Desi Talk

www.desitalk.com – that’s all you need to know 9 INDIA June 27, 2025 India Will Ensure Domestic Fuel Supply Despite Middle East Tension I ndia will take measures to safeguard domestic fuel supplies, oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Sun- day, after U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites raised the risk of disruption of Middle Eastern oil and gas and soaring energy prices. Energy markets and investors were already on high alert since Israel launched airstrikes across Iran on June 13, fearing disruption particularly through the Strait of Hormuz. Around 20% of global oil and gas demand flows through the Strait that Iran has long threatened to close it to exert pressure on theWest. “We have been closely monitoring the evolving geo- political situation in the Middle East since the past two weeks…we have diversified our supplies in the past few years and a large volume of our supplies do not come through the Strait of Hormuz now,” Puri said on social media platform X. “Our Oil Marketing Companies have supplies of sev- eral weeks and continue to receive energy supplies from several routes. We will take all necessary steps to ensure stability of supplies of fuel to our citizens,” he said. India, the world’s third biggest oil importer and con- sumer, gets less than half of its average 4.8 million barrels per day of oil imports from the Middle East. Separately Puri told local news agency ANI that India would increase crude supplies from other sources if required. “We are in touch with all possible actors… It is our hope, and we all expect that the situation will result in calm and de-escalation rather than further escalation,” he said. Earlier in the day Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received a phone call from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in which he was briefed about the conflict between Iran and Israel, India’s foreign ministry said. - Reuters Indian Pilgrims Cross Chinese Border Into Tibet As Relations Thaw A religious pilgrimage from India into China facilitated by both governments has resumed for the first time in five years – the latest sign of a cautious thaw in the contentious relationship between the world’s two most populous nations. The first batch of Indian pilgrims taking part in the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra – named for the two Tibetan sacred sites the route traverses – left New Delhi on Sun- day morning and crossed the mountainous border into China’s Tibet Autonomous Region on Friday. The group of roughly 40 pilgrims acclimatized to the high Himalayan altitudes in the northern Indian state of Sikkim before setting off for a cross-border mountain pass 14,000 feet above sea level. The pilgrimage is set to conclude June 27 at Tibet’s Manasarovar Lake, in the shadow of Mount Kailash, a site Hindus believe to be the dwelling of the deity Lord Shiva. The sites are also sacred to adherents of other religions, including Buddhism and Jainism. Upender Rao, 64, a lawyer from Hyderabad in south- ern India, considers himself “most fortunate” to be one of 750 pilgrims chosen by lottery to take part in the trip, which India’s Foreign Ministry planned meticulously. “I am a devotee of Lord Shiva,” so “I want to see the world of Lord Shiva,” he said in a phone interview. “That’s my dream.” It is a dream that Rao has had to put on hold for the past five years. The 2020 pilgrimage was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, and subsequent pilgrimages were halted after June 2020, when Chinese and Indian soldiers clashed over disputed territory high in the Himalayas. At least four Chinese and 20 Indian soldiers died in the conflicts, which both sides fought without modern weapons in an apparent effort to avoid escalation. The Kailash Manasarovar pilgrimage has long served as a bellwether for the state of relations between In- dia and China, which have clashed sporadically for six decades along a disputed, 2,100-mile-long (3,400-kilome- ter-long) land border stretching from central Asia to the edges of Southeast Asia. The border is not the only politically fraught area the pilgrims traverse: Beijing imposes tight restrictions on religious freedom in Tibet, which China annexed in 1951 over the objections of India. Since 1959, India has hosted the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist religious leader, and the Tibetan government in exile. The pilgrimage, which crosses into Tibet, could inflame those sensitivities. According to Rao, the Indian Foreign Ministry’s predeparture briefing warned the pil- grims not to praise or talk about the Dalai Lama. Cooperation to facilitate the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra dates to the mid-20th century, when the pilgrimage was brought up during talks to settle a boundary line between the two countries. In the resulting 1954 Sino-Indian agreement, the lo- gistics of the pilgrimage were settled – but the location of the border was not. As tensions mounted over disputed territory, China invaded India in 1962. China’s decisive victory in the subsequent war brought China-India rela- tions, and the pilgrimage, to a halt. Nearly two decades later in 1981, a new generation of Chinese and Indian leaders negotiated to reopen the pilgrimage, talks that served as a precursor to negotiating a full renormalization of ties in 1988. Still, the countries failed to agree on a boundary line, and tense border standoffs – in 1987, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017 – re- mained a mainstay of India-China relations. After the clashes of 2020, which brought the bilateral relationship to its lowest point in four decades, China sealed the Tibetan border with India, while India banned 59 Chinese-made apps – including TikTok – and vowed to become self-reliant and separate itself from Chinese im- ports. India also increased its security engagement with the Quad, the informal diplomatic grouping of the United States, India, Japan and Australia, in a move toward coun- tering Chinese power and influence. At the same time, India and China have both backed away from further aggression. “There’s always a risk of unintended clashes” at the border, said Ashok Kantha, the Indian ambassador to China from 2014 to 2016. “I don’t think either side would like that to happen. Finding a modus vivendi, even though we may have our different interests that are not always convergent, is most desir- able.” Since the nadir of June 2020 – and minor clashes in 2021 and 2022 – the India-China relationship has shown signs of a slow recovery. Last October, the two sides an- nounced an agreement to resume regular border patrols and committed “to bring the relationship back to sound and steady development at an early date,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Visits between top officials, including Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, followed. Beijing and New Delhi both have touted the restora- tion of the Kailash Manasarovar pilgrimage as one of the chief diplomatic breakthroughs to emerge from the rap- prochement. China hopes the pilgrims will not only be “spiritually enriched but also enjoy hospitality of Chinese people,” Yu Jing, the spokeswoman of the Chinese Em- bassy in Delhi, said in a social media post. “From our side, there was interest” in resuming the pilgrimage, “because this resonates quite strongly at the popular level,” said Kantha, who worked on expanding pilgrimage routes during his tenure as ambassador. “The number of pilgrims is relatively small, but there is senti- mental value attached to” the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra. Yet an agreement such as this is “low-hanging fruit,” Kantha cautioned. The major geopolitical questions in the India-China relationship remain unresolved: Al- though last October’s agreement re-established buffer zones along the border, no progress has been made on demarcating the boundary line between the two coun- tries, and there has yet to be a drawdown from the high number of soldiers deployed to the border region by both PHOTO:REUTERS/Danish Ismail/File Photo India’s Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers stand guard at a check- point along a highway leading to Ladakh, at Gagangeer in Kashmir’s Ganderbal district June 17, 2020. By Nidhi Verma By Joshua Yang PHOTO:REUTERS/DENIS BALIBOUSE/FILE PHOTO Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas of India Hardeep Singh Puri speaks during the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 16, 2024. - Continued On Page 10