India has cut coal supplies to the non-power sector and put on hold plans for some fuel auctions for utilities without supply deals due to a slump in inventories, even as the country battles a seasonal jump in demand for electricity.

Gazprom has asked India’s largest gas transmitter GAIL (India) to pay for gas imports in euros instead of dollars, two sources said, in a sign the Russian energy giant seeks to wean itself away from the US currency in the wake of the Ukraine conflict.

India is leaning toward continuing to import coking coal from Russia, the steel minister said on Sunday, seeming to buck a global trend to shun Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Indian lenders are set to initiate debt recovery proceedings against Future Retail this week to safeguard their interests after rival Reliance unexpectedly took over some of the retailer’s stores, two bankers told Reuters.

India’s oil imports from the United States will rise by 11 per cent this year, officials said on Saturday, as the severely energy-deficient country looks to secure supplies from producers around the world, including heavily sanctioned Russia.

India is considering taking up a Russian offer to buy its crude oil and other commodities at discounted prices with payment via a rupee-rouble transaction, two Indian officials said, amid tough Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Bangladesh and India are exploring the possibility of building a cross-border pipeline for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and an LNG terminal, said Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla yesterday.

Indian traders have contracted to import a record 100,000 tonnes of soyoil from the United States because of limited supplies from drought-hit South America, at a time when prices of rival palm oil are scaling record highs, three dealers told Reuters.

India has blocked access to 54 mobile apps, mainly Chinese but also including Singapore-based Sea Ltd’s Free Fire game, over security concerns, government sources said on Tuesday, a day after Sea shares sank 18 per cent on a report of the ban.

India’s central bank is committed to its inflation mandate and the likely uptick in January inflation towards the upper end of its target band should not create any panic, central bank chief Shaktikanta Das said on Monday.

India is hoping to cut diesel use by farms to zero and migrate the agriculture sector to renewable energy as early as 2024, the Power Ministry said on Friday, as a part of its broader plan to transition to cleaner energy sources.

India’s Reliance Industries Ltd plans to produce blue hydrogen at a “competitive cost” of about $1.2-$1.5 per kg as it repurposes its $4-billion gasification assets, the conglomerate said in a presentation.

Indian and Australian negotiators are close to clinching a limited trade pact or so-called “early harvest agreement”, India’s commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday after talks withhis Australian counterpart.

Indian debt traders have dismissed government officials’ concerns about bonds being mispriced, saying they reflected fundamentals but the central bank was behind the curve, and urged steps to fight inflation at Thursday’s policy meeting.

State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender by assets, reported a 62.3 per cent rise in third-quarter profit on Saturday, the Mumbai-based lender said in a regulatory filing, helped by lower provisions.

Global energy major ExxonMobil is looking at signing more long-term gas sales deals with India as rising spot prices have added to the appeal of longer duration contracts.

Coal India Ltd, the world’s largest coal miner, plans to directly export output to neighbouring countries, according to sources and documents seen by Reuters, after decades of exclusively supplying domestic consumers.

India will introduce a state-backed  “digital rupee” and impose a 30 per cent tax on profits from virtual currencies, the government announced Tuesday while unveiling the next financial year’s budget.

India will allocate an additional 195 billion rupees ($2.62 billion) to boost investment in solar equipment manufacturing, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said yesterday.

India’s government will step up spending to 39.45 trillion rupees ($529.7 billion) in the coming fiscal year to build public infrastructure and drive economic growth, it said on Tuesday, but it involves a wider fiscal deficit than targeted and record borrowing.