India has sought to buy Russian crude to avoid supply shortages as Middle East tensions show no sign of abating. (AI image)

India is back to stepping up purchases of Russian crude as the ongoing US-Israel-Iran war blocks Strait of Hormuz and crucial oil supplies from the Middle East, according to reports. India imports nearly 90% of its crude oil, and in the last few months had increased purchases from the Middle East to wean away from Russian crude oil. However, with its energy security priorities in mind, India has sought to buy Russian crude to avoid supply shortages as Middle East tensions show no sign of abating.In recent weeks, Indian refiners had trimmed their purchases of Russian crude amid concerns that continued imports could complicate ongoing trade negotiations with the Donald Trump administration. This shift had prompted Moscow to divert additional volumes toward Chinese buyers.

Middle East Crisis: India Turns To Russian Oil

According to a Bloomberg report, ship-tracking data indicates that two Russian crude shipments which were originally bound for East Asia have redirected their course to India. According to vessel monitoring data from Kpler and Vortexa, the two tankers together carry roughly 1.4 million barrels of Urals crude and are scheduled to unload at Indian ports this week. Earlier voyage signals had suggested that the cargoes were headed to destinations in East Asia.The crude grade involved is Urals crude, typically shipped from ports in the Baltic and Black Sea regions. This grade had earlier become a preferred feedstock for Indian refiners. However, shipments to India declined significantly this year amid pressure from the United States on New Delhi to scale back purchases.

One of the vessels, the Suezmax tanker Odune, carrying about 730,000 barrels, reached Paradip on India’s eastern coast on Wednesday, according to shipping data and reports from port agents. It remains unclear whether the cargo has been fully discharged. The second vessel, the Aframax tanker Matari, transporting more than 700,000 barrels, is expected to arrive at Vadinar on India’s western coast on Thursday.Also Read | US-Iran war sends shockwaves! Most crude via Strait of Hormuz heads to China, India – how vulnerable are they after closure?The escalating conflict in the Middle East and the effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz have heightened fears of supply disruptions. As a result, refiners in India now appear to be reconsidering Russian crude supplies to offset potential shortages.Additional diversions may occur. Ship-tracking information indicates that Indri, a Suezmax tanker currently in the Arabian Sea, has altered its route after initially signaling Singapore as its destination. The vessel, which is carrying about 730,000 barrels of Urals crude, made a sharp turn northward earlier this week and is now heading toward India.The three tankers involved in these movements – Odune, Matari, and Indri – were all placed under sanctions last year by the European Union and the United Kingdom Government.

MUMBAI: A interior designerfrom Breach Candy has filed a cheating complaint against the directors of a window systems company, alleging financial loss of over ₹72 lakh due to defective and unsafe installation work at a luxury Malabar Hill residence. In the FIR complainant alleged that accused company assured European-standard fabrication and installation However, after installation, the homeowner reportedly complained of whistling noise during strong winds, rainwater seepage, faulty locks, damaged gaskets and poor finishing.The Dadar police has registered the offence under the BNS section of 318 (4) and have booked the directors of Yantra Window System directors Ravi Punjwani and Nikhil Daswani. Panwani who has got interim relief from arrest has denied all the allegations.Complainant beauvuestiledivita private limited, stated in the FIR that in December 2022, they secured a turnkey interior contract For a duplex apartment at , Nepeansea Road. For specialised aluminium window systems valued at ₹34.81 lakh, Kothari’s firm issued a work order on February 27, 2023 to Yantra Aluminium Window System Pvt. Ltd. The accused allegedly assured European-standard fabrication and installation.According to the complaint, payments totalling ₹31.86 lakh were transferred to the company between March and November 2023. However, after installation, the homeowner reportedly complained of whistling noise during strong winds, rainwater seepage, faulty locks, damaged gaskets and poor finishing.The complainant and his team conducted inspections and claimed the systems were fabricated and installed improperly. An independent audit by various auditors and others allegedly found the installation structurally unsafe and functionally unsuitable and faulty .Despite three reinstallation attempts and multiple repairs, the issues allegedly persisted. In July 2025,beauvuestiledivita private limited refunded ₹41.51 lakh to the homeowner. He further claimed he would incur an additional ₹30 lakh towards removal, civil repairs and reinstallation of new systems.“It is all allegations. The dispute arises out of civil work but has been wrongly given criminal colour with the intention to harass us. We have been in this profession for more than 25 years and have completed the entire work in the building. If there were systemic issues, there would have been many complaints,” Panjwani told TOI.He added that the company had delivered the contracted products and was willing to repair or replace them if required but the client was pissed off. “We have not run away. We have recorded our statements, explained our position to the police and are taking all legal remedies available to us,” he said. The complaintant alleged that the accused misrepresented product quality and failed to deliver agreed standards, causing reputational and financial losses. Police are examining and Further investigation is underway.

NEW DELHI: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday announced his decision to step down from the state’s top job and head to the Rajya Sabha.In a social media post on X, Nitish said he had long harboured a desire to become a member of both Houses of the Bihar Legislative Assembly as well as both Houses of Parliament.

“For more than two decades, you have consistently placed your trust and support in me, and it is on the strength of that trust that we have served Bihar and all of you with complete dedication. It was the power of your faith and support that has enabled Bihar today to present a new dimension of development and dignity. For this, I have expressed my gratitude to you on several occasions in the past as well,” Nitish said.“From the very beginning of my parliamentary journey, I have harboured a desire to become a member of both Houses of the Bihar Legislative Assembly as well as both Houses of Parliament. In keeping with that aspiration, I seek to become a Member of the Rajya Sabha in the elections taking place this time. I wish to assure you with complete honesty that my bond with you will endure in the future as well, and my resolve to work alongside you to build a developed Bihar will remain steadfast as ever. The new government that will be formed will have my full cooperation and guidance,” he added.The post came less than four months after Nitish led the National Democratic Alliance to a sweeping victory in the Bihar polls. The veteran leader, who recently turned 75 and took oath for a record tenth term in November, is now set to move to the Rajya Sabha.With Nitish joining the Upper House, the door is open for the Bharatiya Janata Party to appoint its own chief minister in Bihar for the first time. According to leaders familiar with the discussions, Nitish will formally enter the Upper House once the new Rajya Sabha term begins after April 9, when outgoing members retire. The transition is seen within the NDA as a carefully timed change of guard that would allow a new leadership team to settle in before the next political cycle.Speculation has also grown over the political debut of Nitish’s son, Nishant Kumar, who is expected to enter public life soon. While some within the alliance believe he could be considered for a deputy chief minister’s role, there is no clarity yet about his position or responsibilities.Potential successors include Bihar deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary and Union minister Nityanand Rai, both seen as strong contenders if the BJP takes over the top post, TOI earlier reported.

Sanju Samson (Pic credit: BCCI)

NEW DELHI: Speculation surfaced on social media after India’s win over West Indies that Sanju Samson could face disciplinary action — or even a ban — for his emotional on-field celebration in Kolkata. The rumours claimed that the Indian batter might miss the upcoming T20 World Cup 2026 semi-final against England on Thursday because he dropped his helmet to the ground after hitting the match-winning boundary.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!The moment came at the end of a tense chase when Samson sealed India’s victory with a boundary. As the ball raced away, the right-handed batter removed his helmet and dropped it onto the ground before falling to his knees and offering a prayer. The emotional celebration quickly went viral, with some observers suggesting the act might fall under the International Cricket Council’s Code of Conduct related to equipment abuse.

A closer look at the rules suggests that the fears of a suspension are largely misplaced. Under Article 2.2 of the ICC Code of Conduct, players can be penalised for “abuse of cricket equipment,” which includes actions such as throwing or striking items like helmets, bats, or stumps in frustration. The rule also covers deliberate damage to advertising boards, boundary fences, or dressing room fixtures.Even if Samson’s act were to be reviewed under this provision, it would most likely fall under a Level 1 offence — the lowest category of disciplinary breaches. Level 1 incidents typically attract fines or demerit points rather than suspensions.Former international umpire Anil Chaudhary also dismissed the speculation, explaining that Samson’s gesture appeared to be an emotional celebration rather than an act of anger or protest. According to him, such moments are common in high-pressure matches and are rarely treated as serious offences.Recent examples support this interpretation. Scotland’s George Munsey received only one demerit point earlier in the tournament after throwing his helmet in frustration following his dismissal.As things stand, there has been no official charge or complaint against Samson from match officials. India are scheduled to face England in the semi-final at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on March 5, and the wicketkeeper-batter remains fully eligible to play.

Suryakumar Yadav (R) with Tilak Varma during a practice session. (Getty Images)

MUMBAI: India and England will clash in their third consecutive T20 World Cup semifinal at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday night. Both sides have one win each in their previous knockout meetings, with the victor on both occasions going on to lift the trophy.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!England thrashed India by 10 wickets in the 2022 T20 World Cup semifinal, chasing 170 with openers Alex Hales (86 not out) and Jos Buttler (80 not out) dominating on a flat Adelaide pitch. Two years later in Providence, India avenged that defeat with a 68-run victory as spinners Kuldeep Yadav (3-19) and Axar Patel (3-28) bowled England out for 103 in 16.4 overs.

India had beaten England 4-1 in a five-match T20I series last January, sealing it with a 150-run win at the Wankhede. However, the stakes are much higher in a World Cup semifinal.Both teams enter the match with confidence, though England appear to have greater momentum after winning all three of their Super 8 matches against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Zealand. India, meanwhile, will be looking to defy history — no defending champion has retained the T20 World Cup and no host nation has won the title. In fact, no defending champion has even reached the final in the subsequent edition.India topped Group A alongside Pakistan and associate teams, winning all four league matches. However, their batting has looked vulnerable on slower pitches against spin. That was evident during a collapse against the United States at Wankhede, where the hosts slumped to 77-6 before captain Suryakumar Yadav rescued them with an unbeaten 84 off 49 balls.

England began their campaign with a narrow four-run win over Nepal at Wankhede, with Sam Curran defending 10 runs in the final over and Will Jacks producing a fine all-round effort.They later lost to the West Indies by 30 runs at the same venue, where Sherfane Rutherford smashed 76 not out off 42 balls and the Caribbean spinners stifled England’s batting.India’s Super 8 campaign started with a 76-run loss to South Africa in Ahmedabad. They bounced back by thrashing Zimbabwe by 72 runs in Chennai after posting 256 for four, and then beat the West Indies by five wickets at Eden Gardens, powered by Sanju Samson’s unbeaten 97 off 50 balls and Jasprit Bumrah’s double strike.England, meanwhile, began the Super 8s with a 51-run win over Sri Lanka, bowling them out for 95. They followed it up with a twowicket victory against Pakistan, highlighted by captain Harry Brook’s blistering 100 off 51 balls and Liam Dawson’s 3-24. England sealed a semifinal berth with a four-wicket win over New Zealand.

Samson has been among India’s most consistent batters, in sharp contrast to opening partner Abhishek Sharma, who has managed just 80 runs in six matches at an average of 13.33, including three ducks.His fifty against Zimbabwe remains his only significant contribution. The left-hander will hope to rediscover his touch at a venue where he once smashed 135 off 54 balls.England too have concerns over their openers. Buttler has scored just 62 runs in seven matches at an average of 8.85, while Phil Salt has struggled for consistency apart from a 62 against Sri Lanka in Pallekele. Samson, who has struggled against short-pitched bowling, and the out-of-form Abhishek could face a stern test from Jofra Archer in the powerplay.However, Archer too has found Wankhede unforgiving, returning figures of 1-42 against Nepal and 1-48 against the West Indies.Ishan Kishan has been quiet after a match-winning 77 off 40 balls against Pakistan in Colombo. However, he, along with Surya, Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya — all former Mumbai Indians players — will be familiar with the Wankhede conditions.Tilak looked more comfortable after moving from No. 3 to No. 6, scoring 44 not out off 16 balls against Zimbabwe and 27 off 15 against West Indies.India’s vulnerability against spin could again be tested by England’s attack comprising Adil Rashid, Liam Dawson, Rehan Ahmed and off-spinning allrounder Will Jacks. India will counter with Varun Chakravarthy and Axar Patel, though Varun has struggled for rhythm — a far cry from last year’s bilateral series against England when he claimed 14 wickets in five matches at an average of 9.85.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has quietly begun dismantling the power structure he built around Alexandr Wang, his $14 billion bet to lead the company’s AI push—evidence that the billionaire entrepreneur is losing faith in the 28-year-old data labeling entrepreneur he once courted with homemade soup deliveries and hundreds-of-millions-dollar compensation packages. Nine months after Wang arrived to oversee Meta Superintelligence Labs with absolute control over the company’s frontier AI models, Zuckerberg is now routing engineering talent, data pipelines, and model evaluations around him entirely. The Avocado and Mango models Wang promised will be built on infrastructure he doesn’t control. The researchers he hired report to other executives. And the guy who held a $29 billion stake in Wang’s Scale AI startup is quietly building what amounts to a backup plan—one that suggests the entire experiment has already failed.The shift crystallized Tuesday when Meta announced a new applied AI engineering organization led by Maher Saba, a long-time Reality Labs executive now reporting directly to Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth. The structure itself tells the story: Zuckerberg is bypassing Wang’s Superintelligence Labs to build a parallel engineering powerhouse designed to feed his core AI models data, tooling, and evaluations faster than Wang’s team can consume them. It’s organizational restructuring as a soft firing—Wang keeps his title and access while losing every lever that actually matters.

The parallel org charts reveal the real power play

When Zuckerberg hired Wang in June to oversee Meta Superintelligence Labs, the structure looked clean: Wang would own the entire AI research and development stack. Today, that model is fragmenting. Saba’s new team will have a deliberately flat structure—up to 50 individual contributors for every manager—designed to move faster than traditional bureaucracy allows. It’s the opposite of the centralized, ego-driven approach Wang brought to the table.The Wall Street Journal reported the internal memo outlining Saba’s mandate: build “the data engine that helps our models get better, faster.” That language matters. Zuckerberg isn’t just creating another team. He’s creating an engine designed to make Wang’s job harder if he doesn’t perform, and easier to replace him if he does.This comes nine months after Zuckerberg began questioning whether hiring Wang was a mistake. According to reporting from the Financial Times and New York Times, Wang quickly clashed with longtime Meta lieutenants Chris Cox and Andrew Bosworth. Wang wanted to focus purely on catching up to OpenAI and Google’s models. Cox and Bosworth wanted to use Instagram and Facebook data to build products people would actually use. Wang complained to associates that Zuckerberg’s oversight felt suffocating. Meanwhile, Yann LeCun—Meta’s chief AI scientist and Wang’s theoretical superior—walked out in November rather than report to him.

The highest-paid executive now has isolation instead of influence

When Zuckerberg first tapped Wang, he reportedly offered compensation packages worth hundreds of millions to top researchers. Wang was positioned as untouchable—the genius billionaire who would crack superintelligence. Instead, he’s become isolated. The TBD Lab sits in a glass box next to Zuckerberg’s office. Only two of roughly 100 researchers left when their equity vested in November. The turnover numbers sound good on paper. They’re not. It’s what you’d expect from a team nobody can leave.Now, with Saba’s new organization reporting to Bosworth instead of Wang, the engineering talent will flow around Wang instead of through him. The Avocado and Mango models Wang was promised will be trained on data pipes Saba controls. The tooling researchers use will come from Saba’s team. The feedback loops that actually turn capable models into leading ones will be managed one level below Wang’s authority.Zuckerberg has always favored control over decentralization. When his bets don’t work—the metaverse, early Llama iterations—he reorganizes to take power back. With Wang, he’s doing the same thing, just quietly enough that the young entrepreneur might not notice until he tries to move.The reorganization proves it: Zuckerberg is already planning for a Meta AI future that doesn’t depend on the man he paid more to hire than most companies are worth.

South Africa captain Aiden Markram reflected on his side’s heavy defeat to New Zealand in the first semi-final of the T20 World Cup 2026. Despite entering the knockout clash as one of the tournament favourites, the Proteas were comprehensively beaten by nine wickets at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Wednesday, bringing their impressive campaign to a sudden halt.

Aiden Markram explains reasons of defeat against Black Caps

After losing the toss and being asked to bat first, South Africa never truly found their rhythm. The Kiwi bowlers applied early pressure with disciplined lengths and clever variations, restricting the Proteas’ scoring rate during the crucial powerplay phase.

Markram and his teammates attempted to accelerate in the middle overs, but the surface behaved inconsistently, making timing difficult. Some deliveries came nicely onto the bat while others held up slightly, forcing batters into mistimed shots.

As a result, South Africa kept losing wickets at regular intervals and could only manage 169/8 in their 20 overs, a total that appeared competitive but ultimately proved far from enough on a batting-friendly surface. Speaking after the match, Markram acknowledged that his side misread the conditions and failed to adjust their approach with the bat.

“I think it comes down to the conditions. They bowled really well up front, quite full. Some balls came on nicely, while others held up a bit in the surface and hit low on the bat, which made scoring difficult. That built pressure, and we ended up losing wickets,” Markram said in the post-match presentation.

The South African skipper also suggested that his team could have taken a more measured approach earlier in the innings instead of forcing the pace. According to him, a slightly higher total could have put New Zealand under pressure in the chase.

“The pitch looked pretty good, so maybe we could have adapted quicker with the bat. Perhaps we should have taken a more traditional approach — building the innings and grinding our way to around 180–190, which might have kept us in the game,” he added.

Also READ: T20 World Cup 2026 – India vs England 2nd Semi-Final Ticket Prices and Sitting Details

Finn Allen and Tim Seifert dismantle South Africa

If South Africa struggled with the bat, New Zealand’s top order made the chase look remarkably easy. Openers Finn Allen and Tim Seifert launched a brutal assault on the Proteas’ bowling attack from the very first over.

The duo stitched together a sensational 117-run partnership in just 55 balls, effectively putting the contest beyond South Africa’s reach during the powerplay itself.

Seifert played the perfect supporting role with a rapid 58 off 33 balls, but it was Allen who produced a truly historic knock. The explosive opener smashed an unbeaten 100 off just 33 deliveries, registering the fastest century in T20 World Cup history. His innings was packed with boundaries and towering sixes, leaving the South African bowlers with no answers.

New Zealand eventually chased down the target comfortably in just 12.5 overs, sealing a dominant nine-wicket victory and securing their place in the final. They will now face the winner of the second semi-final between India and England, with the summit clash scheduled to be played on March 8 in Ahmedabad.

Also READ: Netizens go wild as Finn Allen smashes a record-breaking century to power New Zealand into the T20 World Cup 2026 final with a win over South Africa

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