09–15 March 2026

The week was defined by an energy-security shock: from 9 March a West Asia conflict effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping for the first time on record, and the government's response ran across four inter-ministerial briefings, two Essential Commodities Act control orders (Natural Gas and LPG, both 9 March), and a fertiliser-sector gas priority order. Track that arc as one story, not seven press notes. The Cabinet/CCEA bench was busy too: Jal Jeevan Mission 2.0 (outlay raised to Rs 8.69 lakh crore), Madurai's elevation to an international airport, and two rail multitracking corridors all cleared in a single day. Three quietly recurring entities reward a second look, and the daily filter never gave them a slot: the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025 (the 125-day rural wage-employment law replacing MGNREGA) surfaced on three separate days, the Biopharma SHAKTI scheme appeared four times across the pharma replies, and PMMSY/cold-water fisheries built all week to the Srinagar conference. The advice: read the Hormuz arc for the control-order mechanism, and do not skip the rescued rural-employment and biopharma entities. The nuclear cluster (Nuclear Energy Mission, SMRs, SHANTI Act) and the rare-earth/critical-mineral mission are the prelims-heavy reads.