The rupee has been under serious pressure since the Iran war began, hitting record lows close to 95 to the dollar. The RBI stepped in this week with its toughest forex measures in over a decade.

Here is the simple version. There is a market outside India, mostly in Singapore and London, where traders can bet on where the rupee is going without actually buying or selling rupees. This is called the offshore NDF (Non-Deliverable Forward) market. This market handles roughly $149 billion (approximately Rs 14.2 lakh crore) a day in rupee trades. When the Iran war started, offshore traders began betting heavily that the rupee would keep falling, which actually made it fall further. A self-fulfilling cycle.

The RBI has now banned Indian banks from offering these offshore rupee derivative contracts to any clients, cutting off the main tool speculators were using to bet against the currency. It also capped banks' daily currency positions at $100 million, forcing them to unwind large dollar bets. The result? The rupee opened sharply higher on Thursday, gaining 130 paise against the dollar in a single session. Business Standard Whether it holds depends entirely on how the Iran situation develops from here.

Every few days there seems to be a new plan from Washington on Iran. Peace talks. Ceasefire signals. Escalation threats. And now this.

In his primetime address Wednesday night, Trump said the US would hit Iran "extremely hard" over the next two to three weeks, threatened to target Iranian oil facilities and power plants, and told every other nation to go sort out the Strait of Hormuz themselves. Oil prices surged past $106 per barrel after the speech, with global benchmark Brent climbing sharply as markets digested the likelihood of a prolonged conflict with no exit plan in sight. CNBC

The oil market wanted two things from Trump's speech: a timeframe for the war's end and a plan for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. It got neither. For India, which imports the vast majority of its crude, every dollar added to the oil price adds directly to the government's import bill, widens the current account deficit, and puts more pressure on the rupee. The strategy changes daily. The consequences don't.

India joined a UK-led international meeting on Thursday to discuss reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri represented India at the virtual meeting attended by more than 60 countries including France, Germany, Canada, Japan, and the UAE. The US did not attend.

The human cost of the war is becoming harder to ignore. The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that eight Indian nationals have died and one remains missing in various incidents across the region. Business Standard More than 1,200 Indian nationals have been evacuated from Iran, including 845 students, through land routes into Armenia and Azerbaijan. Iran's embassy in New Delhi posted on social media saying "our Indian friends are in safe hands," while also making clear that only Iran and Oman will decide the future of the Strait.

India is walking a careful line, engaging in diplomatic talks while keeping its relationship with Iran intact, enough to ensure safe passage for its ships and citizens.

Rumours of fuel shortages have been spreading on social media, with videos of long queues at petrol pumps going viral. The government has stepped in firmly.

India has secured crude oil supplies for the next 60 days, with total reserve capacity extending to 74 days including strategic reserves. Despite previously sourcing over 40% of its crude from the Middle East, India is now receiving more crude from its 41-plus global suppliers than what was previously arriving through the Strait of Hormuz. News India Times Indian refiners have ramped up purchases from Russia under a temporary US waiver and sourced more from the Western hemisphere to fill the gap.

Domestic LPG production has been ramped up by 40%, bringing daily output to 50,000 metric tons. The long-term price story is a different conversation, but for now, supply is stable.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal announced that India will send a business delegation to Canada, described as the largest ever sent to any single country, aimed at expanding investment and trade ties (PTI, Tribune India).

This is a bigger story than it sounds. India and Canada had a bruising diplomatic fallout in 2023 over the Nijjar killing, which froze ties for nearly two years. Canadian PM Mark Carney visited Mumbai and New Delhi earlier this year in the first bilateral visit by a Canadian PM since 2018, with both countries signing five MOUs and announcing new partnerships in energy, technology, and critical minerals. Prime Minister of Canada

Goyal said the delegation is aimed at bringing more investments into India in trade and business expansion. With the US becoming an unpredictable partner under Trump, India is actively diversifying its relationships. Canada, with its critical minerals, energy reserves, and large Indian diaspora, is an obvious and strategic target.

NASA's Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 pm EDT (4 AM IST) on April 1, sending four astronauts on a 10-day voyage around the Moon and back, the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit in more than 50 years. CBS News When the crew passes around the far side of the Moon, they will set a new record for the farthest distance any human has ever travelled from Earth, over 400,000 kilometres (252,000 miles). Christina Koch becomes the first woman ever to voyage to the Moon, Victor Glover the first African American, and Jeremy Hansen the first Canadian.

But there is already a problem. Shortly after launch, the crew reported that the toilet aboard the Orion capsule has malfunctioned. Four astronauts. Ten days. Quarter of a million miles from Earth. One broken loo. Engineers on the ground are working on a fix, and the crew is using backup contingency bags in the meantime. Humanity's greatest adventure, ladies and gentlemen.