whether the police would make such statements about pro-Israel protests.

So who is running away from the United Arab Emirates? I spoke to several blue-collar workers and they literally laughed me off. Said Bishajit, a driver of 15 years, “The war here is being handled. Problem is at home these news channels scaring our families so much they are saying we should fly back at once.”

There’s a lot of anxiety being shovelled from screen to home to expats. The pressure would be comical if it was not so tragic.

Their mood, already tempered by the usual stresses of expatriate life, is now fraught with a new, profound anxiety – not just for their own safety, but for the psychological weight of reassuring families back home who are consuming non-stop news, often alarming and fake.

One marketing expert said that Indian TV media is permanently on steroids. They are not journalists but C-grade actors hashing out masala on screens to a mind-numbing level.

And yet no one switches off their TVs or YouTube channels because they have become used to seeing and consuming garbage. TRP’s should stand for Totally Rubbish Publishing.

Indians in Dubai gathered in large numbers to watch the India cricket final with New Zealand, showing strong support for Team India even as tensions continue in parts of the Middle East. Members of the Indian community said they feel safe and secure in the UAE, expressing… pic.twitter.com/MU81KrK2gR

— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) March 8, 2026

One of the elements that gets little play is the emotional upheaval that social media causes in the lives of these stoic and hardworking bread earners.

Most of them go home only once in two years – on an early trip to get married and, having impregnated the newly minted wife, are now back in harness waiting for the delivery from afar, witness to the progress long distance, by audio-visual.

For instance, Srini from Telengana is worried about his wife stressed through concern for him in the fifth month of her pregnancy to the point of having suffered complications.

Across the six states that are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, there is an army of such expectant fathers now handling an extra layer of worry, besides the standard pressures coming from aging parents, land problems, loan repayments, errant siblings and nasty relatives and neighbours.

This recent escalation of the US-Israel-Iran conflict has sent tremors far beyond the immediate blast zones, resonating deeply in the homes and hearts of millions in India. It is that much more palpable in the communities connected to the 10 million Indian workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, particularly the nearly 4.4 million in the United Arab Emirates.

Do the maths. If a modest 10 people per expat are directly impacted, that is a 100 million people and counting.

Ground Report | Amid Iran’s attacks and travel disruptions, Indians in Dubai are coming together to help stranded people with shelter, food, and support. Ashutosh Mishra shares this #GroundReport#Exclusive #GroundZero #ITVideo #IranWar #UAE #Dubai | @SnehaMordani @JournoAshutosh pic.twitter.com/lhdO8WZ6E1

— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) March 10, 2026

The scale of the Indian presence in the United Arab Emirates is staggering. Constituting nearly 38% of the UAE’s population, Indians are the backbone of its construction, retail, hospitality, and logistics

This human bridge is also a financial superhighway. India receives over $150 billion in remittances annually, with the Gulf Cooperation Council accounting for 38% of these inflows. The UAE alone contributes about a fifth, making it the second-largest source for India globally.

This money is not for luxuries: it sustains families across states such as Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, funding food, education and healthcare. As a consequence, the current crisis isn’t just a geopolitical story. It is a direct threat to the economic stability of family members on the home front who totally depend on this lifeline.

Following the scare at Dubai Marina last weekend, many are spreading fear online instead of showing solidarity with the city that has helped Indians build lives and businesses, writes @stylesuj https://t.co/8jijoyh51m

— Mint Lounge (@Mint_Lounge) March 10, 2026

On Tuesday afternoon at the Sonapur labour camp in Dubai, Osman simply shruggred in response to my probing. He works on a construction site just 6 km from where drone debris fell near the Fairmont Hotel.

“I am a little nervous, but my family is much more worried,” he said. “My mother calls me several times a day, they don’t believe me.”

Mohammed Ibrahim is on his phone cajoling, raising his voice, pleading. “They don’t understand that we are safe here,” he said. “These damn [several expletive] newswallahs, they tell lies.”

There is a concerted effort by authorities and a visible reality on the ground in much of Dubai and Abu Dhabi to maintain normalcy. The UAE’s advanced air defense systems intercepted the vast majority of projectiles, and while some hit soil and caused tragic casualties, the impact was not city-wide devastation.

As of March 9, the UAE Ministry of Defence had intercepted and destroyed 233 ballistic missiles and 1,359 drones launched during recent attacks, along with eight cruise missiles. The attacks have caused four fatalities and 117 minor injuries, all of it from falling debris.

In many parts of these cities, life continues with normalcy. Malls are open, businesses are operating, and the infrastructure remains functional. There is no shortage of essentials. For many white-collar professionals and those in areas far from the targeted ports and military installations, the crisis is something they watch on screens rather than experience directly.

The mood of Indian workers in the UAE is thus a tapestry of contrasting threads: the resilience born of economic necessity, the fear of visible danger, the exhaustion of pre-existing expat struggles, and the heavy, new burden of being a pillar of strength for a terrified family thousands of miles away.

Bikram Vohra is a columnist and media consultant in Dubai.

The Union government on Saturday said it has decided to revoke the detention of Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk under the National Security Act.

Wangchuk has been in jail for the past five-and-a-half months.

The Union home ministry said that the Ladakh activist had been detained “in the backdrop of the serious law and order situation that arose in the peace-loving town of Leh on 24 September 2025”.

On that day, protesters demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution had clashed with and thrown stones at security personnel, injuring several of them. Four persons were killed in police firing.

The Sixth Schedule guarantees certain protections for land and a nominal autonomy for citizens in designated tribal areas.

Wangchuk was detained on September 26 and taken to a jail in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur. The Union government has alleged that the activist was the “chief provocateur” of the September 24 violence and that the protests in Leh came under control after he was taken into custody.

On Saturday, the home ministry said the government “remains committed to fostering an environment of peace, stability, and mutual trust in Ladakh so as to facilitate constructive and meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders”.

It added that it had been “actively engaging” with several stakeholders and community leaders in Ladakh with “a view to addressing the aspirations and concerns” of the residents of the region.

“However, the prevailing atmosphere of bandhs and protests has been detrimental to the peace-loving character of the society and has adversely affected various sections of the community, including students, job aspirants, businesses, tour operators and tourists and overall economy,” it added.

The revocation comes amid the Supreme Court hearing a petition filed by Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali Angmo, challenging the activist’s detention. The bench is scheduled to hear the matter next on Tuesday.

At the previous hearing on February 16, the court questioned the Union government about the accuracy of transcripts of videos relied upon to detain Wangchuk under the National Security Act.

The bench also said it wanted the transcripts of Wangchuk’s statements after advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Angmo, submitted that several words attributed to the activist were never spoken by him.

On January 13, Sibal told the court that Wangchuk cannot be seen in the videos relied upon by the authorities as grounds for his detention under the National Security Act.

During another hearing on February 4, the court also verbally asked the Union government to rethink Wangchuk’s detention considering that his “health is not that good”.

However, the Union government said that Wangchuk cannot be released from detention on medical grounds, adding that he was “fit, hale and hearty”.

A Delhi court on Friday refused to order a first information report against Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Delhi minister Kapil Mishra for his alleged involvement in the violence that broke out in the city in February 2020, Live Law reported.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Ashwani Panwar passed the order in response to an application filed by a man named Mohammed Ilyas.

Panwar said that the demand for filing an FIR was “legally impermissible” in view of an order passed by the sessions court on November 11, The Indian Express reported. The sessions court had on that date set aside an order directing the Delhi Police to investigate the role of Mishra in the violence.

Panwar said on Friday that the findings of the sessions court had “are binding on this court and have attained finality”.

The additional chief judicial magistrate said that Ilyas’ application would instead be treated as a complaint, Live Law reported. “…The complainant is at liberty to lead evidence in support of his allegations under Section 210(1)(a) read with Section 223(1) of the BNSS [Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita],” Panwar said.

Ilyas was among the handful of citizens who approached the courts after police refused to register their complaints and file an FIR against Mishra for his alleged involvement in the riots that engulfed North East Delhi in February 2020. Fifty-three people died in the violence. The majority of them were Muslims.

Ilyas previously told Scroll that he had approached the police three times asking for a case to be registered against Mishra, but was told that they would register his complaint only against unspecified “rioters”.

The Delhi Police had alleged that there was a conspiracy to frame Mishra in the riots.

On April 1, Panwar’s predecessor, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasiya, had ordered the Delhi Police to held that there was enough material to warrant further investigation into whether Mishra had committed a cognisable offence. Mishra had filed a revision petition against the order.

On November 11, the sessions court, while setting aside the order, had said that the application should have clearly disclosed a cognisable offence, but did not do so, according to The Indian Express. “To assume cognizable offence, the ACJM relied analogies and inferences from Kapil Mishra’s questioning in the larger conspiracy case,” the court said.

Scroll reviewed six applications filed before magistrate courts in 2020 asking for first information reports to be registered against Mishra. All the complainants alleged that Mishra played a direct and active role in inciting violence against Muslim communities during the riots.

The complainants state that Mishra was present at locations where violence occurred. They allege that he was accompanied by groups of armed men and made hate-filled speeches in various parts of North East Delhi on February 23 and 24.

His speeches, they allege, included slogans such as “desh ke gaddaro ko, goli maro saalo ko” (shoot the traitors), “mullo ke do sthan, kabristan ya Pakistan” (Muslims only belong in two places: the cemetery and Pakistan) and “katwe murdabad” (down with Muslims – “katwe” being a derogatory term for Muslims in Hindi). Mishra is also alleged to have declared that “mullas” (another derogatory term for Muslims) and protestors need to be taught a lesson.

Also read: The futile, five-year struggle to lodge an FIR against Kapil Mishra

While walking through the Fort campus of the University of Mumbai, visitors often marvel at the unmistakable silhouettes of Gothic spires piercing the tropical sky. The soaring Rajabai Tower, the ornate Convocation Hall, and the grand Library building seem like European Gothic buildings transplanted onto Indian soil. Yet a closer look reveals something far more complex. These aren’t simply copies; rather they speak of architectural negotiations and tell a fascinating story of cultural adaptation under colonial rule.

When Sir George Gilbert Scott designed these buildings in 1866, he had never set foot in Bombay (now Mumbai). Working from his London office, he sent architectural plans across the ocean, trusting local architects and craftsmen to execute his vision. As a result, what emerged was neither purely European nor traditionally Indian, but something entirely new. The style was “Gothic Revival”, but one that had learned to speak in a local dialect.

The transformation began with materials used. Where European Gothic cathedrals rose from quarried limestone and sandstone, in the Bombay of the late 1800s, Gothic buildings drew from India’s geological palette.

Kurla’s golden stone was used to build the primary structures, while Porbandar’s white limestone provided an ornamental contrast to the exteriors. Ratnagiri granite anchored the foundations, and local hardy blue trap stone was deployed for the lower courses of the buildings, including parts of the foundation, that weathered the monsoons beautifully. The only materials that crossed the Arabian Sea from England, to finish off the buildings, were the Minton tiles and some stained glass. Everything else was resolutely local.

But the most intriguing negotiations between local culture and the European aesthetic happened in the realm of symbolism. European Gothic architecture had always been deeply Christian – its every stone carved to tell biblical stories for the largely illiterate congregations. The buildings of the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai) retained Gothic’s visual language – such as the pointed arches and rose windows, while carefully editing out its religious and biblical content.

Consider the Convocation Hall’s magnificent rose window, a 20-foot circle of stained glass that dominates the north facade. In European cathedrals, such windows typically depicted Christ surrounded by the 12 apostles or biblical scenes. Here, the 12 signs of the zodiac replace the Christian imagery, transforming the usual religious tableau into something more universally accessible. The building represents Gothic architecture with its theology surgically removed.

The 280-foot Rajabai Tower presents another striking example of cultural translation. Instead of European saints and kings in ornate niches, sculptures representing the 24 castes of Western India adorn the tower. Carved by local sculptors from Porbandar stone, these figures – a praying Parsee, a fierce Rajput with his hand on a sword, a shrewd Kutchi merchant – created a distinctly Indian pantheon using Gothic architectural language and framing.

This Gothic influence wasn’t simply about British architects imposing European styles on Indian craftsmen. The project’s funding came largely from prominent Parsi and Jain philanthropists – Cowasjee Jehangir donated a lakh of rupees for the Convocation Hall, while Premchand Roychand funded the tower named after his mother, Rajabai. These weren’t reluctant subjects accepting imperial architecture, but active participants in creating something that spoke to their own cultural pride while satisfying colonial requirements.

The climate of the city by the sea demanded its own negotiations. Bombay’s humidity and monsoons had no European equivalent, so the architects added covered verandahs, enhanced air circulation, and created shaded walkways. The Library’s reading room ceiling, which in England might have been stone-vaulted, was crafted from local teak wood.

The hybrid architectural language had the advantage of satisfying multiple audiences, simultaneously. British colonial administrators saw Gothic verticality and grandeur that they were familiar with, which projected imperial authority. Local communities found their own faces, materials, and environmental needs reflected in the craftsmanship. Indian philanthropists could take pride in buildings that showcased local culture but within globally recognised architectural forms.

Today, these buildings that have received recognition as UNESCO World Heritage sites, offer lessons about cultural adaptation that extend far beyond architectural practices. They demonstrate how cultural forms rarely transfer unchanged, even in unequal transcultural exchanges, but instead undergo complex processes of negotiation, translation, and reinvention.

The University of Mumbai’s Gothic Revival buildings remind us that colonial architecture wasn’t simply imposed from above, but emerged through intricate negotiations between imperial ambitions, local expertise, climatic necessities, and cultural sensitivities. In their soaring spires, teak ceilings, zodiac windows, and sculptures memoralising Indian faces, they embody the complex reality of cultural exchange under colonialism – neither purely European nor traditionally Indian, but something unique and original that has defined the architectural style of Mumbai’s Fort area for centuries.

These buildings continue to function today much as their architects intended, serving as a seat of education while commanding respect through their architectural grandeur. But perhaps their greatest achievement lies in demonstrating how architectural forms can travel, adapt, and acquire new meanings through the creative collaboration of different cultural traditions. In Gothic’s Indian turn, we see not cultural domination, but the remarkable human capacity for architectural improvisation.

Shreya Nithyanandan is a Master’s student in History of Art at the Indian Institute of Heritage, Noida (formerly National Museum Institute). She loves exploring art, culture, stories behind objects, and how history shapes what we see today.

This article was originally published by the MAP Academy, an open-access online resource focused on South Asian art and cultural histories.

The most crowded public spaces in Delhi’s Muslim neighbourhoods are not parks, libraries or plazas. They are shawarma stalls, kebab shops and roadside eateries. At these food outlets in densely populated neighbourhoods, customers can seldom find an empty table to sit and enjoy their food. Most of the patrons often eat by the roadside.

This is not because Muslims love food more than others. It is because leaving these neighbourhoods is perceived to be dangerous due to the violence they may face in Hindu-majority areas. By flocking to shops located on tightly packed streets, Delhi’s Muslims are seeking safety in numbers.

To some, these food streets are where Muslim culinary traditions live and thrive. But they also represent the general lack of public spaces in the ghettos where Muslims live.

With no parks or walkable streets, Muslims wishing to spend leisure time have few options but to visit food shops. This has contributed to the development of a unique food culture among Delhi Muslims, a factor that is often ignored, while being regarded as a characteristic of these neighbourhoods.

For my PhD research into urban precarity among Delhi Muslims, I wanted to make the study less about consumption and more about consumers. I approached the owners of Instagram-famous shops near Delhi’s Jamia Nagar area to hear about how they perceived this growing food culture.

I found that they were rarely willing to answer questions about the reality that had sparked this phenomenon. Doing so would mean acknowledging the combination of segregation and that the lack of public amenities had contributed to the popularity of their establishments – perhaps even more so than the food that they served.

Some might argue that this culture thrives in Delhi’s Muslim neighbourhoods simply because people enjoy eating out. But a walk through the colonnades of the upmarket Connaught Place area, where people sit in parks, on pavements, rather than in restaurants, demonstrates that the real difference is choice. In Muslim neighbourhoods, food culture unfolds in public because there are few alternatives.

The mushrooming food cultures of Old Delhi and Shaheen Bagh have irked Hindutva supporters. They often make claims that the food is contaminated. One popular conspiracy theory suggests that Muslim vendors spit in the food before serving it to Hindus.

This cooked-up narrative seeks to limit interactions between the two communities, while also enforcing an economic boycott of Muslim-owned shops and eateries. It is a narrative that has emerged precisely because these food streets have become popular – making Muslims more visible.

As the academician Ghazala Jamil has shown in her work on Delhi’s neighbourhoods, when upper-class, upper-caste adults of other communities visit Old Delhi to eat, it is not just food that they are seeking. These neighbourhoods located around the Jama Masjid are seen as exotic, strange – even dangerous.

Everyday life in these mohallas has been fetishised, commodified and made available for consumption by eager visitors who see themselves as daring enough to traverse the untraversable, Jamil writes.

But beneath this conspicuous consumption is the stark reality that Muslim neighbourhoods suffer from unwalkable streets, no parks for leisure and a growing sense of insecurity that makes residents unable to leave these ghettos.

From a distance, the food shops in these neighbourhoods seem appetising. From within, for residents, this food culture is a spatially constrained delicacy.

The food stalls are substitutes for facilities the city has failed to provide, functioning as informal places where people stand, talk, eat and briefly occupy space in neighbourhoods designed to be passed through rather than lived in.

But this is also a creative response to urban exclusion. These stalls and shops are an expression of Muslim food culture, but they must be recognised as symbols of everyday insecurity. In their celebration of “Muslim cuisine” is also the taste of segregation.

Saiyid Ashraf Husain Jafri is a PhD candidate in sociology at Ibn Haldun University, Turkey.

Eleven Indian citizens have been charged in the United States with allegedly conspiring to stage armed robberies at convenience stores so that store clerks there could falsely claim to be victims of crime and apply for visas.

US prosecutors alleged that as part of the conspiracy, the store clerks were to claim that they were victims of violent crime on their applications for U non-immigration visas. The visas are meant for victims of crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse, and who have been helpful to law enforcement.

An Indian man named Rambhai Patel and his co-conspirators had in March 2023 staged armed robberies in at least six convenience stores and fast food restaurants in Massachusetts, as well as more such incidents elsewhere, according to the charging documents. Rambhai Patel was in August held guilty by a court in Boston and sentenced to 20 months and eight days in prison.

On Friday, 11 others were charged for either helping to stage the robberies, or to pay for themselves or a family member to take part in the conspiracy as a purported victim.

🚨#BREAKING: #FBI Boston's Violent Crimes Task Force has arrested 10 Indian nationals across MA, KY, MO, & OH for allegedly participating in staged armed robberies for the purpose of allowing store clerks to claim they were "victims" of violent crime so they could apply for… pic.twitter.com/SG4oQW9z1t

— FBI Boston (@FBIBoston) March 13, 2026

Of those charged on Friday, Jitendrakumar Patel, Maheshkumar Patel, Sanjaykumar Patel, Amitabahen Patel, Sangitaben Patel and Mitul Patel were arrested in Massachusetts. Four others –Rameshbhai Patel, Ronakkumar Patel, Sonal Patel and Minkesh Patel – were arrested in Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio, the office of the US Attorney, District of Massachusetts, said.

Another woman, Dipikaben Patel, has been deported to India.

If convicted, those charged may face up to five years in prison and fines of $2,50,000.

In Coimbatore, S Surulivel is bracing for losses. His foundry, which does welding, cutting and fabrication work, relies on gas cylinders. “We use five cylinders every day,” said Surulivel. “We cannot work at all if we have no gas.”

Up north in Panipat in Haryana, Yashpal Malik’s textile dyeing unit stopped operations by the second week of March after he ran out of gas. Gas is crucial fuel for the boilers to produce steam. “There is no work in dyeing that can happen without steam,” said Malik. “Now that gas supply is not there, how can operations continue?” Panipat has about 10,000 textile manufacturing units, of which Malik estimates that about 1,000 are involved in dyeing.

As the war on Iran enters its third week, its effects are starting to ripple out across India. Small-scale manufacturing and industries, from textiles and dyeing to automobiles and plastic, are struggling to continue operations due to the gas shortage or are facing an increase in the cost of raw materials, putting businesses and worker livelihoods at risk.

The stakes are especially high for them. Like Surulivel, who has signed a one-year tender for railway supplies and must provide the required number of equipment every month. “If there is a delay in supply, then I will have to pay damages and that can mean losses up to 10%,” he said.

Following the US and Israel’s military strikes on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime corridor, has been closed for ships, disrupting the supply of fuel and natural gas. The government on March 11 said that India imports 60% of liquefied petroleum gas, 90% of which comes through the Strait of Hormuz. For the moment, the government has prioritised domestic and essential use of gas till alternative supplies can stabilise the demand.

Larger industries, with deep re, might be able to cushion the blow, but smaller enterprises are starting to worry, scrambling to make alternate arrangements, only to find that there are few options.

In Mysuru, craft rum distiller Huli’s last cylinder will run out by the weekend, says co-founder Aruna Urs. “We cannot do distillation, generate steam and, therefore, cannot produce anything,” said Urs. Huli relies on LPG because it is more efficient and better for the environment. “It is also difficult to switch to alternate options because the process to get it done is long and arduous,” said Urs.

Caught unprepared, high operating costs

Many say they did not expect the war to last this long and that its wider effects could be so severe for India. Surulivel, head of the Railway Equipment Suppliers Association in Coimbatore, said he was shocked when news of the shortage of gas cylinders began spreading.

Urs of Huli too said the crisis was unexpected. “Even until last week we didn’t have any idea,” said Urs. “Even the government seems to have been blindsided.”

Malik, however, had started to worry about three days into the war on Iran. Days before the shortage of gas became a national crisis, Malik had been struggling to keep his dyeing unit running. His 60-70 workers are currently idle, but Malik says he is paying them. “The immediate impact has been on the medium-scale dyeing units that were dependent on cylinders,” said Malik. Smaller units are continuing work “as much as they can by burning wood for the boilers”, he said.

Urs, too, is bracing for a massive loss in the coming days. “Some cylinders are being sold at higher rates but it doesn’t make sense to buy them when that will only last another two-three days,” he said.

In Coimbatore, Surulivel said that his operating costs have also increased due to the panic about a possible fuel shortage. “Taxis are waiting for hours together waiting for fuel,” he said. “Whether it is customers coming to order equipment or transporting equipment, we are heavily reliant on vehicles as well.”

As head of the Railway Equipment Suppliers Association in Coimbatore, Surulivel said that all micro, small and medium enterprises had been affected by the LPG shortage. “There is panic everywhere,” said Surulivel. “We don’t know how long the war is going to go on either.”

He has written to the Tamil Nadu industries commissioner and the director of industries and commerce seeking support for micro, small and medium enterprises until gas is available.

“We are not a participant in the war but so many of us are affected,” said Urs.

Plastics get pricey

Some industries are also seeing an increase in the price of raw materials, adding to their operating costs in the face of losses.

In Delhi, the textile industry has seen an increase in the price of raw materials like poly-cotton threads. Poly-cotton, a polyester mix with pure cotton, is a common combination for denim manufacturing. Polyester is derived from crude oil, by refining it to create a plastic that is melted and spun into thread. Plastic bags used to wrap textiles too are costlier. Both are derived from crude oil, the supply of which has been disrupted across the world.

Abid Khan, a former jeans manufacturer from Khyala in West Delhi, said the war is affecting the entire textile supply chain and could temporarily increase the price of cloth per metre. “The dyeing units are not taking on any material to dye and so there is no cloth to sell,” said Khan.

Plastic pellets, or daana, which is the raw material to make plastic products, has also seen an increase in cost. “Prices of products made from petroleum, especially plastic daana, have increased by 50% here,” said GS Tyagi, president of the Faridabad Small Industry Association.

Spillover effect

Faridabad’s automobile manufacturing units are also facing an increase in steel prices. The sector provides components, parts and accessories for vehicles. But raw materials, like steel, are now costlier by 10%-15%, said Tyagi. “This is a lot for the industry.”

Small steel-makers are grappling with rising costs in the production of steel, Reuters reported. A small portion of steel makers make direct reduced iron, or sponge iron, which depends on natural gas for production. Even steel majors announced production cuts on account of the gas shortages.

Jindal Steel announced Friday that its plants are operating at reduced capacity due to fuel shortages from Middle East disruptions.

The company stated in an exchange filing, "Due to the heavy dependence of stainless steel manufacturing on industrial gases such as propane, LPG,… https://t.co/j4ElCR1hFH

— anshuman tiwari (@anshuman1tiwari) March 13, 2026

Limited supply of natural gas can have spillover effects on other fuels, said Hemant Mallya, fellow with Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

“Industries that are able to switch from natural gas to coal can lead to an increase in demand for coal and, therefore, the price,” said Mallya. “Coal is also transported using diesel trucks, and the cost of transportation could increase due to an increase in the price of crude oil and petroleum products.”

The net effect is an increase in coal demand and prices, he said. According to him, a long-term solution is electrification or the use of biomass or green hydrogen in industrial equipment.

For now, however, Tyagi fears that increased costs will slow down or completely halt manufacturing. “If things do not improve, it is possible that by March-end, industries will have to reduce workers’ shifts because there will be no raw material to work with.”

On the afternoon of March 4, the day of Holi, an argument broke out in a narrow lane in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar after a water balloon thrown by a child landed on a woman from a neighbouring family. The argument soon spiralled into a clash between the two families that ended in the death of a 26-year-old man.

Since he was Hindu and the neighbours were Muslim, Hindutva groups jumped in the fray, alleging that his murder was a communal hate crime. Over the next few days, 16 men from the Muslim family were arrested and a portion of their house was demolished by local authorities.

Was this a clash between two families or something much larger? Scroll went to Uttam Nagar to find out.

Kamal Pardhi, an Adivasi woman from Shahpur in Maharashtra’s Thane district, laughed ruefully as she narrated her experience with the Forest Rights Act.

First the good news. After several rounds of applications, her husband, Vithal, was allotted the land title to the 20 ghuntas (half an acre) they had been cultivating. But her happiness was short-lived: the document was in someone else’s name.

Despite several appeals to the authorities, the document has not been corrected. “What am I supposed to do now?” asked Pardhi.

Pardhi’s struggle was among the 40 case studies presented at a Jan Sunwai or public hearing on the implementation of the Forest Rights Act in Maharashtra’s Konkan region held at the YB Chavan Centre in South Mumbai on February 24.

The hearing had been organised by the Yashwantrao Chavan Centre, the Shoshit Jan Andolan and the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties, Maharashtra, to draw attention to the numerous glitches in the implementation of an act meant to redress historical injustices to Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers.

The Forest Rights Act was passed in 2006 to recognise the rights of Adivasis and other forest dwellers to land, resources and self-governance. It recognises both the forest rights of both individuals and communities. They must prove that they have been on the land before December 13, 2005, the day the legislation was introduced in the Lok Sabha.

Forest rights are approved by a three-tier system of district authorities, starting from the gram sabha, an assembly of all registered voters in a village.

As the case studies at the Jan Sunwai showed, claims for rights are rejected despite rich supporting data: receipts from 75 years ago of having paid cess, photographs of the land and crops being cultivated on it and survey reports.

The case studies showed that community forest rights fared better. However, here too there are problems as forest areas are not mapped completely, so the development funds for the area cannot be claimed.

In Maharashtra, the Forest Rights Act has been implemented for 18 years. While the number of claims approved in the period seems large at 1.48 lakh, a total of 3.99 lakh claims have actually been filed. This works out to an approval rate of 37.1 %, noted Brian Lobo of the Kashtakari Sanghatana, an organisation that works with Adivasis in Dahanu and Palgarh.

Chandrakant Ghak from Dahanu taluka in Palghar district said that though he had been growing rice on a plot of land since 1962, he was denied his rights to it as the government claims it is reserved for a cricket ground. “This was the first I heard of it,” he said. “How is that possible?”

Govind Patil has receipts from 75 years ago proving that his grandfather had been cultivating the land he claimed. But in 2014, his village became part of the Panvel Municipal corporation in Raigad district. No approvals are being given for land titles in urban areas.

Similarly in Mumbai, Adivasis living in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Film City have been struggling to get land rights. Dinesh Habale said that he had applied for forest rights in Habalepada in the National Park in 2019 but it was rejected as the authorities claimed it was not forest land and fell in the park’s eco sensitive zone.

Forest rights can only be granted if an area is declared as a forest.

In Raigad district, Kaluram Bhagat found that his application for one acre of land was rejected because the plot has been earmarked for a golf course. He was allotted only half an acre. Laxman Pawar from the same district found that the land his family had been cultivating has been set aside for a cremation ground.

Bhiva Kadali’s family in Thane district’s Murbad taluka has four land titles but the land was submerged by the backwaters of the Barvi dam in 2015 as it was expanded. His fruit trees and rice crops were destroyed. He has been demanding compensation but he has not been paid anything.

“I have a file full of letters but nothing is happening” Kadali said.

The proceedings indicated that the act needed much more than good intentions to justify its true intent. The case studies of Forest Rights violations prepared by activists Ulka Mahajan, Indavi Tulpule of the Shramik Mukti Sanghatana, Brian Lobo of the Kashtakari Sanghatana and Surekha Dalvi prepared micro- level case studies of Forest Rights Act violations that broadly related to the failure of the government to appoint appropriate committees to decide on the forest rights claims under the law, arbitrarily excluding certain claimants and violations in the process of granting rights.

They found that the forest department had an undue influence in granting rights, and that claims of non-tribals and those living in cities were excluded.

The most serious issue was that the authorities often lost applications. Applicants in many cases submit original documents because photocopying facilities are expensive and hard to come by in some rural areas. They are frequently not given receipts for their applications. But if the authorities misplace the documents, applicants are thrown into confusion.

The authorities also rejected claims even though all supporting documents were available. Even after titles were awarded, they sometimes had the wrong names or there were errors in the survey numbers of plots. Importantly, the state has failed to compensate forest land title holders whose lands were acquired for development projects.

The number of rejected claims ranged from 48% in Thane district and 64.4% in Raigad district to 17.5% in Palghar district. There is also a high rejection rate of appeals in these three districts. In Thane, 8,798 out of 12,404 appeals were rejected. In Palghar, 501 of 1204 appeals were rejected and 696 are pending as of 2025. In Raigad, 1,092 of 1,478 appeals were rejected.

Meena Menon is a freelance journalist, author and researcher.

The Union government on Friday acknowledged that the supply of liquefied petroleum gas in the country was a “matter of concern”, but added that no distributor had run out of stocks.

“LPG is a matter of concern for us as most of our imports travel through the Strait of Hormuz,” Sujata Sharma, joint secretary (marketing and oil refinery) in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said at a press conference. “But despite this, no dry out has been reported at any of our 25,000 distributors.”

The official urged citizens not to believe in rumours and to refrain from panic buying. However, she urged consumers who can shift from LPG to piped natural gas to do so immediately.

Sharma said that there are currently 60 lakh households who can make the shift.

Since the conflict in West Asia began on February 28, Iran has effectively blocked the strategic Strait of Hormuz for most international commercial vessels. About 20% of global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

This has affected LPG supplies in India. The country imports about 60% of its LPG demand, most of it from Gulf countries.

The disruption has led to several eateries being temporarily shut, and long queues outside LPG godowns and agencies.

On Friday, even as Sharma acknowledged concern on LPG availability, she maintained that the government has ensured uninterrupted supply to domestic households. “Similarly, LPG supplies are also being provided to hospitals and educational institutions,” the official added.

The joint secretary said that as compared to March 5, the domestic production of LPG has increased by 30%. She said that commercial cylinders have been “put at the disposal of state governments for priority distribution”.

On Monday, the Union government invoked the Essential Commodities Act, directing refineries to regulate the production, supply and distribution of natural gas. The petroleum and natural gas ministry said that the supply of natural gas to several sectors will be treated as a priority allocation.

The sectors include piped natural gas for domestic use, compressed natural gas for transport, liquefied petroleum gas production and pipeline compressor fuel.

Also read:

• From weddings to funerals, Iran war has hit life in India
• West Asia conflict: As Centre prioritises LPG supply for households, businesses face disruptions

The joint secretary on Friday claimed that petrol and diesel are available in adequate quantities at all fuel stations.

Sharma further said that states have been asked to identify specific locations within their districts for the distribution of an additional allocation of 48,000 kilolitres that the Union government has sanctioned, over and above the regular quota.

Public sector undertaking Coal India has issued orders to ensure that coal is made available to small, medium and other consumers, so that alternative fuel options are made available, the official told reporters.

Two Indians were killed and 10 injured in a drone attack in Oman’s Sohar province. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs said that five of the injured Indians have been discharged from hospital and the remaining are receiving treatment. One non-Indian was also injured.

The Indian authorities were in contact with Omani officials and were assisting the Indian citizens, the ministry said. Read on.

The stock market crashed further amid concerns about the conflict in West Asia and surging global oil prices. The benchmark Sensex and Nifty indices fell nearly 2% on Friday.

This was the worst week for the markets in four years, with nearly Rs 20 lakh crore in investors’ wealth getting wiped out.

The Indian rupee sank to a record low of 92.4 against the United States dollar. It has lost 1.5% in value since the conflict broke out.

The benchmark Brent crude oil price again jumped above the $100 per barrel-mark on Friday. The price was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started. Read on.

The Union government acknowledged that the supply of liquefied petroleum gas in the country was a “matter of concern”, but added that no distributor had run out of stocks. Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, urged citizens not to believe in rumours and to refrain from panic buying.

However, the official urged consumers who can shift from LPG to piped natural gas to do so immediately.

Sharma also maintained that the government has ensured uninterrupted supply to domestic households, and said that LPG supplies are also being provided to hospitals and educational institutions,

The joint secretary said that petrol and diesel are available in adequate quantities at all fuel stations. Read on.

A government mandate to allow monthly menstrual leave may discourage employers from hiring women, the Supreme Court said. However, the court asked the Union government to formulate a menstrual leave policy in consultation with stakeholders.

With this direction, the bench disposed of a petition filed by a man seeking paid menstrual leave in all establishments. It asked why he had filed the petition, noting that no woman had approached the court.

The chief justice verbally observed that the policy could lead to an impression among young women that they are not at par with male employees and that they “cannot work like them during a particular time”. Read on.

Four members of the crew onboard United States’ aerial refuelling aircraft were killed when the plane crashed in western Iraq. The US military said that two of its aircraft were involved in the incident and that the second landed safely.

The accident did not occur because of “hostile fire or friendly fire”, the US Central Command said. Read on.

If you haven’t already, sign up for our Daily Brief newsletter.

Two Indians were killed and 10 others injured in a drone attack in Oman’s Sohar province on Friday amid the conflict in West Asia, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

Ministry of External Affairs Additional Secretary (Gulf) Aseem Mahajan said that five of the injured Indians have been discharged from hospital and the remaining are receiving treatment. One non-Indian was also injured.

Mahajan said that the Indian authorities were in contact with Omani officials and were assisting the Indian citizens.

Two drones crashed in Sohar on Friday morning, Oman’s state news agency reported.

One drone struck the Al-Awahi industrial area, killing the two Indians and injuring others. The second fell in an open area and caused no injuries.

The authorities said that an investigation had been launched into the incident.

The Omani report did not specify who the authorities believe had launched the drones.

Earlier this week, Omani state media reported that drones had struck fuel storage tanks at the Salalah port. However, Tehran denied involvement in that attack.

The conflict in West Asia began on February 28 when the United States and Israel launched an attack on the Iranian government. Tehran has retaliated by launching missiles and drones at targets in the Gulf, including US bases, ships and major cities in the region.

Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance. Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a portion of a Delhi High Court order from December 19 that had directed the Lokpal to reconsider sanctioning the Central Bureau of Investigation to file a chargesheet against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra in an alleged cash-for-query scam, PTI reported.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymala Bagchi issued notices seeking responses from Moitra, the CBI and the complainant, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey.

The Lokpal approached the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court verdict, which had set aside the anti-corruption ombudsman’s order allowing the CBI to file a chargesheet against Moitra.

The High Court had held that the Lokpal incorrectly interpreted the Lokpal Act as creating two provisions for sanction: one under Section 20(7)(a) for filing a chargesheet, and another under Section 20(8) for launching prosecution, according to Live Law.

It held that the Act lays down only one composite stage of sanction for prosecution, and that Section 20(8) merely allows the Lokpal to direct which agency should carry out the prosecution. The High Court noted that the Lokpal had “departed from the prescribed statutory procedure” and had sought to restructure the procedure laid down by Parliament, Live Law reported.

In its Supreme Court petition, the Lokpal challenged this interpretation. On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to examine the matter, and said the Lokpal need not decide on sanction for prosecution as directed by the High Court.

Lawyer Ranjit Kumar, representing the Lokpal, told the court that the ombudsman was only challenging the High Court’s interpretation and was not concerned about any individual, according to Live Law.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the CBI supported the High Court’s interpretation, but added that Moitra needed to be investigated.

The case against Moitra stems from allegations that she shared her login credentials to the Parliament website with businessman Darshan Hiranandani and accepted gifts in exchange for asking questions in the Lok Sabha.

Moitra has admitted to sharing her Parliament login details with Hiranandani but denied receiving any cash or gifts.

The allegations against the Trinamool Congress MP were made in October 2023 by Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, her former partner. Dubey also filed a complaint with the Lokpal, accusing Moitra of taking cash for bribes.

The stock market crashed further on Friday amid concerns surrounding the conflict in West Asia and surging oil prices.

The benchmark Sensex index fell more than 1,400 points or 1.9%. The Nifty had also fallen nearly 2%, or by more than 460 points, when the session ended on Friday.

This was the worst week for the market in four years with nearly Rs 20 lakh crore in investors’ wealth getting wiped out, CNBC-TV18 reported.

Stock markets had begun to slide on March 2 after the conflict began.

The India VIX index, which measures volatility in the market, spiked 5.7% on Friday.

Major Asian stock indices also fell on Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed nearly 1% lower, while Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.1% and South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.7%.

Rupee at record low

The Indian rupee slumped further on Friday to a record low of 92.4 against the United States dollar.

It breached the currency’s previous record low of 92.35 hit on Thursday.

The Indian currency has lost 1.5% in value since the conflict broke out, Reuters reported.

The fall continued on Friday as the benchmark Brent crude oil prices again jumped above the $100-per-barrel mark.

The global oil prices have spiked by nearly 40% since Israel and the United States launched their attacks on Iran on February 28, according to AFP. Tehran has retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in Gulf countries and some ships.

The price of Brent was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

On Monday as well, oil prices had briefly crossed the $100-per-barrel mark, the highest since July 2022.

Also read:

• From weddings to funerals, Iran war has hit life in India

• Why the US-Iran war will hurt India more than China

• Top updates: Iran says it won’t close Strait of Hormuz, Liberia-flagged oil tanker reaches Mumbai

In the last two weeks, Dhruv Chakravarty estimates that his catering company has suffered a loss of Rs 7 lakh-Rs 8 lakh due to cancellations following the shortage of liquefied petroleum. His family’s Vastavika Caterers in South West Delhi caters weddings, birthdays and corporate events. Chakravarty has had to cancel new bookings due to the severe shortage of commercial cylinders without which it is impossible to cater for weddings.

“We are hoping this ends soon, or it will be a problem,” said Chakravarty. “We had good business during Holi but now with Eid coming up, we are not sure.” Several other caterers have cancelled events or postponed bookings till April, he said.

India depends on the supply of natural gas from shipments through the narrow Strait of Hormuz in West Asia, which has been closed since the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran on February 28. The war on Iran has disrupted the supply of oil as well.

A catering manager based in Vasai, Mumbai, who did not want to be identified, said at least two-three customers had postponed their wedding bookings. “The situation is just like Covid-19,” he said, referring to how the pandemic had shut down economic and business activities through 2020 and 2021.

“We are sitting idle with no work,” the man said. “No one is able to do any business and everyone’s business is shut.”

When asked about using alternatives to LPG, he said “You can’t change technology in two days. Alternatives like electric cooktops take time to set up.”

A friend is getting married next week and now an unexpected request from the catering team has put the bridegroom in a difficult spot. The caterers have asked the family to arrange LPG cylinders for the event, citing supply constraints, adding last-minute pressure to the already…

— Sangeetha Kandavel (@sang1983) March 11, 2026

Nishank Bhadouriya of Hari Ram Caterers in Delhi said has been trying to get by with his old stock of cylinders. Even so, Badoria said caterers were lucky that the crisis has not hit in the middle of the wedding season. “During the months of May and June we do not get as many wedding bookings,” he said. “Otherwise we would have had to face a huge loss had this happened during November-December.”

Another Delhi-based caterer, who did not wish to be identified, was worried about gas cylinders being hoarded and sold on the black market. “The uncertainty of how long this war will go on has pushed many people to start hoarding which has worsened the issue,” he said.

Caterers Scroll spoke also said that in desperation, some have asked their customers to bring their own domestic cylinders, even though that is illegal.

The government has prioritised gas supply for domestic use, leading to shortages elsewhere. In Pune, crematoriums are managing with the available gas supply but may have to switch to wood, reported The Indian Express. “Right now, we still have some gas left with us. If the gas runs out, then we will have to use wood,” Sumit Giri, a crematorium operator in Bopodi told The Indian Express.

In Kerala, the Kozhikode civic body’s crematorium had to refuse three bookings on Tuesday after it ran out of gas, reported Manorama. The crematorium needs 120 commercial cylinders per month, using nearly four per day. Bharat Petroleum, the crematorium’s supplier, has been unable to provide cylinders, a health inspector told Manorama.

But as Bhadouriya observed, restaurants, dhabas and roadside food vendors are the worst hit. Small-scale food joints and tiffin services, often feed poor migrant workers, while keeping costs low.

In Mumbai, one tiffin service could only offer rice and pickle while another had to buy chapatis at Rs 5 each, driving up costs. Elsewhere, like in Ranchi, one stall owner said they had to cut down the menu to basic meals. Owners of a homestay, meanwhile, were, considering earthen, wood-fired ovens.

Meals outside a hospital

For the last three days, Debojit Senapati in Guwahati has been struggling to get a cooking gas cylinder to keep his rice stall open. Patients and their relatives depend on Senapati’s affordable meals, up to Rs 60 a plate, at his food joint outside the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, the region’s biggest hospital.

“I got one domestic cylinder yesterday [Wednesday] which cost more than double at Rs 1,800,” he told Scroll. Senapati said he needs at least one cylinder per day. “There is no cylinder today. I have already shut my stall in the afternoon today.”

The Assam Police on March 12 said strict legal action will be taken against anyone spreading “rumours” about a shortage of cooking gas and other petroleum products. “But there is a shortage of gas,” said Senapati. “We are looking for all kinds of gas – domestic and commercial supply. But it is nowhere to be found.”

For the last 11 years, Senapati has depended on income from his stall to feed his family of five and pay Rs 8,000 as rent for his home. “We have an income of hardly Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000 per day,” he said. “It will be difficult to manage if it continues for many days.”

Five workers depend on Senapati as well, earning Rs 300-Rs 400 per day. “If I don’t get gas for the next two days, I have to send them back to their village in Upper Assam,” he said.

Mumbai’s migrant workers

Mumbai’s huge population of migrant workers, who keep the city running, is paying more for food or even going hungry. At a construction site in Tilak Nagar, many workers live on the premises or the streets.

“Yesterday I slept without eating anything,” said Vimlesh Yadav, a security guard at a residential building. “Today I went to a restaurant around the corner. They only had rice and achaar to serve.”

Kamlesh Yadav, a guard at a construction site nearby, cooks his own food using a stove and a five-kg gas cylinder, which he buys for Rs 500 every month. Five days ago, Yadav ran out of gas and has been eating out. His expenses have suddenly more than doubled. “Now it’s costing me Rs 80 per thali,” he said.

Yadav, who earns Rs 17,000 a month, said he could manage his food, including the cylinder and rations, within Rs 2,000. If the shortage continues, he could end up paying Rs 4,800 a month.

Messes and tiffin services, which provide affordable food to the city’s working-class population, are struggling to keep costs low. Naresh Yadav’s tiffin service in Siddharth Colony feeds 100 labourers, security guards and daily wage workers every day. He needs a 23-kg gas cylinder every month.

“Last Saturday, I ran out of gas and could not find a cylinder anywhere,” he said. “I have tried reaching out to multiple suppliers but nobody has stock.”

Naresh Yadav said he sold meals at discounted rates because he was serving poor workers. But on Thursday, he was forced to buy chapatis from another supplier at Rs 5 per piece. “But many cannot afford this,” he said. When an entire meal costs Rs 50, paying Rs 30 for just six chapatis is a lot.

Cutting down menus

In Ranchi, Pawan Tamang has cut down the extensive menu of his Royal Momos food stall to just three dishes – chowmein, chilly chicken and momos. “Customers are upset about the limited menu, but we are trying to use cooking gas efficiently,” said Tamang, whose stall needs two to three gas cylinders a week – he buys 19-kg commercial cylinders which cost Rs 2,000 each.

“We’re down to our last one and we haven’t been able to procure more,” he said.

Tamang and his family of six run the stall, “When business is good we earn about Rs 15,000- Rs 20,000 in a week,” he said. “But now with this gas crisis we are wondering how we will survive.” Induction stoves were an option, said Tamang, but he is unsure of how reliable they will be since Ranchi faces several electricity cuts due to power cuts in the summers.

Sunita Dutta, who runs a tiffin service in Ranchi, is also down to her last gas cylinder, which will run out in the next 10 days. “I make tiffin for about 120 people daily, so we use two to three big cylinders in a month,” she said. She will turn to an extra gas cylinder at home – as long as that lasts.

Dutta has the safety net of her family’s income but depends on the tiffin service for her financial independence. “The government really needs to do something,” she said. “There are a lot of small business owners like me who will be impacted badly if this gas crisis extends.”

Two hours away in Khunti, Kapil Toppo, who runs a village farm stay, plans to turn to an earthen, wood-fired stove. “We host between 10-30 customers in a week so we require three to four gas cylinders in a month,” said Toppo.

When the farm stay was constructed, Toppo had built clay stoves as an afterthought, but never used them. Many residents of rural Jharkhand still rely on firewood and coal for cooking, said Toppo. These might be the only options if the LPG crisis continues, he said. “But these are also very polluting alternatives.”

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Thursday sought responses from the Union government and a private firm on a petition by six liquefied petroleum gas distributors seeking an increase in the supply of domestic cooking gas cylinders, Bar and Bench reported.

A division bench of Justices Anil S Kilor and Raj D Wakode said that the matter was serious and of grave importance.

The petitioners alleged that exports were being prioritised over domestic supply despite the shortage of LPG caused by the energy crisis sparked by the conflict in West Asia. They claimed that Nagpur-based firm Confidence Petroleum India Limited had failed to increase the supply of household LPG cylinders even though the Union government had ordered that domestic distribution be prioritised, PTI reported.

The petitioners said they were directly facing the consequences of a “severely disrupted” LPG supply chain in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region.

“This is causing widespread hardship to consumers across the country, particularly in the state of Maharashtra and the Vidarbha region,” Bar and Bench quoted the petition as saying.

The petitioners cited a March 9 order of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas that directed all refineries and petrochemical complexes to use their entire production capacity to produce LPG, which is to be made available to public sector oil marketing companies.

The bench on Thursday directed Confidence Petroleum to make sure that the storage and supply of LPG for domestic use was in line with the Centre’s policy, according to Bar and Bench.

The matter will be heard next on Tuesday.

Confidence Petroleum’s Chairperson Nitin Khara said the firm was considering unloading its LPG vessel in India, as opposed to its earlier plan to export a part of the consignment after unloading a portion domestically, PTI reported.

Khara was quoted as having told a regional news channel that the firm will file its reply in the High Court soon.

“We are committed to the people of India,” PTI quoted him as saying. “We were not expecting this situation to arise, and we had given some export commitment. But now the management is thinking of unloading the entire vessel in India.”

LPG shortages in India

Since the conflict in West Asia began on February 28, the supply of LPG in India has been disrupted as the country imports about 60% of its LPG demand, most of it from Gulf countries. This is because Iran has blocked the crucial Strait of Hormuz for most international commercial vessels.

However, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri told Parliament on Thursday that there was no shortage of fuel despite the conflict in West Asia. “Field reports indicate hoarding and panic-booking at the distributor and retail level, driven by consumer anxiety rather than any actual supply shortage,” he maintained.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged state governments to enhance monitoring to prevent black-marketers and hoarders from taking advantage of the situation, The Hindu reported.

On the same day, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had alleged that India’s energy security had been compromised and attributed the situation to what he described as a “flawed foreign policy”.

Also read: From weddings to funerals, Iran war has hit life in India

The Supreme Court on Friday said that a government policy mandating monthly menstrual leaves may discourage employers from hiring women, thereby affecting their participation in the workforce, reported Live Law.

The court, however, asked the Union government to formulate a menstrual leave policy in consultation with all stakeholders.

The direction came while a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi disposed of a petition filed by Shailendra Mani Tripathi seeking paid menstrual leave in all establishments.

Tripathi had filed two earlier petitions in the matter as well, reported Live Law.

His first petition was disposed of in February 2023, allowing him to submit a representation before the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development for a policy on menstrual leave.

Tripathi approached the Supreme Court again in 2024, stating that the ministry had not responded to the representation. His second plea was disposed of in July 2024, with the court directing the Union government to take a policy decision.

On Friday, the bench questioned why Tripathi had filed the petition, noting that no woman had approached the court.

“This is basically only to create a type of impression in young women that you still have some natural issues and you are not at par with male persons and you cannot work like them during a particular time,” Live Law quoted the bench as saying.

The chief justice also asked the petitioner to consider the long-term impact of such a policy and “look at the practical reality in the job market”.

“The more unattractive the human resource, the less is the possibility of assumption in the market,” Live Law quoted Kant as saying. “Look at from the business model. Will any employer be happy with the competing claims of other genders?”

Appearing for the petitioner, advocate MR Shamsad pointed out that Karnataka had recently formulated a menstrual leave policy and Odisha has had one since 1992. Many private organisations are also voluntarily allowing period leave, he added.

“Voluntarily they are giving, then it is excellent,” the legal news outlet quoted Kant as saying. “That is a very good thing. But the moment you introduce it as a compulsory condition in law, you do not know the damage it will do to the career of women.”

He added: “Nobody will give them responsibilities, even in judicial services, a normal trial will not be assigned to them.”

On October 9, the Karnataka Cabinet approved the 2025 Menstrual Leave Policy, which allows a one-day paid leave every month for women with government jobs and employed in the private sector.

The policy was introduced by the labour department following a recommendation by a committee pushing for paid menstrual leave.

In November, the government notified the menstrual leave policy.

In December, the Karnataka High Court stayed the policy but recalled its order hours later.

Also read: Period leave debate is a reminder that workplaces must provide for women’s needs

Several parts of the country witnessed heatwaves in the past two days, with severe conditions recorded in the Saurashtra-Kutch region of Gujarat and the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

The India Meteorological Department also predicted a heatwave in Mumbai and its neighbouring districts of Thane, Palghar and Raigad on Friday and Saturday, The Indian Express reported. Heatwave conditions were also reported from isolated parts of the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra.

In many parts of North India, daytime temperatures were above normal by more than 5.1 degrees Celsius, the Hindustan Times reported.

The weather agency declares a heatwave for a region when the temperature crosses 40 degrees Celsius in the plains, 37 degrees Celsius in coastal areas and 30 degrees Celsius in the hills.

Gujarat

Severe heatwave conditions prevailed in some pockets of Gujarat, including parts of Ahmedabad, Dessa, Surat and Anand, the IMD said. Some pockets in the Saurashtra-Kutch region, including Porbandar, Rajkot, Gir Somnath, Surendranagar, Bhavnagar and Kutch, also reported severe heatwaves in the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Rajkot recorded a maximum temperature of 41.9 degrees Celsius, the highest in Gujarat for the day, The Indian Express reported.

Ahmedabad, however, saw some relief on Thursday, with the mercury dropping to 38.9 degrees Celsius from 41.4 degrees Celsius on the previous day, The Times of India reported. The maximum temperature on Thursday, however, was still 3.8 degrees above normal.

Maharashtra

The IMD said that heatwave conditions will prevail in Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad on Friday and Saturday, The Indian Express reported. This was the third time in a fortnight that the weather agency made such a declaration.

The maximum temperature in Mumbai is likely to cross 38 degrees on Friday, and is expected to be at 37 degrees on Saturday, the weather agency said.

An anti-cyclone system developing over the sea is likely to lead to a spike in temperatures, The Indian Express quoted Bikram Singh, director of IMD Mumbai, as saying.

The city of Amravati in the Vidarbha region was the hottest in the country on Thursday, with the temperature rising to 42.2 degrees Celsius, which was 6.8 degrees above normal, The Times of India reported.

The maximum temperature in Akola was only marginally lower at 42 degrees Celsius.

In Nagpur, the mercury soared to 39 degrees Celsius, the highest in this season till now, according to The Times of India.

North India

Daytime temperature were above normal by over 5.1 degrees Celsius in parts of Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh, West Rajasthan and East Rajasthan on Wednesday, the Hindustan Times reported.

The maximum temperatures in Delhi ranged from 35 to 38 degrees Celsius.

“Such heatwave episodes in March are normal and we had forecast it well in advance,” the newspaper quoted IMD Director General M Mohapatra as saying.

However, the IMD said that there may be rainfall in Punjab from March 14 to 16 due to a fresh western disturbance, The Tribune reported.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said that he would repost a video showing him symbolically firing at two Muslim men, this time labelling them as “Bangladeshis”.

The video was posted by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Assam unit on February 7. It combined what appeared to be original footage of the BJP leader handling rifles with artificial intelligence-generated images portraying Muslims as targets.

On-screen text included slogans such as “Foreigner free Assam”, “No mercy”, “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” and “There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis”.

The clip was deleted following social media criticism.

The Congress’ Assam unit and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen had filed complaints with the police against Sarma and the BJP for sharing the video. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India also moved the Supreme Court.

Speaking to Aaj Tak on Thursday, the Assam chief minister said that the video was “correct”, but it should have identified the men as “Bangladeshi”.

When told that he could not shoot Bangladeshi citizens or undocumented migrants either, Sarma said that it was only “symbolic” shooting.

“So that Bangladeshis don’t infiltrate into Assam, the Assam chief minister will have to shoot at them, symbolically,” said the BJP leader.

He added the video was deleted as it did not use the word “Bangladeshi”, so it was “legally and constitutionally wrong”.

“However, we will correct it and post it again,” claimed Sarma.

He added that the updated video would not be posted from the BJP’s account but from his personal account.

बंदूक वाले AI वीडियो पर मेरी टिप्पणी pic.twitter.com/32qULmd7Wn

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) March 12, 2026

The statements came in the run-up to the Assembly elections in Assam, which are expected to be held in April.

The BJP’s Assam unit chief Dilip Saikia had earlier claimed that the video was deleted as it was “unauthorised” and “immature”, The Indian Express had reported on February 12.

One of the four co-convenors of the Assam BJP’s social media cell was also removed from his position in connection with the video.

Saikia had told The Indian Express that the party was concerned about “illegal immigrant Bangladeshis in Assam”, adding that there had to be a movement in the society against this.

“But the party does not support the idea of a mala fide intent of targeting Muslims with bullets,”

On February 11, Sarma told reporters that he and the BJP do not support anything that goes against Assamese Muslims.

“We are not against Assamese Muslims but against Bangladeshi Muslims, Miya Muslims,” he said. “That photograph [in the video] should have made the difference [clear] between Bangladeshi and Indian Muslims.”

In Assam, “Miya” is a derogatory word used to refer to undocumented immigrants and is exclusively directed at Muslims of Bengali origin. They are often accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.

Once a pejorative in Assam, from the common use of the honorific “Miya” among South Asian Muslims, the term has now been reappropriated by the community as a self-descriptor to refer to Muslims who migrated to Assam from Bengal during the colonial era.

In the past month, Sarma has made a series of remarks targeting Miyas, including claiming that it was his job to “make them suffer”, and saying that he had directed BJP workers to file applications seeking to strike the names of Miya Muslims off the electoral rolls.

However, in February, the Supreme Court had declined to entertain petitions seeking that a first information report be filed against Sarma for hate speech against Muslims.

Also read:

• Himanta Sarma’s remarks about ‘Miyas’ make a mockery of the Constitution

• Himanta Sarma’s remarks about ‘Miyas’ prejudicial and ‘alarmingly hateful’, say activists, lawyers

India’s increasing demographic of the elderly needs long-term care, daily support and palliative services. While national policies emphasise care at home, government data show that access to such services remains limited.

With older adults projected to account for nearly 20% of India’s population by 2050, as we reported in March 2024, the gap between policy intent and care on the ground means many older adults are dependent on hospitals or family support.

As India ages, national policy increasingly positions home-based palliative and elder care as a way to reduce suffering and avoid unnecessary hospitalisation. Our reporting suggests these services reach only a limited share of older adults.

In this concluding story of a two-part series, IndiaSpend explains how gaps between policy design and delivery shape where care is provided, how households absorb costs, and who bears responsibility when care does not reach home. You can read the first part here.

Plans on paper

Home-based palliative care is a core component of India’s elder care framework, designed to reduce suffering among older adults with chronic and life-limiting conditions by providing care where people live.

Under the National Programme for Palliative Care, states are expected to plan and fund services through the National Health Mission. The programme envisions trained primary healthcare workers delivering symptom management, basic nursing care and caregiver support through periodic home visits, with referral links to higher health facilities when required.

In principle, this model moves care away from hospitals and towards communities. On paper, the architecture exists for care to reach homes.

But a health ministry response in parliament in December 2025 suggests the reach of home-based palliative care remains limited. Kerala, where community-based palliative care has evolved over decades, reported around 650,000 home visits in eight months to October 2025. Maharashtra recorded about 167,000 visits. In contrast, Uttar Pradesh reported about 42,500 visits across a fraction of its districts, while Bihar delivered services in only six districts.

UP and Bihar are also among India’s youngest states by population, but also being among the most populous, the care is not proportionate to needs.

Because these figures capture service delivery rather than need, they point to wide variation in access to home-based palliative care across states. By contrast, a 2024 nationally representative study found that 12.2% of Indians aged 60 and above have supportive or palliative care needs. The share rises to about 16% in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Community surveys suggest that roughly two in every 1,000 people require home-based palliative care. These estimates far exceed the reported service volumes.

When sustained care is unavailable at home, families often turn to hospitals. Parliamentary data from recent years show high outpatient attendance among older adults in several states. The data provide no information on the reasons for these visits.

Interpreting these patterns, clinicians working in palliative care say that high outpatient numbers do not necessarily indicate better access. Shanmugapriya P, regional facilitator (Kerala) of Pallium India Trust, said persistently high OPD use often reflects unmanaged symptoms and the absence of home-based support.

“In many cases, OPD visits substitute for home care because families have no alternative,” she said.

When care does not reach homes, the burden shifts to families.

Drawing on fieldwork and research on palliative care, Parth Sharma, a public health and palliative care researcher at the Association for Socially Applicable Research (ASAR), said home care is often understood narrowly as medical treatment, while the wider needs of patients and households remain unaddressed.

“In reality, families don’t just need medicines or physiotherapy,” Sharma said. “They need support for mental health, nutrition, schooling and livelihoods.”

Without structured support, he said, households managing life-limiting illness often make difficult trade-offs, including children dropping out of school, reduced spending on nutrition, delayed treatment for other family members and mounting debt, pushing families into long-term vulnerability.

Gaps on the ground

Sharma said the central issue is not the absence of policy, but gaps in implementation. “Services exist on paper,” he said. “Their implementation is lagging.”

Programmes such as the National Programme for Palliative Care and comprehensive primary healthcare under Ayushman Arogya Mandirs are intended to also support people with life-limiting illness. In practice, Sharma said, they face familiar constraints seen across the health system, including limited funding, shortages of trained workers and weak monitoring.

As a result, he said, families are often left to manage care on their own, absorbing costs and responsibilities that public services were meant to shoulder.

When care does not reach homes, formal social safety nets for older adults offer limited fallback.

Elderline (14567), a national toll-free helpline operational since October 2021, is intended to provide information and field intervention for older adults and caregivers. Parliamentary data suggest that its response capacity remains uneven.

As of November 30, 2025, Uttar Pradesh attended to about 4,190 of the 28,643 calls it received, while Punjab responded to fewer than 3,000 of nearly 18,000 calls. Smaller states recorded fewer calls but handled a larger share. Overall, states with the highest call volumes also show large gaps between calls received and calls attended, suggesting that capacity, rather than need, shapes access.

Government-assisted old age homes form another pillar of formal support, but their scale remains small, as we reported in the first part of this series.

IndiaSpend reached out to the social justice and empowerment ministry for comment on the Elderline call-handling capacity by state, gaps in responses, government old-age homes, beneficiaries, and any expansion plans. We will update this story when we receive a response.

Hidden costs

Private palliative care in India is largely delivered by non-profit trusts and small organisations, operating without mandatory national accreditation. Beyond hospital bills, families shoulder a range of financial burdens that remain largely invisible in official data.

Anuja Damani, additional professor of palliative medicine at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, and director of EPEC-India, said that the most significant costs are often indirect and poorly recognised.

“These include loss of income when a family member stops working to provide care, repeated travel to hospitals, accommodation near health facilities, and daily expenses such as food,” she said.

When formal services thin out, responsibility shifts to families, falling disproportionately on women, as IndiaSpend reported in June 2025. Caregiving frequently requires women to reduce paid work hours or exit the workforce altogether, clinicians said, resulting in income loss that often exceeds direct medical expenses.

Damani said caregiving-related costs often extend far beyond medical bills, with women frequently absorbing prolonged periods of unpaid care work that is neither reflected in health records nor covered by insurance, contributing to income loss, burnout and long-term financial vulnerability.

Out-of-pocket spending continues even when families are nominally insured, she added. For those attempting care at home, costs quickly accumulate for nursing support, physiotherapy, medical equipment and oxygen, services that are largely unregulated and almost entirely self-financed.

Public insurance schemes provide limited relief from these pressures. Damani said programmes such as Ayushman Bharat–PMJAY have improved access to inpatient care but offer minimal and inconsistent coverage for palliative and end-of-life care, particularly outpatient, home-based services.

Although palliative care is formally included under insurance, it is poorly defined and inadequately packaged, leading to wide variation in how hospitals interpret coverage. Core elements such as symptom control, counselling, advance care planning and caregiver support, are rarely reimbursed.

“There is a significant gap between policy intent and real financial protection,” Damani said. The lack of integration between insurance, primary care and community-based palliative services, she added, means families continue to bear most costs even when they are officially insured.

IndiaSpend reached out to the National Health Authority (NHA), the implementing body for Ayushman Bharat–PMJAY, for comment on coverage for palliative, outpatient, and home-based care under the scheme. We will update this story when we receive a response.

Even where home-based palliative care exists, providers and families operate under heavy strain. In parts of Kerala, nurses involved in home-based care said workloads often exceed sustainable limits, with some attending 20-26 patients in a day, often without reliable transport.

What else is possible

In settings where care is organised around homes and communities, and backed by policy and staffing, families are less isolated and ageing is more likely to unfold with dignity.

In Japan, government-backed community care systems combine medical treatment, home-visiting nursing and social support, enabling many older adults to remain at home rather than defaulting to hospitals or institutions.

India, too, offers limited but instructive examples. In Kerala, long-standing community palliative care networks, supported by local governments and volunteers, help ease the burden on families managing serious illness at home. “In some parts of the country, like Kerala, the community steps in to support the family,” said Parth Sharma, adding that in much of India, access to structured palliative care remains limited, shaping comfort and dignity at the end of life.

Sharma says India’s health system remains oriented towards hospitals rather than homes, while medical education continues to prioritise tertiary care over long-term, community-based support.

“If all healthcare continues to be delivered from hospitals,” he said, “a major proportion of the elderly will remain without access to care.”

Ayman Khan works in healthcare management in New Delhi, reporting on elder care and healthcare systems.

This article first appeared on IndiaSpend, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that India’s energy security had been “compromised” and attributed the situation to what he described as a “flawed foreign policy”, PTI reported.

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Gandhi said: “The basic issue is that gas is going to be a problem, petrol is going to be a problem, all fuel is going to be a problem because our energy security has been compromised.”

He asserted that the government must start preparations immediately, warning that without action “crores of people could suffer”.

VIDEO | Parliament session: Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on the reported fuel crisis says, “Normally there is a procedure where you can ask to speak. I had asked to be allowed to make a statement about the situation in the country regarding LPG, gas and oil. This… pic.twitter.com/u7T9FE8ngZ

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) March 12, 2026

During his brief remarks in the Lok Sabha later, Gandhi raised questions about the country’s energy security and asserted that a nation as large as India should be able to decide its relationships with oil and gas suppliers on its own.

He accused the government of “bartering” with India’s energy security and asked why the United States had been allowed “to decide who we buy oil from, who we buy gas from, and whether we can buy oil from Russia or not”.

Gandhi was referring to the US on March 5 granting India a 30-day waiver to accept Russian oil already on ships at sea.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri responded to Gandhi by saying that for the first time in recorded history, the Strait of Hormuz had been effectively closed to commercial shipping.

“India has to navigate through its consequences” despite not having any role in the conflict, he told the Lok Sabha.

Puri said that India had responded to the situation better than other countries in the neighbourhood.

The minister added that India’s crude oil supply position was secure and insisted that there was shortage of petrol, diesel, kerosene and aviation turbine fuel. “Retail outlets across the country are stocked and supply chains for these products are functioning normally,” he told Parliament.

The natural gas supply has been managed to prioritise allocation, he said, reiterating comments made by the ministry on Wednesday.

The domestic production of liquefied petroleum gas had increased by 28% in the last five days, Puri said in Parliament.

“Field reports indicate hoarding and panic booking at the distributor and retail level driven by consumer anxiety rather than any actual supply shortage,” he added.

The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

The conflict has caused the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday.

The waiver granted by Washington followed earlier tensions between the US and India over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian crude oil.

The Trump administration had in August imposed a punitive levy on India for buying oil from Russia amid the Ukraine war. This had taken the combined US tariff rate to 50%.

On February 7, Trump issued an executive order to remove the additional 25% punitive tariff on imports from India over New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil. This brought the effective US tariff rate on Indian imports to 18% after the interim trade deal was agreed to.

Assam Police warns against fuel shortage rumours

The Assam Police on Thursday warned that legal action will be taken against persons spreading rumours about shortages of liquefied petroleum gas and other petroleum products.

“Citizens are advised not to believe or forward such any misleading claims that may be spread by inimical elements to try and create confusion,” the police said.

Also read: Modi’s ‘capitulation certificate’: Congress on US saying it ‘permitted’ India to import Russian oil

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said that India’s energy security had been compromised and attributed the situation to what he described as a “flawed foreign policy”. He said that the Union government must start preparations immediately, warning that without action “crores of people could suffer”.

Gandhi asserted that India must decide its relationships with oil and gas suppliers on its own and accused the government of “bartering” the country’s energy security. He asked why the United States had been allowed “to decide who we buy oil from, who we buy gas from, and whether we can buy oil from Russia or not”. Read on.

Two Kuki men who had been missing since Wednesday were found dead in Manipur’s Kamjong district. The bodies were found in a forested area of Thawai Kuki village.

The Kuki-dominated authority of Shangkai village alleged that the two men had been abducted by persons belonging to the Tangkhul Naga community. The village authority said that the public had stopped vehicles plying along the Ukhrul road “out of deep concern for the safety of the detained and missing villagers”.

Amid the tensions, several Tangkhul Naga persons travelling along the Ukhrul-Imphal route had been abducted allegedly by Kuki persons on Wednesday. They were released on Thursday morning. Read on.

The conflict in West Asia has caused the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”, the International Energy Agency said. It said that oil producers in the Gulf had been forced to cut production by at least 10 million barrels per day. Of this, eight million barrels per day was crude oil and the remaining were petroleum products.

The slashing of production was attributed to the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

Meanwhile, one Indian member of the crew onboard an oil tanker was killed in an attack near the Iraqi port city of Basra on Wednesday. The ship was sailing under the Marshall Islands flag. Read on.

The Indian rupee sank to a record low of 92.35 against the United States dollar amid concerns surrounding the West Asia conflict. It recovered marginally to end the session at 92.18.

The stock market continued to slide, with the Sensex and Nifty falling about 1%.

The price of benchmark Brent crude briefly touched the $100 per barrel-mark. It was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, the day before the conflict started. Read on.

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that parental income alone cannot be used to determine whether a candidate falls in the creamy layer of the Other Backward Classes category, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and R Mahadevan dismissed appeals filed by the Union government and upheld rulings of the Madras, Delhi and Kerala High Courts, The Indian Express reported.

The case involved candidates who had cleared the civil services examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission but were denied Other Backward Classes benefits because their parents’ salaries exceeded the creamy layer income threshold. Many of the parents worked in public sector undertakings, banks or private organisations.

The creamy layer refers to the wealthier and more advanced members within a group that is eligible for affirmative action benefits.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that whether a person is part of the creamy layer must be determined primarily by the status and category of the posts held by the parents, not income alone.

Referring to the government’s 1993 office memorandum issued after the ruling in the Indira Sawhney versus Union of India case, the court noted that income from salary and agricultural sources was not meant to be clubbed with the income from other sources while applying the income or wealth test.

The bench said that interpreting the rules in a way that disadvantages one section of the same backward class without justification would amount to “equals being treated unequally,” Live Law reported.

It also held that relying only on a 2004 government clarification to treat salary income as the determining factor was “legally unsustainable”, according to the legal news portal.

The court dismissed the Union government’s appeals and directed the authorities to reconsider the candidates’ claims under the correct criteria within six months.

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday ordered that two security guards be deployed round-the-clock to protect a Muslim man who alleged that he and some others were stopped from offering namaz on his private property in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district.

The man, Haseen Khan, alleged that some people told him that his property in Mohammad Ganj village would be bulldozed if he did not make a statement in court as per their demands.

The court also recorded Khan’s statement that some police personnel allegedly made him place his thumb impression on a paper without explaining what was written on it.

On Wednesday, Khan urged the court to protect his family and property.

In response, a bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan directed that two armed guards be deployed to provide round-the-clock protection to Khan until further orders.

The bench added that any incident of violence against Khan or his property would be prima facie understood to have occurred “at the instance of the state”, though this would remain open to rebuttal.

On January 27, in an unrelated case, the Allahabad High Court held that no permission was needed for holding a religious prayer meeting on private property as long as the activity remains within private premises. The court had taken note of a statement by the Uttar Pradesh government that there was no such legal requirement.

Despite the court’s observations in the other matter, Khan alleged that he was picked up from his home and fined by the police for offering namaz, Live Law reported. A contempt petition was then filed before the High Court.

The court on Wednesday asked Additional Advocate General Anoop Trivedi whether officials had demanded that permission be sought for offering namaz on private property. To this, Trivedi said that all those present in the house, including the owner, were asked to seek permission.

The judges then directed District Magistrate Avinash Singh and Bareilly Senior Superintendent of Police Anurag Arya to remain present in court on the next hearing, which was scheduled for March 23.

The High Court had passed its January 27 order in response to petitions by Christian bodies Maranatha Full Gospel Ministries and Emmanuel Grace Charitable Trust. It had then noted that religious gatherings form part of the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution, which deals with the freedom of religion.

Two Kuki men who had been missing since Wednesday were found dead in a forested area of Thawai Kuki village in Manipur’s Kamjong district on Thursday, a senior police officer told Scroll.

The two were identified as 42-year-old Thengin Baite from Thawai Kuki village in the district and 35-year-old Thangboimang Khongsai from Shangkai village in neighbouring Ukhrul district.

The two men had allegedly been abducted by village volunteers belonging to the Tangkhul Naga community on Wednesday, the Kuki-based Shangkai Village Authority claimed in a statement.

The term “village volunteers” has been used for armed civilians guarding villages since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Kuki-Zo-Hmars and Meiteis communities in May 2023.

The Shangkai Village Authority alleged that “Tangkhul volunteers” fired at the villagers who were working in the fields. The two persons, who had gone to repair a water pipeline, had been fired upon and had gone missing, it alleged.

In its statement on Wednesday, the village authority said that “out of deep concern for the safety of the detained and missing villagers, members of the public have stopped vehicles plying along the Ukhrul road”.

Amid the tensions, several Tangkhul Naga persons travelling along the Ukhrul-Imphal route were abducted allegedly by Kuki persons on Wednesday, The Hindu reported.

The Tangkhul Naga Long, the apex body of the community, alleged that “more than 20 Naga civilian passengers” had been abducted and “taken hostage” at Shangkai on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Khemchand Yumnam had also expressed concern about “civilians being held captive along the Ukhrul-Imphal road”.

Yumnam had said on Wednesday that the government was monitoring the situation and that action would be taken against those involved in the incident.

The detained Tangkhul civilians were released on Thursday morning, officials said.

Hours later, the bodies of the two missing Kuki men were discovered in a forested area.

In February, tensions between the Kuki and Tangkhul Naga communities escalated in Ukhrul district after a Tangkhul Naga man was allegedly assaulted at Litan village. An attempt to resolve the matter through customary practices failed after a scheduled meeting between the complainant’s family and the chief of Litan Sareikhong village did not take place.

The incident triggered ethnic clashes between the two communities at Litan Sareikhong, during which more than 30 houses were burnt.

The authorities had at the time imposed a curfew and suspended internet services in the area.

Deeply concerned by reports of civilians being held captive along the Ukhrul–Imphal road under Litan Police Station. I strongly urge those responsible to immediately release all civilians safely and unconditionally.
The Government is closely monitoring the situation, and strict…

— Khemchand Yumnam (@YKhemchandSingh) March 11, 2026

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre and state governments to ensure that the three persons who were involved in drafting a chapter about “corruption in the judiciary” in a now-withdrawn textbook are not associated with other curriculum projects, Live Law reported.

The court also directed that the Union government, states, Union Territories and universities to not assign the three persons “any responsibility which involves public funds”.

The chapter was part of a Class 8 social science textbook published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. The educational body on Tuesday apologised for the chapter, and said that the entire book has been withdrawn.

This came two weeks after the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the matter and banned the publication and re-printing of the textbook.

An affidavit by NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said that a visiting professor, Michel Danino, had supervised the drafting of the chapter, while educator Suparna Diwakar and legal researcher Alok Prasanna Kumar were also involved in the process, Live Law reported.

Danino, an academic, has edited several textbooks, including those for the Central Board of Secondary Education. He has taught Indian civilization and culture at several institutions and was a guest professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar between 2011 and 2017. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2017.

Diwakar is a co-founder of the Indian School of Development Management. Kumar, a lawyer, is the co-founder of think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that either the three persons did not have “reasonable knowledge about the Indian judiciary”, or they knowingly misrepresented facts.

“There is no reason why such persons [should] be associated in any manner with the preparation of curriculum or finalisation of textbooks for the next generation,” Live Law quoted the court as saying.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymala Bagchi also asked the Union government to revisit the composition of the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee, which had approved the chapter.

The court said that the affidavit of the NCERT director was “disturbing” as it said that the chapter in question had been rewritten, Bar and Bench reported.

“Neither the affidavit nor otherwise has apprised the court as to who are the alleged subject experts who has re-written the chapter again and who has approved its inclusion,” the bench was quoted as saying. “Suffice to say that more complexity shall be created.”

The court directed the Union government to create a panel of experts, preferably including a former judge, an academician and a renowned legal practitioner, to review the rewritten chapter. The revised chapter should not be published without the committee’s nod, the court was quoted as saying by Live Law.

The chapter had listed “corruption at various levels of the judiciary” among the challenges that the judicial system faces, according to The Indian Express. It was part of a textbook titled “Exploring Society: India and Beyond”.

During a Supreme Court hearing on February 26, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Union government, had apologised to the court. However, the bench had said that the press release issued by the NCERT at the time did not have a “single word of apology”.

Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this article’s headline said that the Supreme Court had barred the experts behind the chapter on “judicial corruption” in an NCERT textbook from being a part of further curriculum projects. The court, however, has also directed the Centre and state governments to ensure that the three persons are not associated with any projects that “involve public funds”.

The Donald Trump administration in the United States on Wednesday launched a new investigation into alleged unfair trade practices by India and 15 other trading partners.

The investigation will look into allegations of structural excess capacity in manufacturing sectors. The United States has alleged that such excess capacity could lead to overproduction and persistent trade surpluses, allowing the countries to export low-priced goods into US markets.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that the investigation, launched under Section 301 of the country’s Trade Act, could lead to new tariffs being imposed on India, China, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Mexico by this summer, Reuters reported.

The other countries that are being investigated are Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Switzerland and Norway.

The move came weeks after the US Supreme Court on February 20 struck down most global tariffs imposed by Trump, ruling that he exceeded his authority in imposing the levies. Soon after the ruling, the US president signed a proclamation imposing a temporary 10% tariff on goods imported into the US, citing his authority under the 1974 Trade Act.

Against this backdrop, the US trade representative said that the country would “no longer sacrifice its industrial base to other countries that may be exporting their problems with excess capacity and production to us”.

Ambassador Greer announced the initiation of Section 301 investigations into acts, policies, and practices of various economies relating to structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors.

Learn more: https://t.co/c2acombThV pic.twitter.com/EhAcr8so2Y

— United States Trade Representative (@USTradeRep) March 11, 2026

“Across numerous sectors, many US trading partners are producing more goods than they can consume domestically,” Greer said. “This overproduction displaces existing US domestic production or prevents investment and expansion in US manufacturing production that otherwise would have been brought online.”

The US notice announcing the investigation said that in 2025 India had a bilateral trade surplus with the United States of $58 billion.

It claimed that there is evidence that “the solar module sector is plagued by excess capacity, including that India's current module manufacturing is nearly triple annual domestic demand”.

The notice alleged that India created “significant excess capacity” in petrochemicals, steel and other industries.

The US also alleged that China’s top electric vehicle maker BYD was “aggressively expanding its overseas distribution and production network” even though the country’s manufacturing capacity outstrips national demand.

Investigation into ‘forced labour’

Greer on Wednesday said that he would initiate another investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act to ban imports of goods produced with forced labour in around 60 countries, Reuters reported.

The US has also barred imports of solar panels and other goods from China’s Xinjiang region under the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act.

The investigation announced on Wednesday could expand such actions to other countries.

The US trade representative said that he hoped to conclude both investigations before the temporary tariffs imposed by Trump expire in July.

In the investigation into allegations of structural excess capacity, public comments will be accepted till April 15, and a public hearing is slated to begin on May 5.

India on Wednesday expressed concern about a Thai-flagged cargo ship bound for the Indian port of Kandla being attacked by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.

Commercial shipping should not be targeted and civilian crew members should not be endangered in the course of the conflict in West Asia, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

The dry bulk vessel Mayuree Naree was on Wednesday hit by “two projectiles of unknown origin” while it was sailing through the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman, The Indian Express quoted the ship’s operator, Precious Shipping, as saying.

Later, Iran confirmed that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired at Mayuree Naree, the Hindustan Times reported.

Since the conflict began, Iran has been blocking most commercial ships from crossing the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterbody that connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea and is the world’s biggest oil chokepoint.

Commenting on the attack, India’s foreign ministry said: “India deplores the fact that commercial shipping is being made a target of military attacks in the ongoing conflict in West Asia.”

Statement regarding ship bound for Kandla, India ⬇️

🔗 https://t.co/CdtmMXAdPY pic.twitter.com/xVK9AymYn2

— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) March 11, 2026

The ministry also reiterated that “targeting commercial shipping and endangering innocent civilian crew members, or otherwise impeding freedom of navigation and commerce, should be avoided”.

It added that “precious lives, including those of Indian citizens, have already been lost in multiple such attacks in the earlier phase of this conflict and the intensity and lethality of the attacks only seems to be increasing”.

In a press conference on Wednesday, the ministry had said that two Indians had been killed and one was missing in incidents involving merchant ships since the conflict began.

Mayuree Naree had left Khalifa Port in the United Arab Emirates and was traversing the Strait of Hormuz when it was hit by a projectile, the Hindustan Times reported.

The attack caused a fire and damaged the engine room. Three crew members were missing and believed to be trapped inside. The ship’s operator said that 20 crew members had been evacuated to Oman and that it was working with the authorities to rescue the missing crew, The Indian Express reported.

The conflict in West Asia began on February 28 when the United States and Israel launched an attack on the Iranian government. Tehran has retaliated by launching missiles and drones at targets in the Gulf, including US bases and major cities in the region.

Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

A man was arrested after he opened fire at a wedding function in Jammu on Wednesday, targeting former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, ANI reported.

Farooq Abdullah was unharmed in the incident, which took place in the Greater Kailash area when he and Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary were leaving the event, the Hindustan Times reported.

The person arrested has been identified as 63-year-old Kamal Singh Jamwal, ANI quoted the Jammu and Kashmir Police as saying.

Allah is kind. My father had a very close shave. The details are sketchy at the moment but what is known is that a man with a loaded pistol was able to get within point blank range & discharge a shot. It was only the close protection team that deflected the shot & ensured that… https://t.co/hYBe64Eigl

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) March 11, 2026

“The security personnel of J&K Police and [National Security Guard], who were deployed with the protectee, immediately swung into action and thwarted the attempt,” the police said, adding that the firearm was recovered from the accused.

Jamwal told the police that he had been planning to kill the National Conference chief for the past 20 years, India Today reported.

“Today, I got the opportunity [to kill Farooq Abdullah],” India Today quoted him as saying. “But he was lucky to survive.”

Police have ruled out a terror angle and said the shooter appeared to be drunk at the time of the incident, the news outlet reported.

"For the last 20 years, have been wanting to kill Farooq Abdullah"

Kamal Singh Jamwal, the man who fired from point blank range at former J&K CM Farooq Abdullah at a wedding in Jammu last night. pic.twitter.com/u5LoYx84hG

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) March 12, 2026

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that it was the National Conference president’s “close protection team that deflected the shot and ensured that the assassination attempt failed”.

“My father had a very close shave,” Omar Abdullah said in a social media post. “There are more questions than answers at the moment, including but not limited to how someone was able to get this close to a Z+ NSG protected former CM.”

Describing the incident as a major security lapse, Choudhary said that the police should explain how it happened, The Hindu reported.

Narinder Tiwana was a teenager when his father first used a light motor to draw out groundwater for their fields in Punjab’s Patiala district.

In a few years, however, the 3 horsepower motor pump was struggling. “So, we purchased a 5 hp motor,” the 51-year-old farmer from Dittupur village said. “When that motor failed, we bought a more powerful one.”

But over the years, the water table kept dropping. Today, Tiwana said he uses 20-25 hp motor pumps. “And yet we are struggling to get water,” he said. “Every year, the water goes down by three feet.”

His assessment is borne out by data. According to a study, the annual water table in Patiala, where rice is one of the two main crops, fell by around 188 % between 1996 and 2018.

Tiwana was looking for a way out of this crisis when he met Kahan Singh Pannu, a 64-year-old farmer who once served as secretary of agriculture for the Punjab government.

Since his retirement in 2020, Pannu has actively worked on innovative farming techniques on his own land and encouraged farmers to adopt them.

His evangelism is driven by a sense of urgency. “At this stage, we have to assume that there is no water left for cultivation in Punjab,” he said. “Only then can we save the future.”

An experiment with paddy

When Pannu asked Tiwana to experiment with a new technique of farming paddy, he decided “it would not hurt” if he tried it out on two acres of his 20 acre-land.

Tiwana did not flood the two acres with water and transplanted paddy saplings that had been grown in his nursery, a method that demands a large amount of water.

Instead, in June last year, he shaped the land into a row of narrow elevated soil beds, separated by deep furrows. The rice seeds were planted on the soil beds and the furrows filled with water.

“Only 50% of water is needed to grow rice this way as compared to traditional paddy farming,” said Tiwana.

At the time of harvest in October, Tiwana was not disappointed. “I got a yield of around 24 quintals on one acre, which is about the same with traditional methods,” he said.

Bahadur Singh, a farmer from Amloh village of Punjab’s Fatehgarh Sahib district, also benefited from moving to the less water-intensive technique. “A farmer incurs a cost of Rs 5,000 per acre to transplant rice saplings in puddled water,” he explained. “But in this method, the seeds are planted by a machine which costs less than Rs 1,000 per acre.”

As Punjab stares at the grim prospect of running out of water, farmers in the agrarian state are beginning to experiment with a handful of solutions, with support from scientists. However, scaling up remains an uphill task.

The crisis

Punjab comprises only 1.5% of the country’s geographical area, but is essential to India’s food security. One of the three states where the country’s policymakers introduced the transformative agricultural practices under the ‘Green Revolution’ in the 1960s, Punjab produces nearly 24% of the total rice and 49% of the total wheat produced in the country.

Since groundwater irrigates 71% of Punjab’s total agricultural land, continuous cultivation of water-intensive crops like paddy has adversely impacted the state’s groundwater resources.

Punjab grows rice on over 32 lakh hectares of its total 36 lakh hectares of agricultural land in kharif season, from June to October. Most farmers then sow wheat in the second agricultural season that extends from October-November to March-April.

According to a 2020 report by the Ministry of Jal Shakti’s Central Ground Water Board, Punjab’s surface groundwater – available at a depth of 100 metres – might vanish by 2029.

If the exploitation of groundwater resources continues, the availability could plunge below 300 metres by 2039. At that level, the groundwater water will be as good as useless as the extraction of the groundwater would become unaffordable and the quality of water would not be suitable for irrigation.

The signs are not encouraging. In October 2021, a joint central-state government report revealed that around 78% of Punjab's groundwater resource base is over-exploited.

Saving costs

Pannu, the former civil servant, has been aware of Punjab’s agricultural crisis throughout his career.

In 2009, as a bureaucrat, he drafted a law that prohibits farmers from sowing paddy seeds in nurseries in April at the height of summer and transplanting the seedlings before the arrival of monsoon, around June 10. That was able to bring down the requirement of water drastically.

“When I was in the administration, I tried to carry out some interventions at the policy level,” he said. “Over the years, they proved to be beneficial for saving the water.”

Pannu cultivates paddy on around 17 acres of land in Jai Nagar village of Patiala, using the technique of seeding rice on elevated beds that he hopes other farmers will take up soon.

In the last three years, around 60 farmers have tried this paddy growing method, called seeding of rice on beds, Pannu told Scroll.

But only large and medium landholding farmers have shown interest. “Marginal or small farmers always adopt a new technique once they are sure about it. Their risk-taking capacity is very less,” explained Pannu.

Though the technique has been recommended by Punjab’s premier agriculture research institute Punjab Agricultural University, scientists say that claims that it can bring down the water usage for paddy cultivation by 50 or 75 % is premature.

“It’s a big claim and needs a lot more research. But the fact is that the water required for irrigation under this method is relatively low,” said a scientist at Punjab Agricultural University, wishing to remain anonymous as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

A search for solutions

Dr Ajmer Singh Dhatt, director of research at Punjab Agricultural University, told Scroll that the institution recommends a host of solutions to bring down the use of water.

One of them is the direct seeding of rice. As with Pannu’s technique, this does not involve transplanting paddy seedlings from a nursery into a puddled field. Instead, rice seeds are sown directly into moist soil.

According to data from the university, in the first year of Covid-19 pandemic the area of paddy plantations that used direct seeding jumped from 5.4 lakh hectares to 6 lakh hectares. One reason was that it needs less labour.

“There was a lack of labourers owing to the lockdown. Therefore, the farmers adopted this method,” said Pannu.

Among those farmers who tried this on a patch of 5-6 acres was farmer Bahadur Singh’s father, Balbir Singh. “It needed less water but we faced a perpetual weed problem,” the 71-year-old farmer said.

Scientists at Punjab Agricultural University assert that the direct seeding of rice saves 10-20 % of water in comparison to the traditional method, but admitted that it leads to “the presence of weeds of diverse flora”, thereby restricting its adoption on a large scale.

Open to innovation

Agricultural experts say the alarming water crisis has led a section of Punjab’s farmers to become responsive to innovation.

Dhatt, the director of research at Punjab Agricultural University, said, “Punjab's farmers are very innovative. Whatever new techniques we develop, they test it and if it's performing better, they adopt it.”

Two years ago, for example, Balbir Singh moved to seeding rice on elevated beds – like Tiwana. “Not only is the need of water less, there is no problem of weeds eating up the crop,” he explained.

He told Scroll that he has been trying to shift to sustainable agricultural practices for years now and is open to experimentation. “On 23 acres of my land, I cultivate only those rice varieties which take only 120 days to grow and consume less water,” he said. “The lack of water here is a serious concern.”

Need intervention

For decades, experts have warned Punjab farmers of breaking out of the monoculture of wheat-paddy cultivation owing to the depleting water resources and increasing input costs.

However, the cycle is hard to break as paddy and wheat are among the only few crops for which the central government offers a minimum support price or MSP. “It’s not only the MSP but the mechanization and ease of cultivation of wheat and paddy [that make the crops attractive],” said Dhatt of Punjab Agricultural University.

The farmers are also responding to the high demand from the central government, because “a large volume of rice is being exported,” Dhatt said. With a global market share of 30-40 %, India's the world's largest exporter of rice.

“Even if a farmer decides to quit cultivating water-guzzling paddy and cultivates a less water-intensive crop, it will take at least three years for farmland to adapt to the new crop and produce optimum yield,” said Balwinder Singh, a small farmer in Sirhind city. “Who will support the farmer and his family for those three years?”

At the state level, the Punjab government has tried to incentivise innovative cultivation techniques which ostensibly require less water and input cost.

In 2022, the Aam Aadmi Party-led government announced a bonus of Rs 1,500 per acre to farmers who take up direct sowing of rice instead of transplantation and flooding methods that consume a lot of water. According to Pannu, a similar kind of intervention is needed for the seeding of rice on beds method. “Someone in the government needs to wake up,” he said.

India’s crude oil and gas supplies remain secure despite disruptions caused by the conflict in West Asia, the Union government said on Wednesday.

Sujata Sharma, the joint secretary of the petroleum and natural gas ministry, said that domestic liquified petroleum gas consumers would receive their cylinders within about two and a half days of booking them and warned against panic buying.

Domestic LPG production has risen by 25%, prioritising household consumers, while non-domestic supplies are directed to essential sectors such as hospitals and educational institutes, she reiterated.

She said that domestic LPG prices have risen because of global supply pressures, adding that without the government’s intervention, they would have been significantly higher.

In Delhi, a 14.2 kg domestic cylinder now costs Rs 913, while a 19 kg commercial cylinder is priced at Rs 1,883.

India consumes about 55 lakh barrels of crude oil per day, the official said, adding that the quantity secured on Wednesday exceeded what would normally arrive through the Strait of Hormuz “during this period”.

Nearly 70% of crude imports now come through routes outside the Strait of Hormuz, compared with 55% earlier, reducing the risk of disruption, the official said.

“Our refineries are operating at the highest capacity utilisation,” Sharma said. “Some are operating at more than 100% of their capacity.”

Currently, two crude oil cargoes and two liquefied natural gas shipments are on their way to India, the official added.

The comments came as Japan and Germany on Wednesday announced that they will tap into their oil reserves amid fuel supply disruption and rising global oil prices triggered by the conflict.

Global oil prices crossed the $100 per barrel-mark on Monday. This was the highest level since July 2022.

By Wednesday, the price of benchmark Brent crude had fallen to about $90 per barrel. It was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

Two Indians dead, one missing, says MEA

Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs confirmed on Wednesday that two Indians had died and one remains missing amid the conflict in West Asia.

Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the casualties occurred when Indian citizens aboard merchant vessels came under attack in the conflict-affected waters, with several others also getting injured, including one in Israel and another in Dubai.

Jaiswal said that the safety and welfare of India’s diaspora, numbering about 10 million in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, remains the government’s “utmost priority”.

The conflict in West Asia began when Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The joint attacks by Israel and the US on Iran came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

The April 10 elections to the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council have been postponed, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma announced. This came a day after two persons were killed in suspected police firing in the West Garo Hills district amid clashes between tribal and non-tribal groups.

Ethnic faultline widened after the council issued a notification barring non-tribal persons from contesting the polls scheduled to take place on April 10. Protests erupted on Monday, when the nomination process began, against non-tribal persons being allowed to contest the polls.

On Wednesday, the Meghalaya High Court set aside the notification that made a Scheduled Tribe certificate mandatory to contest the polls. Read on.

The Supreme Court directed the Centre and state governments to ensure that three experts who were involved in drafting a chapter about “corruption in the judiciary” in a now-withdrawn textbook are not associated with other curriculum projects.

An affidavit by the National Council of Educational Research and Training said that visiting Professor Michel Danino had supervised the drafting of the chapter, and educator Suparna Diwakar and legal researcher Alok Prasanna Kumar were also involved in the process.

The court said that either the three did not have “reasonable knowledge about the Indian judiciary”, or they knowingly misrepresented facts. The bench directed the Union government, states and universities “to dissociate three of them forthwith and not to assign any responsibility which involves public funds”. Read on.

The Supreme Court allowed life support to be withdrawn for a 31-year-old man who has been in a permanent vegetative state since 2013. This was the first instance in which the court’s directions on passive euthanasia, laid down in a 2018 judgement, have been applied.

The bench passed the order on a plea filed by the family of Harish Rana, who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in August 2013 after falling from the fourth floor of a building in Chandigarh. Rana’s family had approached the court seeking permission to withdraw life-sustaining treatment.

The court also recommended that the Union government bring in comprehensive legislation on passive euthanasia. Read on.

The Assam government will rename the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital as the Barpeta Medical College and Hospital, dropping the name of the fifth president. Ahmed is the only person from the state to have held the post.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the decision was taken because all other government medical colleges in the state “were named in relation to the geographical entities”. He said that because the college was named after Ahmed, people would mistakenly believe that the institute was a private institute.

Sarma added that the Cabinet has decided to name another institution “befitting the stature” of Ahmed. Read on.

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The Indian stock market on Wednesday extended its losses amid concerns surrounding the conflict in West Asia.

The benchmark Sensex index ended the day down by more than 1,340 points, which was 1.7%, lower than the previous day’s closing. The Nifty fell by 1.6% to close the session below 23,900 points.

Stock markets had begun to slide on March 2 after the conflict began.

The India VIX index, which measures volatility in the market, spiked more than 11.3% on Wednesday.

Across Asia, major stock indices were mixed on Wednesday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 0.2% lower, while Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.4%.

Rupee plunges

The Indian rupee also weakened on Wednesday by 19 paise to close at 92.04 against the US dollar, PTI reported. The currency had closed at 91.8 on Tuesday.

Global oil prices have surged due to the conflict in West Asia, with the benchmark Brent crude rising from about $72 per barrel on February 27, just before the conflict began, to just below $90 per barrel by Wednesday.

On Monday, global oil prices had briefly crossed the $100-per-barrel mark, the highest since July 2022.

Global oil prices have risen by about 50% since Israel and the United States attacked Iran on February 28. The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption traverses the maritime chokepoint.

The conflict in West Asia began after Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The Congress on Wednesday described remarks by the United States that Washington had “temporarily permitted” India to accept Russian oil as a “capitulation certificate” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described India as a “good actor” that had previously stopped buying sanctioned Russian oil amid Moscow’s war on Ukraine. She said that, as a short-term measure, the US had permitted India to accept Russian oil that was already on ships at sea.

“So as we work to appease this temporary gap of oil supply around the world because of the Iranians, we have temporarily permitted them to accept that Russian oil,” she said.

After the US Treasury Secretary, it is now the turn of President Trump's Press Secretary to give Mr. Modi a capitulation certificate.

According to her, the Modi Govt behaved well by agreeing to stop imports of oil from Russia, and as a reward it has now been allowed to do so… pic.twitter.com/njv5iSoJyf

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) March 11, 2026

The remarks by Leavitt prompted criticism from the Opposition.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the US statement suggested that the Modi government had “behaved well” by agreeing to stop imports of Russian oil and had been rewarded with permission to buy it for 30 days.

The Congress also criticised the US statement from its official social media account, questioning why the Indian government had not objected to what it described as a “blatant insult to our sovereignty and dignity”.

The party asked why India’s energy decisions appeared to be dictated externally and urged the government to respond.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says the United States has PERMITTED India to accept Russian oil and calls Indians GOOD ACTORS.

Read that again.

👉PERMITTED
👉GOOD ACTORS

Why is the Government of India not objecting to this blatant insult to our sovereignty and… pic.twitter.com/Ep3bqsWOYt

— Congress (@INCIndia) March 11, 2026

On March 5, the US had granted Indian refiners a 30-day waiver to buy Russian oil stranded at sea amid the conflict in West Asia.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the decision was a short-term measure to keep oil supplies flowing globally amid disruptions because of the conflict.

He described India as an “essential partner” of the US and said Washington expected New Delhi to increase purchases of American oil. The temporary waiver, he said, would ease pressure on global markets caused by disruptions linked to Iran.

Global oil prices have spiked due to the conflict in West Asia, with escalating tensions raising fears of disruptions to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

Amid the conflict, global oil prices had briefly crossed the $100-per-barrel mark on Monday, the highest since July 2022. By Wednesday, the benchmark Brent crude had fallen about $90 per barrel.

The recent waiver follows earlier tensions between the US and India over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian crude oil.

The Trump administration had in August imposed a punitive levy on India for buying oil from Russia amid the Ukraine war. This had taken the combined US tariff rate to 50%.

On February 7, Trump issued an executive order to remove the additional 25% punitive tariff on imports from India over New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil. This brought the effective US tariff rate on Indian imports to 18% after the interim trade deal was agreed to.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Tuesday that the state government has decided to rename the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital as Barpeta Medical College and Hospital.

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was the fifth president of the country and the only person from Assam to have held the post.

Sarma claimed at a press conference that the decision was taken because all other government medical colleges in the state “were named in relation to the geographical entities”, such as the Gauhati Medical College and Dhubri Medical College.

“But somehow Barpeta Medical College was named as Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said. “That has led to some confusion.”

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College will be renamed as Barpeta Medical College & Hospital. pic.twitter.com/YPNlbbeQGk

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) March 10, 2026

Sarma claimed that because the college was named after Ahmed, many people would mistakenly believe that the institute was a private one.

The chief minister added that although the state Cabinet has decided to rename the college, it has “also taken a decision to name another institution befitting the stature of former President of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed”. He said that the Cabinet has authorised him to do so immediately.

The medical college is affiliated with Srimanta Sankardeva University of Health Sciences. It has been offering undergraduate medical courses since 2012 and postgraduate courses since 2019, PTI reported.

Ahmed was the president from August 24, 1974, to February 11, 1977, and a Union minister in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Wednesday said that the April 10 elections to the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council have been postponed, India Today NE reported.

The statement came a day after two persons were killed in suspected police firing in the West Garo Hills district amid tensions surrounding the nomination process.

The decision to postpone the election was taken “keeping sentiments of the people in mind”, the chief minister was quoted as saying by Highland Post. “We will sit and decide how to take the procedure ahead, but till then the decision has been made...” he added.

The firing on Tuesday took place in the Chibinang area after a clash broke out between tribal and non-tribal groups in connection with the polls, the police said.

Both of those killed were non-tribal residents, West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Vibhor Aggarwal told Scroll.

Tensions had been simmering in the West Garo Hills between tribal and non-tribal communities after a Garo man died after being attacked by unidentified assailants in January. The man was a member of ACHIK, a non-governmental organisation that had visited an allegedly illegal stone quarry in the Rajabala area to “inspect” activities there.

Ethnic faultlines widened after the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council issued a notification barring non-tribal persons from contesting the election to the council.

The notification made it mandatory for all candidates to possess a Scheduled Tribe certificate. Leaders of non-tribal communities have described the mandate as an unconstitutional decision to deprive them of their rights.

On Tuesday, the Meghalaya High Court set aside the notification, which required candidates to submit a Scheduled Tribe certificate with their nomination papers.

The nomination process began on Monday, after which protests had erupted in the region against non-tribal persons being allowed to contest the polls.

On Monday, a mob of about 50 persons assaulted former Phulbari MLA Esmatur Mominin when he was going to the district commissioner’s office to file his nomination for the election. This led to a night curfew being imposed in 37 sensitive villages of the district.

High Court quashes tribal certificate rule

The High Court on Tuesday set aside the notification that made submitting a Scheduled Tribe certificate compulsory for candidates filing nomination papers for elections to the council.

The court held that the notification could not pass legal scrutiny under the 1951 Assam and Meghalaya Autonomous Districts Constitution of District Councils Rules, which govern district council elections and the framework for autonomous district councils under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

A voter had challenged the notification in the High Court, arguing that it violated the provisions of the 1951 rules that govern the qualifications of electors and candidates in district council polls.

The court observed that ever since the district council was formed, the two rules have remained unchanged, preserving “the right of every enrolled voter either tribal or non-tribal to be qualified to be a member or voter”.

The two rules are Rule 8 that say that a person entitled to vote in the district council election is also qualified to be a member. Rule 128 lays down qualifications to be a voter.

“…since its inception in the list of elected members from 1952 onwards, non-tribals have featured and are present,” the court noted. “It is a well-established fact, that non-tribals residing in the concerned constituencies have been participating in, and have also been elected to the council as members.”

The court observed that the notification had sought to change the situation because of a “change in demographics” and limit participation only to members of the Scheduled Tribe community.

The High Court noted that the notification had been issued based on a resolution of the Executive Committee and under powers purported to be derived under Paragraph 2 of the Sixth Schedule.

However, the court said that the Executive Committee is only allowed to refer proposals to the District Council for approval and does not have the authority to frame rules on its own.

It observed that the notification had been issued only at the level of the Executive Committee and had not been placed before the District Council for approval.

The notification “to have effect in law would also have to pass the rigours of Rule 72”, which states that rules are to be made by the District Council and compulsorily need the governor’s assent.

In view of this, the court held that the notification could not pass legal scrutiny and set it aside.

The Garo Hills Autonomous District Council has 30 constituencies, out of which elections are held for 29 seats. The Meghalaya governor nominates the remaining member.

In at least five of these constituencies located along the plains, Bengali-speaking or Bengali-origin Muslims influence the election results. Muslims comprise more than 70% of the population in this region, The Hindu reported.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed life support to be withdrawn for a 31-year-old man who has been in a permanent vegetative state since 2013, Bar and Bench reported.

This was the first instance in which the court’s directions on passive euthanasia, laid down in a 2018 judgement, have been applied.

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan passed the order while hearing a plea filed by the family of Harish Rana, who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in August 2013 after falling from the fourth floor of a building in Chandigarh. He has been in a vegetative state since then.

In 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court had recognised and given sanction for passive euthanasia, and allowed living wills or advance directives.

In that judgement, the court had ruled that the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to live with dignity. The Supreme Court had held that the constitutional right includes the smoothening of the process of dying in case of a terminally ill patient or a person in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.

Rana’s family had approached the court seeking permission to withdraw life-sustaining treatment in the form of clinically assisted nutrition and hydration administered through a PEG tube.

A Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastronomy tube is a device inserted through the abdominal wall directly into the stomach to deliver nutrition, fluids and medication.

On Wednesday, the court noted that continuing the treatment was only prolonging Rana’s biological existence without any therapeutic improvement, Live Law reported.

It also observed that both the primary and secondary medical boards, along with Rana’s parents, had reached the opinion that the clinically assisted nutrition and hydration should be discontinued as it was not in the best interest of the patient.

The court stated that when primary and secondary boards have certified withdrawal of life support, there is no need for the court’s intervention, Live Law reported. However, it added that since this was the first case to reach the court, it was appropriate to examine the matter.

The bench then directed that the withdrawal of life support must be carried out in a dignified manner.

It also recommended that the Union government bring in comprehensive legislation on passive euthanasia.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to Bhojpuri singer and satirist Neha Singh Rathore in a case pertaining to a social media post about the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, Bar and Bench reported.

The court had granted her interim protection from arrest on January 7. On Tuesday, a bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and AS Chandurkar made the interim protection absolute, according to Bar and Bench.

The case against Rathore was filed based on a complaint in Lucknow. The singer and activist was booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to endangering national unity and sovereignty, and promoting enmity between groups, as well as under the Information Technology Act.

In the social media post in question, Rathore had said that the April 22 Pahalgam attack was an intelligence and security failure on the part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government. She had also claimed in the video that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would seek votes in Bihar in the name of the attack just as he allegedly did after the 2019 Pulwama terror attack.

After the case was filed, Rathore had moved the Allahabad High Court seeking that the first information report be quashed, but the court rejected her plea. She then approached the Supreme Court, which also declined to set aside the case.

Rathore then approached the High Court again, seeking anticipatory bail. On December 6, the High Court refused to grant her relief, saying that she had made “disrespectful” comments about the prime minister and had posted the video at a crucial time after the terror attack.

The singer eventually moved the Supreme Court.

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that a new oil refinery will be set up in Texas, with investment from the country’s “partners in India” and the Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate Reliance Industries.

The company, America First Refining, would set up the “first new US oil refinery in 50 years” in Texas’ Brownsville, the US president added.

The announcement came as global oil prices have spiked amid the conflict in West Asia, with escalating tensions raising fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

“This is a historic $300 billion deal,” Trump said in a social media post. “The biggest in US history, a massive win for American workers, energy and the great people of South Texas.”

He added: “Thank you to our partners in India, and their largest privately held energy company, Reliance, for this tremendous investment.”

It remains unclear what role Reliance Industries will play in the project or how much it has invested.

President Donald J. Trump announces that America First Refining is opening the FIRST new U.S. Oil Refinery in 50 YEARS in Brownsville, Texas. 🇺🇸

This is what AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE looks like. 💪 pic.twitter.com/UTOW7wECCI

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 10, 2026

America First Refining said in a press release that the company had received a nine-figure investment earlier this year from a global “supermajor” energy company, valuing the project at a ten-figure level. The company did not publicly identify the investment partner in the release.

The tensions in West Asia began on February 28 after Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

Amid the conflict, global oil prices had briefly crossed the $100-per-barrel mark on Monday, the highest since July 2022. By Wednesday, the benchmark Brent crude had fallen below $90 per barrel.

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

On February 4, the $300 billion Indian IT sector faced a moment of reckoning.

The country’s benchmark IT stocks index slumped nearly 6%, reacting to Anthropic’s release of its Claude Cowork agentic plugin.

The new plugins are designed to automate precisely the high-volume, repetitive knowledge work that has been the bread and butter of Indian IT: contract reviews, regulatory compliance tracking, and sales forecasting, among other things. The stock sell-off was triggered by fears that clients could now use AI for such tasks instead of outsourcing them to companies in India.

This was the first concrete sign of AI’s long-feared threat to the industry, which makes for 10% of India’s GDP and directly employs 5 million people.

Indian IT firms have been preparing for this eventuality. Still, experts who have observed the industry closely believe many of these companies and their services will soon become obsolete. AI won’t kill the entire sector, they said, but only the companies that innovate and adapt to AI quickly will thrive in the future.

“The math is simple: If a U. company can automate legal contract reviews internally using Claude Cowork or OpenAI Codex, why would they pay for a 50-person team in Bengaluru to do it?” Ishan Talathi, co-founder of Pune-based cloud infrastructure firm CloudPe, told Rest of World. “The Indian IT model is built on man-day billing; we charge for bodies on projects. That model is now facing existential pressure.”

Over the past four decades, India has become the “back office of the world”, recruiting affordable labour in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune to execute low-end tech-related tasks for clients in North America and Europe. The cost of labour in India can be 60%–80% cheaper than in the West.

Talathi believes up to half of traditional outsourcing work is directly exposed to extinction by AI, with areas like contract reviews, compliance documentation, data processing, routine coding, and testing being the most vulnerable.

The business model shift “forces an overdue evolution from cost arbitrage to genuine innovation, which is healthy, [but] a mismanaged transition could devastate urban economies, real estate, and ancillary services,” Talathi warned.

Typically, IT services companies rely on billable hours – charging clients for the amount of time spent on projects. With a smaller workforce and more AI, “the timelines of engagements will massively shrink further, impacting billing”, Yugal Joshi, partner at global research firm Everest Group, told Rest of World.

In recent years, companies have been trying to insulate their business models. Market leaders Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys have been integrating generative AI and machine learning into their core business processes and offerings.

By mid-2025, India’s top five IT companies had trained more than 250,000 employees on AI.

TCS – the biggest Indian IT firm and the first and only one to publicly disclose this information so far – pegs its annualised AI services revenue at $1.8 billion. That’s around 5% of the company’s quarterly consolidated revenue.

“Large enterprises don’t engage Indian IT firms to run isolated tasks; they outsource complex, interdependent systems with accountability attached,” Nirmit Biswas, senior research analyst at Market Research Future, told Rest of World. “AI tools may shorten delivery cycles, but they don’t replace vendor responsibility for uptime, integration, compliance, or transformation outcomes.”

Biswas estimates only “roughly a fifth of the effort embedded in traditional IT delivery” to be affected by AI. “That does not translate into a similar proportion of revenue at risk,” he said.

As of now, experts said, junior roles that execute repetitive, standardised tasks are most vulnerable. Mid-level jobs with low specialisation could also become redundant in the next decade. Workers who upskill will likely continue to earn good salaries.

“AI should not be viewed as an existential risk to Indian IT, but as a filter,” Biswas said.

Some believe that AI’s threats may push the Indian IT industry into a better direction.

“The scaremongering has some merit, and not every tech services firm will survive,” Joshi said. “The impact will not depend on an industrywide AI impact, but the strategic initiatives each service provider undertakes. Speed to partner with AI vendors, scaling solutions, and internal operating model transformation will be crucial.”

Ananya Bhattacharya is a reporter for Rest of World covering South Asia's tech scene. She is based in Mumbai, India.

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the formation of an appellate tribunal composed of former High Court chief justices and judges to hear appeals against exclusions from voter lists in West Bengal following a special intensive revision exercise in the state, Live Law reported.

A person whose claim for inclusion in the electoral rolls has been rejected by a judicial officer can approach the appellate tribunal, Bar and Bench quoted court as saying.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi passed the order after concerns were raised about the lack of an independent appellate mechanism to deal with appeals against the rejection of their claims by judicial officers.

The court recalled its February 24 order that said that orders passed by judicial officers would not be subjected to appeal before an executive or administrative forum, Live Law reported.

The bench directed that the Election Commission will bear the expenses for the functioning of the appellate body and for honorariums to the judicial officers involved in the exercise, Bar and Bench reported.

The bench was hearing a batch of petitions against the revision of electoral rolls in the state.

During the hearing, the court criticised the petitioners for raising questions about the competence of judicial officers who are adjudicating the claims, Live Law reported.

The chief justice was quoted as saying: “Your application is premature and it shows as if you don’t have trust. How did you dare such applications are filed? No one should dare question the judicial officers.”

However, the bench allowed the setting up of the appellate body.

West Bengal is among the 12 states and Union Territories where the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is underway.

On February 28, the Election Commission published the final electoral roll for West Bengal, indicating the exclusion of more than 61 lakh voters.

However, the process continues with about 60 lakh “doubtful and pending” cases remaining “under adjudication” based on their objections to their exclusions from the draft rolls published in December.

The names of those approved by judicial officers will be added to the rolls through a supplementary list.

On February 20, the Supreme Court ordered that judicial officers of the rank of district judge or additional district judge be appointed to help complete the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in the state amid a tussle between the Trinamool Congress government and the Election Commission.

Four days later, the court allowed judges from Odisha and Jharkhand to also be deployed to decide on the claims and objections raised during the process.

Also read: As polls knock, why is Bengal’s SIR in a state of chaos with no end in sight?

The Union government invoked the Essential Commodities Act, directing refineries to regulate the production, supply and distribution of natural gas following disruptions due to the West Asia conflict. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas stated that the conflict has constrained shipments of liquefied natural gas through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

In view of this, the ministry stated that the supply of natural gas to several sectors will be treated as a priority allocation. The sectors include piped natural gas for domestic use, compressed natural gas for transport, liquefied petroleum gas production and pipeline compressor fuel. Read on.

Vaishnavi Rathore explains why the US-Iran conflict will hurt India more than China.

The Congress moved a motion seeking to remove Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla from office. The Opposition has accused Birla of being partisan and contended that his actions “constitute a serious danger to the proper functioning” of the House.

The Congress alleged that Birla had prevented Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi from speaking in the House, made “unwarranted allegations” against women MPs and suspended Opposition legislators for an entire session for raising matters of public concern.

Birla “openly espouses the version of the ruling party on all controversial matters”, the Opposition alleged. Birla has recused himself from the proceedings of the House until the motion is considered. Read on.

Two persons were killed in suspected police firing in Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills district amid tensions surrounding the nomination process of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council election. The incident took place after a clash broke out between tribal and non-tribal groups.

Both of those killed were non-tribal residents, the deputy commissioner told Scroll. A curfew has been imposed in the district, mobile internet suspended and the Army deployed.

Ethnic faultline widened after the council issued a notification barring non-tribal persons from contesting the polls scheduled to take place on April 10. Leaders of non-tribal groups have described the order as an unconstitutional decision to deprive them of their rights.

Protests erupted on Monday, when the nomination process began, against non-tribal persons being allowed to contest the polls. Read on.

The Supreme Court reiterated its support for the Uniform Civil Code while hearing a petition challenging provisions of the Muslim personal law that allegedly discriminate against women. The bench verbally observed that declaring personal laws void would create a legislative vacuum and that “it is best to defer it to legislative wisdom so that the legislature brings about a law on Uniform Civil Code”.

“This court has already recommended Uniform Civil Code,” it added.

The plea challenges the 1937 Muslim Personal Law Shariat Application Act, alleging that its provisions discriminate against women on matters such as succession. Read on.

United States President Donald Trump said that the US will hit Iran “twenty times harder” if Tehran stops the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said that the action he was promising was a “gift” from the US to China “and all of those nations that heavily use” the strategic waterway. “Hopefully, it is a gesture that will be greatly appreciated,” he said.

This came after several Asian countries introduced measures such as rationing fuel, shutting educational institutes and reducing the number of work days per week to save fuel and energy amid supply disruption and rising global oil prices. Read on.

Nachiket Deuskar explains how the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz directly hurts India’s energy security.

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Two persons were killed in suspected police firing in Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills district on Tuesday amid tensions surrounding the nomination process of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council election.

The firing took place in the Chibinang area after a clash broke out between tribal and non-tribal groups in connection with the election, West Garo Hills Superintendent of Police Abraham T Sangma was quoted as saying by PTI.

Both of those killed were non-tribal residents, West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Vibhor Aggarwal told Scroll.

Following the violence, a curfew has been imposed in the entire district, Aggarwal said. The Army has also been deployed.

The killing came hours after the administration on Tuesday suspended mobile internet services in the district for 48 hours.

Tensions had been simmering in the West Garo Hills between tribal and non-tribal communities after a Garo man died in January after being attacked by unidentified assailants. The man was a member of ACHIK, a non-governmental organisation that had visited an allegedly illegal stone quarry in the Rajabala area to “inspect” activities there.

Ethnic faultline also widened after the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council issued a notification barring non-tribal persons from contesting the election to the council scheduled on April 10.

The notification makes it mandatory for all candidates to possess a Scheduled Tribe certificate. Leaders of non-tribal communities have described the mandate as an unconstitutional decision to deprive them of their rights, The Hindu reported.

The nomination process of candidates for the election began on Monday. Protests have erupted in the region against non-tribal persons being allowed to contest the polls.

On Monday, a mob of about 50 persons assaulted former Phulbari MLA Esmatur Mominin when he was going to the district commissioner’s office to file his nomination for the election. This led to a night curfew being imposed in 37 sensitive villages of the district.

The Garo Hills Autonomous District Council has 30 constituencies, out of which elections are held for 29 seats. The Meghalaya governor nominates the remaining member.

In at least five of these constituencies located along the plains, Bengali-speaking or Bengali-origin Muslims influence the election results. Muslims comprise more than 70% of the population in this region.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Union government to frame a policy to ensure that those who suffered adverse side effects of the Covid-19 vaccine are fairly compensated, Bar and Bench reported.

The court said that the policy must be on a no-fault basis, which refers to a provision in law or insurance where the compensation for injuries, losses or damage is provided irrespective of who caused it.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta passed the directive on a writ petition filed by a couple who have claimed that their daughters died to adverse effects of the vaccine, Live Law reported.

The plea sought an investigation by an independent committee into the deaths of their daughters, along with directions to release autopsy and probe reports expeditiously, Bar and Bench reported.

The petition also urged that the parents be monetarily compensated, and sought directions to the government to frame guidelines for early detection and treatment of persons suffering from adverse side effects of vaccines.

On Tuesday, the court also held that existing mechanisms for monitoring adverse events following immunisation be continued and directed data to be placed in the public domain periodically, Bar and Bench reported.

The court clarified that the introduction of a compensation scheme should not be viewed as an “admission of liability” on the Union government’s part.

Further, the bench held that there was no requirement of setting up a new expert panel to examine the side effects of Covid-19 vaccinations.

“It is clarified that the judgement shall not preclude any person from pursuing remedy available in law,” the court added.

In September 2022, the Kerala High Court directed the National Disaster Management Authority to prepare guidelines for identifying deaths triggered by Covid-19 vaccination after-effects and for compensating the dependents of such persons.

The union government had then approached the Supreme Court, challenging the High Court order, by arguing that only Covid-19 was declared a disaster and not deaths linked to the vaccines administered against the disease.

The government had contended that this would mean there is no policy under the Disaster Management Act that grants compensation for such deaths, Bar and Bench reported. .

This plea by the Union government was heard together with the plea filed by the parents of two girls who died to due to side effects of the vaccine.

Also read: How India failed those who were harmed by the Covid-19 vaccine