23–29 March 2026

The week belonged to one arc: a West Asia conflict that shut the Strait of Hormuz and tested India's energy resilience. Track it as a single thread — PM Modi's Rajya Sabha statement (24 Mar), the daily Petroleum-Ministry sectoral updates, the ₹10/litre excise cut with the diesel/ATF export levy (27 Mar), and Rajnath Singh's first Informal Group of Ministers meeting (28 Mar) are one story, not five. The numbers that matter are the structural cushions: 74 days of reserve capacity, the seven Empowered Groups of Secretaries, and the Essential Commodities Act pipeline order of 24 March. Three Cabinet decisions of 25 March (Modified UDAN ₹28,840 cr, IVFRT continuation, and the NDC 2031–35 with a 47% emissions-intensity cut) are standalone must-knows. At WTO MC14 in Yaoundé, India's fisheries-subsidies stand — a 25-year transition and a carve-out for artisanal fishers — is the examinable line, not the bilaterals. Two quiet recurrers the daily never published deserve your time: the PMMSY/FIDF fisheries architecture surfaced across 24–25 March in over a dozen state replies, and the Panchayat Finance Commission grants (14th–16th FC) clustered on 24 March — Aditya Tiwari Sir flags both as prelims-grade reference. Kavach kept appearing all week; read it once, properly.