India

India made its first formal diplomatic protest of the 2026 Iran war on 18-19 April, summoning Iran's ambassador in Delhi after IRGC gunboats fired on the Indian-flagged tankers Sanmar Herald and Jag Arnav in the Strait of Hormuz, both after receiving radio clearance. The same week, General License U lapsed without renewal, stripping state refiners Indian Oil and Hindustan Petroleum of their legal cover for Iranian crude purchases. On 26 April, India's Chabahar port OFAC waiver also expired; India Ports Global (IPGL) executed an operational transfer of its $120 million Chabahar Free Zone stake to an Iranian entity under a contractual reversion clause. In a single week, India lost its sole US sanctions exemption for Iran-facing infrastructure.

India's position reflects a longstanding balancing act between Washington and Tehran. New Delhi refines 5.8 million Barrels Per Day and depends on Gulf crude for over 80% of its imports. Before US sanctions tightened in 2019, India was Iran's second-largest oil customer after China. The tanker attacks, Shamkhani network designations naming five Indian nationals, and the Epaminondas seizure carrying cargo bound for Mundra port, together represented three compounding Iran-facing shocks in one week. As of May 2026, Pakistan-China Mediation under the prospective MOU would reopen Hormuz and potentially restore India's crude access, though the sanctions waiver question remains unresolved with Washington.

India is simultaneously the single largest country casualty of AI-driven tech displacement outside the United States. Oracle terminated 12,000 of its 30,000 India-based staff in a 6am email on 31 March 2026, a 40% contraction and the largest single-country AI-attributed tech layoff outside the US. The cuts fall entirely outside US statistical measurement: Oracle's WARN Act filings included no Indian workers, illustrating how displacement data gaps track national borders rather than actual impact.