India caught in the crosshairs of Trump's trade war against Iran

As a tense trilateral drama unfolds between three unlikely players..India, Iran and the US, the latest statement on the matter comes from Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in the context of US imposed economic sanctions on Iran. Yes, Iran, which is India's second-biggest supplier of crude oil. In the wake of the diplomatic pressures by the US on India to disrupt this flow of mutual interest, Dharmendra Pradhan said that while India had noted US's stand, and we quote him here, " Indian refineries import crude oil from diverse sources including Iran, depending on technical and commercial considerations." Unquote.

What lies behind this equivocation is obvious but more about this later.

This is Rakesh and today, we dig deep into how India, also one of the founders of the non-alignment movement is now being coerced to take sides by the rather belligerent Trump administration. And what could be the ramifications of this coercion.

Will India make a categorical statement to indicate its resistance to the US's strong arm tactics, is up in the air but there are many narratives within this one story and we will try to bring them all to you on this edition of Digging Deeper.