'India Has Adequate Energy Supplies': Union Minister Hardeep Puri Amid Iran-Israel Conflict
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Puri's remarks came as oil prices jumped sharply and stocks fell amid concerns over Israel's attack on Iranian nuclear and military targets.
Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, held a review meeting on Friday with the petroleum secretary and heads of Indian energy PSUs as oil prices jumped after Israel's unprecedented attack on Iran.
Taking to X, Puri said India's energy strategy is shaped by successfully navigating the trilemma of energy availability, affordability and sustainability under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'Held a periodic review with Secretary-@PetroleumMin and CMDs of India's energy PSUs. We have adequate energy supplies for the coming months," he added.
India's energy strategy is shaped by successfully navigating the trilemma of energy availability, affordability and sustainability under the dynamic leadership of PM Sh @narendramodi Ji.Held a periodic review with Secretary- @PetroleumMin and CMDs of India's energy PSUs.We have… pic.twitter.com/3dnmrHSG7B — Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 13, 2025
Oil prices jumped sharply and stocks fell amid concerns that Israel's attack on Iranian nuclear and military targets could escalate further and damage the flow of crude around the world, along with the global economy.
The S&P 500 was down 0.7% in early trading Friday and on track for its worst day in more than two weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 423 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 0.8%.
More than 40% of India's oil imports and half of the gas imports come from the Middle East. Russia is India's top source of crude oil, which is processed in refineries to produce fuels such as petrol and diesel.
Israel Strikes Iran Again
Meanwhile, Israel on Friday carried out a second round of airstrikes on Iran, further escalating tensions between the two nations. The overnight attacks reportedly targeted nuclear and military sites, along with residential buildings linked to Iranian officials.
According to Iranian state media, air defence systems were activated across multiple regions, including Tehran, in response to the latest attacks. Iran had earlier launched 200 drones in response to Israel's attack, which killed high-profile figures, including the Iranian Army Chief.
In Tehran, defence forces intercepted aerial 'targets." Activity was reported near Pasteur Square, a high-security area home to Iran's Supreme Leader and the presidential office, Iranian media reported.
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Mint
35 minutes ago
- Mint
Israel's attacks leave Iran's supreme leader exposed—with no good options
Israel's devastating attack on Iran has put the Islamic Republic in existential peril and exposed deep vulnerabilities in the intelligence services that have kept Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in power for nearly four decades. Tehran fired dozens of ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv Friday after Israeli warplanes carried out waves of strikes across Iran a day earlier, targeting the country's nuclear facilities and killing several of its highest-ranking commanders and senior scientists. Israel's attacks amounted to the most serious blow struck in a confrontation that erupted between the two longtime foes on Oct. 7, 2023. Iran has so far been unable to respond in kind. Most of the missiles it fired at Tel Aviv were intercepted or caused little damage. Now, Khamenei faces stark choices—and no good options. Iran's bruising fight with Israel has left its military weakened. Further retaliation risks being insufficient to deter future attacks and prompting Israel to hit back harder. Attacks on shipping in the Red Sea or other U.S. interests or personnel will likely draw an American response, something Khamenei has historically tried to avoid. Yielding to pressure and striking a nuclear deal with the U.S. that severely curbs Iran's enrichment capability will be seen among Khamenei's hard-line supporters, whom he has increasingly come to rely on, as an unacceptable capitulation. For decades, Khamenei was the architect behind Iran's military and political expansion in the Middle East, using the Revolutionary Guard and its network of allied Shiite militias. He secured his rule at home by building fierce loyalty among those who supported him, and a pervasive surveillance state to suppress those who didn't. Now, the octogenarian ruler who has led Iran since 1989 will likely spend the autumn of his life fighting—not to expand, but to salvage the Islamic Republic he helped build into a regional powerhouse. 'If he is honest with himself, he will admit that he has lost. Everything he has worked for is crumbling before his eyes," said Afshon Ostovar, associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. 'The ship that he stewarded has run aground." Khamenei has flaunted Iran's military might, but until recently, it remained untested. That changed with the attack by Hamas—an Iranian ally—on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, while waging war in Gaza, Israel has killed nearly a dozen senior Iranian military commanders, including, on Friday, the head of the Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces chief of staff and the commander who oversaw its ballistic missile program. Israel also crippled Iran's chief regional allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, while a third, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was toppled in December. Iranian Major Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in Israel's attack on the Islamic Republic. After building up a military presence in the region, including heavily armed militia fighters on the border with Israel, Khamenei and his senior advisers gravely underestimated Israel's willingness to confront it with force, said Hamidreza Azizi, visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, or SWP. Even as tensions rose so high that the U.S. earlier this week withdrew diplomatic personnel from Iraq, the top echelon of Iran's security establishment were apparently not placed in secure facilities. 'Most of them were targeted in their homes. It shows a level of overconfidence that is not comprehensible, really, in a situation like this," Azizi said. The way Israel has been able to penetrate Iranian intelligence and seemingly target its top officials at will is a problem for the supreme leader. Firstly, it makes Khamenei himself vulnerable to being targeted. 'If Netanyahu's goal actually is to eradicate the part of the nuclear program that can be weaponized, and to topple the regime, that will require a lot more," said Rasmus Christian Elling, associate professor of Iranian studies at the University of Copenhagen. 'And perhaps that's what we're going to see in the coming weeks," he said. Secondly, Khamenei's rule partly depends on being a guarantor of national security. For all its unpopularity at home, the Islamic Republic has for decades provided relative safety for its citizens from the wars and terrorist attacks that ravaged neighboring countries. Since Khamenei came to power shortly after an eight-year war with Iraq, one of the worst global wars of the past century, Iran has kept hostile forces away from its soil. Over the past decade, while Islamic State killed tens of thousands in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, the extremist group carried out four major attacks in Iran that killed roughly 150 people—fewer than it killed over the same period in France. The security structure that is now crumbling around Khamenei has been in place since the early days of the Islamic Republic. The revolutionaries behind the 1979 ouster of the American-backed shah vowed to protect their new theocratic state from the kind of uprising that they had just pulled off. To that end, they established the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a pervasive intelligence service. Israel has exposed both as increasingly fragile. Between 2010 and 2012, Tehran accused Israel of killing four nuclear scientists inside Iran. In 2020, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, regarded as the father of Iran's nuclear weapons program in the 1990s and 2000s, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun in an audacious, suspected Israeli attack. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has killed several top Iranian commanders in Syria. It blew up Hamas' political leader Ismail Haniyeh in a guesthouse in Tehran by placing a bomb in his room. And on Friday, it targeted several of Iran's most prominent commanders simultaneously. Part of the attack on air-defense systems and missile launchers was carried out with explosive drones and other guided weapons, smuggled into Iran by agents from Israel's spy agency Mossad, according to an Israeli security official. Still, Iranians are unlikely to seize the moment to foment an uprising, largely because their leaders will do what it takes to protect their rule, said Ostovar. 'Even though Iran has lost its ability to wage a serious war against its adversaries, it can still wage a serious war against its citizens," he said. 'I think it's actually a very dangerous time for people in Iran." Iran is in a much weaker position beyond its borders. Its longtime tool of deterrence—its regional militias—have been decimated. Its two missile attacks against Israel over the past year were largely unsuccessful. Yet, Khamenei hard-line supporters, who he relies on, will demand a defiant response to what they see as a continuing Israeli campaign, said Azizi, of SWP. They are unlikely to favor an immediate continuation of nuclear negotiations with the U.S., which were scheduled to resume for a sixth round on Sunday. 'It's a choice between continuing this war, engaging full-force, or surrender," he said. 'It's already clear to people within the system that regardless of whether and how they respond, Israel is going to continue." Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen at
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35 minutes ago
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Is Netanyahu aiming for a regime change in Iran with Operation Rising Lion?
The strikes early on Friday hit not just Iran's nuclear facilities and missile factories but also key figures in the country's military chain of command and its nuclear scientists, blows that appear aimed at diminishing Iran's credibility both at home and among its allies in the region read more Israel's surprise attack on Iran had an obvious goal of sharply disrupting Tehran's nuclear programme and lengthening the time it would need to develop an atomic weapon. But the scale of the attacks, Israel's choice of targets, and its politicians' own words suggest another, longer-term ambition: toppling the regime itself. The strikes early on Friday hit not just Iran's nuclear facilities and missile factories but also key figures in the country's military chain of command and its nuclear scientists, blows that appear aimed at diminishing Iran's credibility both at home and among its allies in the region - factors that could destabilize the Iranian leadership, experts said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'One assumes that one of the reasons that Israel is doing that is that they're hoping to see regime change,' said Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former senior official under President George W. Bush. 'It would like to see the people of Iran rise up,' he said, adding that the limited civilian casualties in the initial round of attacks also spoke to a broader aim. In a video address hours after Israeli fighter jets began striking Iranian nuclear facilities and air defence systems, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appealed to the Iranian people directly. 'The Islamic regime, which has oppressed you for almost 50 years, threatens to destroy our country, the State of Israel,' Netanyahu said. Israel's objective was to remove the nuclear and ballistic missile threat, he said, but added: 'As we achieve our objective, we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom. 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Time of India
39 minutes ago
- Time of India
ITC completes acquisition of 24 Mantra Organic brand owner Sresta Natural
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