India imported 11 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, down from 13.14 million tonnes in the previous fiscal
As the Barack Obama administration tries to impress upon India and other nations to join in the US-led sanctions regime against Iran to isolate that country for its alleged nuclear weapons programme and reduce their energy dependence on Teheran, India's Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao noted that India's imports of Iranian oil has been on the decline and predicted it may dissipate even further.
The United States will soon impose more sanctions on Syria in response to a chemical attack blamed on President Bashar al-Assad's regime after an "overwhelming" successful military operation, the Trump administration officials said on Saturday.
Iran has offered discounts on crude oil price and free shipping if India agrees to buy more of its oil.
Western sanctions aimed at crippling Iranian finances by drying up buyers for its crude oil, had last year banned insurance cover to ships carrying Iranian oil.
India's involvement in the port development was not strictly under the international sanctions that had been imposed on Iran.
An oil crisis is set to further hit the fragile global economy.
Iran on Thursday ordered a release of an Indian tanker seized by it in Persian Gulf while carrying crude from Basrah in Iraq and taken to its Bandar Abbas Port 24 days ago.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday asked Iran to build "international confidence" in its nuclear programme by fully complying with the global obligations under NPT and cooperating with IAEA, shortly after Tehran slammed the UNSC for being "unjust and completely undemocratic".
The ultimate goal of the United States and its international partners is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.
Amid heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf, Britain on Sunday said it would not be "wise" for Israel to launch pre-emptive military strikes on Iran's atomic installations as it would have "enormous downsides."
With more than 5.2 million votes counted from the 50 million electorate, Rowhani had 52.30 percent of votes cast, Iran's interior ministry said.
It is time the political leaderships in this country arrived at a common ground over issues of foreign and security policy concerns. There has to be a greater communication between the government and the Opposition leaderships for the nation to present a unified face against the rest of the world, advises N Sathiya Moorthy.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's top oil firm, has bought as much as 3 million barrels of crude oil that Russia had offered at steep discount to prevailing international rates, sources said. The purchase, made through a trader, is the first since Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine that brought international pressure for isolating Putin administration. Sources aware of the matter said IOC bought Urals crude for May delivery at a discount of $20-25 a barrel to dated Brent.
Taking advantage of a Russian offer to sell its crude oil cheap and bear the cost of insurance and transportation, India may import as much as 2 million tonnes (mt), or roughly 15 million barrels of crude, from the sanctioned nation in 2022, Business Standard has learnt. This comes after reports that Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) bought 3 million barrels of Russian Urals from trader Vitol for May delivery. This will be on cost, insurance and freight (CIF) model, where the seller incurs the costs and pays the freight, including insurance charges.
Jaishankar said India will try to find common ground on trade issues during discussions with Pompeo.
Invoking India's "civilisational ties" with Iran, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew in to Tehran on Sunday on a two-day visit, saying his talks with the Iranian leadership would provide him an opportunity to advance the "strategic partnership" between the two countries.
The Union government will soon make amendments to the foreign trade policy (FTP) to enable exporters to claim export benefits for settling trade in rupees. These benefits are, so far, available for export payments received in foreign currencies. After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) unveiled a mechanism to settle international trade transactions in the local currency on Monday, exporters have been demanding that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry come up with a clarification on the matter.
Resisting US pressure to further scale down oil imports from sanction-hit Iran, India on Monday made it clear that it has to look at the issue involved beyond the energy trade as it has "vital" security stakes in the Gulf region.
On the eve of the most crucial round of talks between Iran and the world powers, the United States has said that Tehran has a choice to make in the coming weeks to address concerns about its military nuclear programme.
India's Ambassador to Washington, DC, Nirupama Rao and her team are doing everything to avoid American wrath, and the resultant legislation of sanctions, against India for not whole-heartedly joining the US-led efforts to isolate Iran. Aziz Haniffa reports
However, they put in Rs 2,744 crore in the debt markets during the period under review.
Security forces were called to the Olympic weightlifting arena on Tuesday after Iranian coaches reacted furiously when Georgia's Lasha Talakhadze beat Behdad 'Salimi' Salimikordasiabi with a world record tally in the men's super-heavyweights.
Trump described the agreement as the "worst" and "one-sided transactions" that America has ever entered into.
India's unabated tryst with Russian crude oil is slowly coming to an end. The time has come for Indian refiners to navigate, creatively, the choppy waters of the post-honeymoon period, and for Indian policymakers to take cognisance of the broader impact on India from the spillover of the Russian crisis - after Washington's warning to transgressors last week. Shipments from Russia to India have averaged over 1.8 million barrels a day since February, according to data from Paris-based market analytics firm Kpler. But much of the crude shipped to India was non-sanctioned because it traded below a price cap set by the US led G-7 nations in December.
The payment is on top of the $340 million it has already paid to the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Russia is among the top buyers of Indian tea, accounting for about 18 per cent of the industry's total exports.
In his opening remarks at the virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Modi also said that some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of their policy and the grouping must not hesitate to criticise them.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held wide-ranging talks with his visiting Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Wednesday against the backdrop of widespread anger in West Asia over controversial remarks on Prophet Mohammed made by two former Bharatiya Janata Party spokespersons.
The central government and the Reserve Bank of India have devised a country-specific plan towards implementation of overseas trade in rupee, people aware of the matter said. To start with, a small number of banks will be allowed to manage cross-border transactions in domestic currency with a particular country. "Small countries that are dollar-deficient have shown interest in doing trade in rupee.
Terror group Al Qaeda is "shaping" its regional affiliate in the Indian subcontinent to spread its operations into Jammu and Kashmir, Bangladesh and Myanmar, according to a UN report.
Italy, Greece, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey also figure in the list released by Pompeo, who said over 20 countries have cut their oil imports from Iran, reducing purchases by more than one million barrels per day.
The Iranian group OpenStadiums, which is campaigning for the right of women to attend sports fixtures in the Islamic Republic, said that some women were arrested near Azadi stadium on Thursday during the Esteghlal-Persepolis match.
'If the Iran nuke deal holds, Iran becomes a gateway to Afghanistan, and a better one than Pakistan because the route is not so mountainous. Correspondingly, I imagine Pakistan's value to the US will fall,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
Iran and the Islamic State are "competing for the crown of militant Islam," Netanyahu said.
The Geneva agreement is a signal, which at least Saudi Arabia and Israel are so reading, that normalisation of relations between US and Iran is not merely about the nuclear fuel cycle, says K C Singh.
