• Modi assured India will stop buying Russian oil: Trump.
• Russia remains India’s top source of oil imports.
• India says its main goal is to protect consumers.
  

Some Indian refiners are preparing to cut Russian oil imports, with expectations of a gradual reduction, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, with the US pressuring New Delhi to stop buying Russian crude to help end the war in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured that India will stop buying oil from Russia, India’s top source of imported oil.

India said on Thursday the country’s two main goals were to ensure stable energy prices and secure supply.

“It has been our consistent priority to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario. Our import policies are guided entirely by this objective,” the foreign ministry statement said in a statement.

The statement did not refer to Trump’s comment about India’s purchases of Russian oil.

Trade-off against steep tariffs

Indian officials are in Washington for trade talks, with the the US having doubled tariffs on Indian goods to pressure New Delhi to reduce Russian oil imports. US negotiators have said curbing those purchases would be crucial to reducing India’s tariff rate and sealing a trade deal.

India and China are the two top buyers of Russian seaborne crude exports, taking advantage of the discounted prices Russia has been forced to accept after European buyers shunned purchases and the US and the European Union imposed sanctions on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“So I was not happy that India was buying oil, and he (Modi) assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia,” Trump told reporters during a White House event on Wednesday.

India’s foreign ministry said it was discussing deeper energy co-operation with the United States.

“The current Administration has shown interest in deepening energy cooperation with India. Discussions are ongoing,” foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in the statement.

Indian refiners said they have not been formally told by the government about stopping Russian oil purchases, sources said. They declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak to media.

The sources said it would be difficult to immediately stop buying Russian oil as a sudden switch to buying other crudes would drive up global oil prices and threaten to stoke inflation.

In April to September, the first six months of this fiscal year, India imported 1.75 million barrels per day of Russian crude, with its share declining to about 36% of India’s total oil imports from 40% in the same period a year earlier, government data showed.

India’s US crude imports rose 6.8% on year to about 213,000 bpd, making up 4.3% of imports.

The share of Middle Eastern oil in the six months to September 2025 rose to 45% from 42%, the data showed.

• We demand the highest punishment for her: chief prosecutor.
• Up to 1,400 people killed in clashes in July and August 2024.
• Hasina faces trial in absentia alongside two ex-senior officials.
  

Bangladeshi prosecution lawyers demanded on Thursday that fugitive ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina receive the death penalty in her trial for crimes against humanity.

Hasina has defied court orders to return from India, where she fled last year, to face charges of ordering a deadly crackdown in a failed attempt to crush a student-led uprising.

Up to 1,400 people were killed in the clashes between July and August 2024, according to the United Nations.

“We demand the highest punishment for her,” chief prosecutor Tajul Islam told reporters outside court.

“For a single murder, one death penalty is the rule. For 1,400 murders, she should be sentenced 1,400 times — but since that is not humanly possible, we demand at least one.”

The prosecution alleges that Hasina, 78, was “the nucleus around whom all the crimes committed during the July-August uprising revolved”.

She is being tried in absentia alongside two former senior officials.

Her ex-interior minister, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, is also a fugitive, while former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun is in custody and has pleaded guilty.

The prosecution said on Thursday that Kamal should also face the death penalty.

The trial, which opened on June 1, has heard months of testimony alleging Hasina’s role in ordering or failing to prevent mass killings.

“Her goal was to cling to power permanently — for herself and her family,” Islam said.

“She has turned into a hardened criminal, and shows no remorse for the brutality she has committed.”

‘Use lethal weapons’

Prosecutors have filed five charges, including failure to prevent murder, which amount to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.

Hasina’s now-banned Awami League says that she “categorically” denies the charges.

Hasina has a state-appointed lawyer but refuses to recognise the court’s authority.

The trial is in its final stages, with the interim government aiming to steer the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million towards elections in February.

Witnesses have included a man whose face was ripped apart by gunshot during the culmination of the protests.

The prosecution also played audio tapes — matched by police with verified recordings of Hasina — that suggested she directly ordered security forces to “use lethal weapons” against protesters and that “wherever they find (them), they will shoot”.

Hasina, already convicted in July for contempt of court and sentenced in absentia to six months in prison, also faces ongoing corruption cases.

Relatives including her daughter Saima Wazed, who has served as a senior UN official, and her niece Tulip Siddiq, a British lawmaker, also face corruption charges, which they deny.

The daughter of a revolutionary who led Bangladesh to independence in 1971, Hasina presided over breakneck economic growth.

Critics accused her government of unjustly jailing her chief rival, passing draconian anti-press freedom laws, and perpetrating a litany of rights abuses including the murder of opposition activists.

KATHMANDU: The last surviving member of the first mountaineering expedition to successfully reach the summit of Mount Everest died in Kathmandu on Thursday, aged 92, his family said.

Kanchha Sherpa was a teenager when he accompanied the historic 1953 team led by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, who became the first mountaineers to reach the peak of the world’s highest mountain.

The cause of Kanchha Sherpa’s death early on Thursday morning was not clear.

“He had been unwell for a few days,” his grandson, Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa, told AFP.

Born in 1933, Kanchha Sherpa was 19 when he joined the expedition as a porter despite no prior mountaineering experience.

He undertook the arduous trek, lasting more than two weeks, to Mount Everest’s Base Camp, carrying food, tents and equipment, before climbing to an altitude of more than 8,000 metres (26,200 feet) close to the peak.

“He was a living legend and an inspiration for all in mountaineering and those working in the industry,” said Fur Gelje Sherpa, the president of Nepal’s mountaineering association. “We’ve lost our guardian.”

Kanchha Sherpa worked in the Himalayan mountains for two more decades after the expedition until his wife asked him to stop the dangerous journeys after many of his friends died assisting other climbing treks, his family said.