Morning Digest: Iran hits Gulf energy sites after attack on its gas field; 22 India-bound ships on Hormuz evacuation list, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on March 19, 2026

Iran overnight struck oil facilities in Persian Gulf countries, following the U.S. and Israeli strikes on gas facilities in Iran’s southern Bushehr province. This came hours after Israeli air strikes killed Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib, the third high-profile assassination in 24 hours. The South Pars/North Dome mega-field is the largest known gas reserve in the world. Iran had earlier warned that any attack on its energy infrastructure would trigger retaliatory strikes at energy facilities in the region.

Seeking to enhance penetration of piped natural gas (PNG) among commercial entities whilst according support amidst the setback to liquified petroleum gas (LPG) owing to tensions in West Asia, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) has written to State governments and Union Territories pledging to allocate an additional 10% of the cooking gas. Furthermore, the Ministry sought to provide an additional quantum, in a tiered structure, should the respective governments be able to attain certain eligibility criterions.

22 India-bound vessels in the Persian Gulf region have been identified for evacuation and safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz by the Indian government. Of these, 20 vessels have been assessed as critical to India’s energy security, carrying some 2.15 lakh metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), 3.21 lakh tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and 16.76 lakh tonnes of crude oil. These vessels are both Indian-flagged and foreign-flagged but all are bound for India.

The Supreme Court asked the West Bengal government if the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) was expected to merely “look and watch” when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee “barged” in and obstructed ongoing raids at the offices of the political consultancy firm I-PAC at Kolkata in January. The remark from Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, heading a Bench, was in response to the poll-bound State’s submissions that the ED was neither a “body corporate” nor a “legal or natural person” to approach the apex court under Article 32 of the Constitution claiming violation of its “fundamental rights”.

In the past five years, about two-three drones were sighted every day and at least one drone incursion was reported each day along India’s international borders, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has informed a Parliamentary Standing Committee. The Ministry said that during the last five years, 4,323 cases of drone sightings were reported. However, 967 cases of drone incursions occurred, which were intercepted or neutralised, resulting in the seizure of 710 ammunitions, 75 arms and 641 kg of drugs.

A crude oil tanker that set sail from Primorsk in Russia for Rizhao port in China has changed course in Southeast Asia and is now heading towards the New Mangalore port with 1.1 lakh tonnes (7.7 lakh barrels) of Urals crude, showed ship-tracking data. The ship is expected to reach Mangaluru on March 20. According to marinetraffic.com, Aqua Titan, a Cameroon-registered tanker, left the Russian port on January 18. It anchored at Port Suez and departed on February 21, showed vesselfinder.com.