India Joins Over 40 Countries in UK-led Meeting on Reopening Hormuz; SC Chides West Bengal After Judicial Officers Gheraoed; Is the Freedom to Express Oneself Going Down the Toilet?
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April 2, 2026
Anirudh S.K.
India on Thursday joined a meeting of more than 40 countries convened by the UK to discuss the crisis resulting from Iran’s retaliatory blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the possibility of placing increased diplomatic as well as economic pressure on Tehran to restore shipping through the vital waterway. Foreign secretary Vikram Misri in his remarks at the meeting underlined the “principles of freedom of navigation and unimpeded transit through international waterways”. He noted the strait’s importance for India’s energy security – the vast majority of its LPG imports that meet 60% of national demand usually traverse the chokepoint, which is why the Iranian blockade quickly caused a crisis at home – and the fact that India is the only country to have lost mariners in attacks in the Gulf region. De-escalation and dialogue are the “way out of the crisis”, Misri also said.
The meeting did not produce a joint statement but Whitehall said in a chair’s statement that the countries – among whom the US did not figure, with President Donald Trump openly saying that it is up to those dependent on the strait to secure it and railing against Washington’s NATO allies – discussed increasing diplomatic pressure on Iran, including through the UN, and applying coordinated economic measures like sanctions in order to get Tehran to stop its blockade in response to the US-Israeli strikes against it.
With the RBI effecting measures to limit arbitrage and speculative trades betting against the rupee, the currency on Thursday saw its best day in over 12 and a half years, going up to 92.835 to the dollar before closing at 93.1, 1.8% higher on the day and above its record low of 95.21 plumbed on Monday. This caused Indian stocks to recoup the day’s losses although “fading hopes of a swift end to the Iran war stretched the losing streak to a sixth week” – with Trump saying the US would “hit them [the Iranians] extremely hard over the next two to three weeks” – Reuters reports.
Bloomberg reports that much of India is likely to face more heatwave days than usual until and through June, increasing the chances of power shortages as the country struggles with energy pressures further worsened by the ongoing war in West Asia.
In other news, Indian oil refiners are becoming the biggest importers of Venezuelan crude, with shipments to India increasing by four times in March and numbering more than those to the US. Two months ago, Trump had claimed that India will buy Venezuelan oil to replace its imports from Iran, even though they were already stopped by Modi in 2019. “Indian companies may continue to tap Venezuela’s oil supplies to weather disruptions triggered by the conflict” in West Asia, Bloomberg’s Lucia Kassai notes. India depends on imports to meet almost 90% of its crude oil needs and found itself in a difficult spot after the conflict broke out just as it decreased its Russian oil imports under pressure from Trump.
Seven judicial officers who were processing names still ‘under adjudication’ after the West Bengal special intensive revision were on Wednesday gheraoed for around eight hours in Malda by locals who were reportedly unhappy with the deletion of names from the voter rolls. They were rescued by police around midnight and their van was allegedly pelted with stones, though no one was hurt. Taking suo motu cognisance of the incident, the Supreme Court on Thursday said that what happened marked a challenge to its own authority and a “complete failure of the civil and police administration”. It directed the Election Commission to ask the CBI or the NIA to investigate. It also directed the Bengal police chief as well as Malda’s collector and police chief to show cause as to why action should not be taken against them. Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said he has “never seen such a politically polarised state”.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said “I have no powers left today” and that the Malda incident “is the fault of the EC”. Speaking in Murshidabad, Banerjee also alleged that the “game plan of the BJP is to impose President’s rule” in West Bengal. “Do not fall into the trap, do not obstruct judges,” she told a crowd. The BJP for its part said that the Trinamool Congress has “mobilised jihadi elements” to conduct “this unconstitutional, illegal agitation”. Meanwhile, protests against deletions continued to take place in the state where the last day for inclusion in the voter rolls is one week away, on April 9.
The Bengal DGP is far from the only officer whom the EC has transferred in the state:
