The US government has temporarily eased sanctions to allow India to buy Russian oil currently stranded at sea, amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the 30-day waiver was a “deliberate short-term measure” to allow oil to keep flowing in the global market.
Millions of barrels of oil and gas are stuck near the Strait of Hormuz – a narrow Gulf chokepoint through which nearly half of India’s crude oil and gas imports transits. Tehran has threatened to attack vessels attempting to pass through since the US and Israel began their war against Iran.
The US sanctioned Russian oil following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, forcing buyers to seek alternatives.
Washington has put particular pressure on India – a major buyer of Russian energy – to stop buying its oil in an effort to reduce money flowing to fund the invasion.
Bessent said the waiver would “not provide significant financial benefit” to Russia as it only authorised transactions involving oil already stranded at sea.
“This stop-gap measure will alleviate pressure caused by Iran’s attempt to take global energy hostage,” Bessent said on X.
The indefinite halt in supplies has triggered fears of an impending energy crisis in India, which reportedly has crude oil and gas stocks to last for about 25 days.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has warned the war against Iran, which began last Saturday, could stretch on for four to five weeks or longer.
On Wednesday, Petronet LNG, India’s top gas importer, issued a force majeure notice to its supplier, QatarEnergy and its local buyers after its LNG tankers were unable to reach the loading terminal at Ras Laffan in Doha.
The Gas Authority of India Ltd (Gail) and Indian Oil Corp (IOC) have already begun reducing gas supplies to industrial customers, Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday.
In terms of oil, India imports 90% of its crude.
Around half of this, which amounts to 2.5 to 2.7 million barrels a day, travels through the Strait of Hormuz, largely from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
Experts say that a supply crunch due to the closure of the strait could to lead to inflation and push up India’s fiscal deficit.
With the waiver in place, about 145 million barrels of Russian crude which remain on the water could potentially be redirected toward Indian ports if commercial deals are finalised, Sumit Ritolia, lead research analyst at Kpler, told the BBC.
“However, the waiver does not fundamentally change India’s structural exposure to Middle Eastern supply flows,” he added.
Russian oil makes up an estimated 20% of India’s total imports. The waiver marks a notable shift in the US approach to India’s Russian oil imports.
Not long ago, Trump imposed 50% tariffs on India, including a 25% levy for importing oil from Russia. Trump alleged India’s purchase of Russian oil was helping fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.
India has always defended its purchase of Russian crude, saying that it needs to meet the energy needs of its vast population and has the right to do business with its trading partners.
But since late 2025, India reportedly began reducing its imports of Russian crude and has since boosted its crude oil purchases from the US.
He wrote on his Truth Social platform that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “agreed to stop buying Russian oil, and to buy much more oil from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela”.
India has never officially confirmed reducing its imports of Russian crude and maintains it will not allow its trading relations to be dictated by other countries.
At least 30 people died in an early morning stampede at Maha Kumbh Mela, the largest Hindu festival in India, officials said on Wednesday.
Vaibhav Krishna, a senior police official, told reporters in the city of Prayagraj that 90 others were also injured in the incident.
He said 25 of the deceased had so far been identified and situation was under control.
The stampede occured when pilgrims rushing to a sacred river confluence jostled for space to take a holy dip and tried to break through barricades, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said in a televised statement.
The festival kicked off this month in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. A staggering 400 million people are expected to attend the festival over six weeks.
Wednesday marks Mauni Amavasya – one of the most significant days of the festival. Local authorities had expected around 100 million attendees.
The Maha Kumbh takes place every 12 years on the riverbanks of Prayagraj. This year, it is being held from Jan. 13 to Feb. 26.
Prayagraj, formerly Allahabad, is considered particularly holy to Hindus, as it is home to Triveni Sangam, the sacred confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati rivers.
Indian police have sent a legal demand to Elon Musk’s Starlink seeking details of who purchased its internet device that helps in sea navigation when smugglers with $4.2 billion worth of meth were caught in the biggest such Indian seizure.
Two people with direct knowledge of the police notice sent by Andaman and Nicobar island officials said Starlink had been asked for the purchaser’s name and payment method, registration details and where the internet device was used when smugglers travelled in international waters from Myanmar to India.
The incident has set off alarm bells as it is the first time Starlink’s device has been used to navigate and reach Indian waters in a major drug haul.
The investigation comes just as the Musk-owned company is trying to address any potential security concerns before it is given a green light to launch its satellite broadband services in India.
Starlink recently won a lobbying battle after a bitter faceoff with billionaire Mukesh Ambani over how exactly New Delhi should allocate satellite spectrum to companies.
Police in the remote outpost of the Andaman and Nicobar islands seized more than 6,000 kg (13,000 pounds) of meth in late November in a Myanmar boat carrying sacks of suspected contraband, and found that the Starlink Mini internet device had been used. Starlink says the device works in international waters.
The police estimated that the seized meth had a retail market value of 360 billion rupees ($4.25 billion).
The first source said Andaman police had sent a notice on Dec. 4 under an Indian law that empowers authorities to seek information from companies related to an investigation.
It has also sought the mobile number and email ID registered to the Starlink account, said both the sources, who declined to be named as the matter is sensitive.
According to judicial proceedings in Kenya and India, the son of late Solai Estate tycoon Manusukh Patel is involved in a major matrimonial dispute that could result in jail time.
Kenyans who closely followed the court case following the collapse of a dam at the Patel Coffee Estate estate in Solai, which resulted in 50 fatalities, are familiar with Perry Manusunkh Kansgara.
Solai dam victims mass burial.
Perry was one of the nine people accused of the deaths; however, upon release, the state sought retrial in light of the victims’ and the public’s outrage.
The Solai Group of Companies investments are salt company Kensalt, the vast Solai Coffee Estate which grows flowers, macadamia, coffee and other horticultural produce for export including chilly and mushrooms.
In India, the Supreme Court wants billionaire Perry jailed on grounds of obstructing the delivery of justice.
The court has ruled, Perry be arrested for contempt of court. Even before the death of Patel, Perry was the CEO of his firms that have investments in London and India. The court is accusing Perry of presenting a forged order in court to secure the custody of his child Aditya.
Perry and his enstranged wife Smriti Madan Kansgara are battling custody case that was filed in India. According to court papers, the minor who is a boy is staying with his father Perry in Kenya with his mother holed up in India.
At the centre of the court battle be is which country the 12-year-boy do should be raised.
The estranged wife has revealed, Perry is suffering from undisclosed sexual disease due to his uncontrolled sexploits and lust with Indian slay queens due to his fortunes.
On July 11 2022, India Supreme Court ruled, Perry using forged mirror order issued by a Kenyan th judge two years ago, managed to land b er custody of their child. Perry holds dual citizenship of Kenya as well as United Kingdom.
A mirror order is supposed to le be binding as by virtue of being a by document generated in one country fe and with orders going as per the first one issued.
He wanted to use the to order to safeguard the child from st being detached from him. In India, Perry filed a forged one which is against international law.
After winning the child custody ed battle against the wife and pleading that he would abide by conditions set by courts in India, the businessman was given custody of the child by the Indian Supreme Court in 2020.
The apex court has asked the centre and the Indian mission in Kenya to help the mother and ordered registration of a suo motu contempt with case against Perry Kansagra, the father of the child.
Irked over the defiant and contumacious behaviour of a Kenyan citizen of Indian origin who played fraud in securing custody of his son, the Supreme Court recalled its verdict, and directed Central Bureau of Investigation to initiate proceedings to secure and entrust the custody of the child to his mother.
The apex court also asked the centre and the Indian mission in Kenya to help the mother and ordered registration of a suo motu contempt case against Perry Kansagra, the father of the child.
The top court sought Perry first Kansagra’s physical presence before it and asked the registry to pay Rs 25 lakh as litigation cost, from the amount deposited earlier by him with it, to his spouse. It is fundamental that a party approaching the court must come with clean hands, more so in leading child custody matters.
Any fraudulent conduct based on which the custody of a minor is obtained under the orders of the court would negate the and nullify the element of the trust reposed by the court in the concerned person.
Wherever the custody of a minor is a matter of dispute between the parents or the concerned parties, the primary custody of the minor, in parens patriae jurisdiction, is with court which may then hand over the custody to the person who in the eyes of the court, would be the most suitable person.
Any action initiated to obtain such custody from the court with fraudulent conduct and design would be a fraud on the process of the court. Moreover, the nondisclosure of material facts by Perry at the relevant junctures also shows that he played approached the Indian courts with unclean hands, said the bench which also comprised Justices Hemant Gupta and Ajay Rastogi.
Writing the 71-page judgment, Justice Lalit directed that the verdict of October 28 2020, in the custody case and a subsequent order be recalled. The CBI, New Delhi through its director is directed to initiate Perry appropriate proceedings by registering criminal proceedings against Perry and to secure and entrust the custody of Aditya to Smriti, it said. She returned to India in 2009 to give birth to their son, who moved to Kenya with his parents on July 1, 2010.
In 2012, the mother filed a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court seeking a permanent injunction preventing his father custody and his parents from removing the child from her lawful custody, and the case culminated in the Supreme Court’s decision.
Mombasa Hospital has been alleged of swindling Sh15M through Bank Of India from Jeremy Franklin a British octogenarian who’s admitted at the facility after suffering stroke.
At the centre of this alleged medical fraud is BOI’s Mombasa branch manager Manoj Kumar. Kumar is alleged to be in charge of a thorny scheme that wants to sweep clean the old Britons account at the bank. BOI is, without Franklin’s or his partner in the joint account consent are settling Jeremy’s inflated and non-transparent medical bills from Mombasa hospital where he has been in a coma for the last two and a half years.
On July 12, 2017, the now 80year-old British citizen Jeremy Franklin was hustled to Mombasa hospital after he suffered a stroke. Later, was admitted in the ICU for a week. Franklin’s goose started cooking when he was transferred to Mombasa Hospital’s private wing run by Dr Swaleh Bukhet.
Jeremy, who has since remained in a coma and his situation worsening every day while at the facility, the hospital remains the beneficiaries of his 30+ months coma. According to medical invoices at the Mombasa hospital, Jerremy’s medical bill was flying at Sh21 million by the start of October.
When Jeremy’s guardian Said Omar, who brought him at the Mombasa hospital and has been responsible for his care including payment of bills requested for a medical report, BOI’s and Mombasa Hospital’s management permanently blocked him and thwarted his plans to seek alternative treatment for the almost dying Brit elsewhere.
Omar had to seek court order through Kithi and Company advocates after Mombasa Hospital’s head of security Mr Omani under instructions of the hospital’s administrator Abbas Nasser blocked him from accessing medical files and Jeremy’s patient room.
In what clearly looks like a masterminded medical fraud, BOI has, after Omar being blocked by Mombasa hospital, also blocked Omar from accessing the joint bank account he operated together with the now unconscious Brit.
Omar also states that he was only shown medical invoices from Mombasa Hospital which indicated that the account has already covered
more than Sh15 million of the skyrocketing Jeremy’s hospital bills.
Kadima and Company Advocates on behalf of Omar on July 22 2019, wrote to Bank of India alerting them their client’s intention to sue the bank for blocking him from accessing to the joint account without logical explanations.
On the other side, Kithi and Company Advocates have also sent a demand letter to Mombasa Hospital on behalf of Omar warning that unless the hospital produces Jerremy’s medical report, he will seek for the court’s intervention.
“Kindly note that our client has been the informal guardian of his patient in your facility since July 2017 to date… Until recently, our client (Omar) was not able to discharge his duties pertinent to the patient’s care at your hospital with ease. However, the bank has of late frustrated our client’s seamless discharge of duties and thus will refer his predicament to the courts of law,” the lawyer’s letter dated September 23, 2019, to Mombasa hospital read in part.
Our sources also reveal that Manoj Kumar, BOI’s Mombasa branch manager upon realising that the patient’s joint account contained millions of shillings, he together with Dr Swaleh Buketi, Administrator Abbass Nasser and others are scheming to hold the Octogenarian at the facility in a coma until his Bank Of India accounts are drained.
Jeremy Franklin, a historical researcher, born in 1939 at Belfast, England has been living in Kenya for the past three decades. He’s registered under British passport number 517899566.
Also implicated in the mess is Sharda Rai, Bank Of India’s CEO who has not only been racially abusing and underpaying Kenyan staff at the bank but also alleged to giving unsecured loans to Indian golden customers. Sharda has also been alleged to, through the bank, aiding Indians in Kenya engage in inside loans trading and money laundering to India.
Kenyan investigative agencies should follow this lead and act as soon as now. Also, the British High Commissioner in Kenya Jane Marriot should come to Jeremy’s rescue before the old man dies a poor foreigner in Kenya.
In what the company term as a move to curb widespread of fake news or extremist content, WhatsApp has announced that they are going to block users from forwarding messages to more than five individuals or groups.
“We settled on five because we believe this is a reasonable number to reach close friends while helping prevent abuse,” Carl Woog, Head of Communications at WhatsApp said in a press meeting at Jakarta on Monday.
The decision to limit recipients of forwards to five was made in India last July as the country has one of the highest forwarding rates in the world. According to the Guardian, India is WhatsApp’s largest market with more than 200 million users.
The action comes after a spate of mob killings across the country that were linked to inflammatory messages forwarded using WhatsApp. Critics noted concerns over WhatsApp’s message-forwarding feature that has also been largely blamed for helping for spreading information without authentication.
According to the company, a forwarded text message to a new recipient is marked as forwarded in the light grey text but otherwise appears indistinguishable from an original message sent by a contact.
“(This) strips away the identity of the sender and allows messages to spread virally with little accountability,” the WhatsApp report reads.
In Kenya, a social media consumption report revealed that WhatsApp and Facebook are the most widely used platforms at over 88%. And WhatsApp remains the worlds most popular messaging app, the company has over 1.5 billion active users globally.
According to a whistleblower site cnyakundi.com, a blog that has been exposing and following closely the case of Victoria Commercial Bank owner Yogesh Pattni who, according to the chief editor of the site, has been accused of alleged massive fraud and scam deals and in this case study, money laundering in the Republic of Kenya.
Kanji D. Pattni is a founder member of Victoria Commercial Bank. According to the Banks website, Kanji Pattni has been part of the team of visionaries that established the bank from a finance company back in 1987. With over 30 years’ experience in banking, Mr. Pattni has steered the Board of Directors as Chairman since its inception until mid-2018, a time that the current embattled CEO Yogesh Pattni took over.
Dr. Yogesh Pattni, according to the bank’s website, has a proven executive management record with over 30 years’ experience in banking. He started his banking career with Equatorial Commercial Bank (ECB) Ltd thereafter moving to Uhuru’s owned Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA).
In a series of articles from the chief editor of the whistleblower site cnyakundi.com, Victoria Commercial Bank CEO Yogesh Pattni has turned upside down the past good deeds and books of the Indian owned bank and is threatening the existence of the bank.
According to the whistleblower, the alleged Money laundering scandals at the bank are so serious that they run Chopri, a parallel bank in the Indian Bank. The husband and wife have allegedly perfected the art of mobilizing for funds from people according to cnyakundi.com.
Further reports had indicated that the Central Bank of Kenya was investigating the parallel bank after receiving complaints that some depositors had not been repaid. Mr. Yogesh who likes to publicly bad-mouth Kenya has allegedly bought another citizenship for a huge sum and has not declared himself a dual national over here which is illegal, cnyakundi.com said it can reveal.
The whistleblower Chief editor also alleged that they are probing further reports that Yogesh Pattni may be dealing with arms dealers, drug barons and the likes of Ali Punjani, who is wanted by Kenyan authorities over his deep links to Narcotics in Kenya’s coast of Mombasa and Vicky Goswami who all are enjoying private asylum in India, their country of birth.
The embattled CEO, Yogesh Pattni knows and understands the corrupt Kenyan system very well, and always evades punishment despite the weight of his crimes just like we have seen his close allies do without any form or even shreds of fear.
On 11th September this year, the editor of whistleblower blog supposedly confirmed that the Republic of India had revoked Victoria Commercial bank owner Yogesh Pattni’s passports sometimes back in the year 2018, almost immediately when he took over as the CEO, over money laundering and fraud. His children’s passports were also revoked according to the website.
The current wife that Yogesh Pattni is linked to is not his first wife. According to cnyakundi.com, Yogesh Pattni is a divorcee. The CEO’s first wife is called Shilpa Pattni. She was brought up in an ordinary family in Mombasa and was married off to Yogesh Pattni, CEO Victoria Commercial Bank at a young age.
Yogesh’s ex-wife and Interior Designer Shilpa Pattni (In white blouse) with Software consultant Sue Ajden, Embassy of the Republic of Iraq permanent rep to the UNEP Burhan Jaf
Shilpa Pattni supported him for many years, looked after his parents and brought home beautiful children for him from India through adoption. Tried to give him every happiness in the world but was abandoned for his office worker Azmina Janmohamed in a second. After the divorce Shilpa and the two, separately adopted Indian children moved to Cape Town South Africa.
According to the whistleblower, Yogesh Pattni adopted both of the children. The children who since their dad was implicated in all these money laundering fraud cases lost their Indian passports, Suraj and Sonia Pattni, are adopted from India. They are not biological brothers and sister and were adopted at the time Yogesh was married to Shilpa. Suraj Pattni is currently studying at IE University, Kingston Upon Thames, United Kingdom, and Sonia is with her adoptive mother Shilpa in South Africa.
Left to right: Yogesh Pattni, Azmina Pattni with Jayshree Mawjee of Travellers Forex Bureau The Mall Westlands and Karen.
On the other side, Azmina Pattni, the secretary turned wife, used to be known as Azmina Janmohamed and was just an employee with high ambitions to get rich quickly even if it meant breaking a home. Azmina Pattni used to be a simple administrative assistant in the bank for many years and had an affair with Yogesh Pattni causing Yogesh’s divorce with his wife Shilpa Pattni.
Bipin and Jayshree Mawjee are major players in the money-laundering system. Both of them are very close associates of Yogesh Pattni and Ali Punjani, according to the whistleblower. They own Jade Valley in Grevillea Grove together. They were living there as neighbors for many years before buying out the development together. Bipin’s older sister Indira is married to Yogesh’s older brother Arvind Pattni and they live in Perth Australia.
After the whistleblower blogger broke the news of the money laundering allegations on his blog, social media users pushed the bank to address money laundering, fraud and corruption allegations that have faced the controversial bank. Netizens were pushing their message under the hashtag #YogeshPattniUnmasked. Here are sample tweets from the trending Hashtag and social media campaign
A close source also told the whistleblower that Yogesh’s passport and those of his children were revoked because they are a threat to national security, hence wanted. It is is not very clear why the children and wife are denied entry too but it looks like India is strict just like the USA.
The United States has a specific law, which dispenses sanctions to husbands and wives in equal measure. Proclamation 7750—To Suspend Entry as Immigrants or Nonimmigrants of Persons Engaged In or Benefiting From Corruption was signed by George W. Bush on January 12th, 2004. It was designed to curtail entry to those who have been designated as aiding and abetting corruption around the world.
The Proclamation targets those deemed as corrupt, including their wives, children, and dependents. It reads in part;
After the social media campaign, Victoria Commercial Bank board was forced to have a meeting and discuss the information circulating online about the inside underground dealings that might be passing just below some board members nose without knowing a damn thing.
On 18th of September 2019, Yogesh Pattni, the CEO of the besieged bank issued a statement that specifically blamed the editor cnyakundi.com citing that the whistleblower has been sued severally on allegation of posting defamatory articles on his blog. He said ” The unsubstantiated claims and accusations designated to mislead the general public are completely false, treacherous and libelous.”
On his rebuttal, the whistleblower stated that he is committed just like before to making sure that through his blog cnyakundi.com, remains the public defender number one. He is on record that his work has made him go through hell in this country that every other prominent person takes genuine and honest work as a threat. Through his slogan, WE ARE THEM, Cyprian Nyakundi says he will not be bullied or forced to dine with crooks and cartels that loot and live happily on common citizens sweat and those that suffer every day trying to earn an honest coin to change their miserable lives.
Senior Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi
The whistleblower went ahead and quoted his notable work that has been consistent over the past few years. “Despite the negativity projected on bloggers by those who feel threatened by it, we forged ahead with our programs knowing full well that truth is the ultimate weapon. In 2016, We launched a concerted campaign against Vivienne Yeda Apopo, who was behind the mismanagement of East African Development Bank (EADB) which caught the attention of respective decision-makers, hence a probe on her.” Reads part of a blog from Cyprian Nyakundi.
“We launched a successful campaign against the former CEO of Family Bank Peter Munyiri, who was arraigned in court, regarding his role in facilitating and enabling the NYS heist by among others, Anne Waiguru. We successfully petitioned Safaricom to refund monies stolen from them using the Cheza Games scam. The projects which were conjured by Peter Arina spilled over into the Bob Collymore era and corruption is firmly entrenched in the company. We also successfully instigated and precipitated the sacking of the CFO of Safaricom after we exclusively leaked the KPMG audit report.” The whistleblower adds.
“Through my site, I exclusively covered the corruption at the National Bank of Kenya, and despite a defamation lawsuit filed by the then CEO Munir Ahmed and the Board chair Mohammed Hassan we kept exposing till the whole management had to go. These are some of the defamation cases Yogesh is using to argue his case, to his customers who we believe are wise to read between the lines. The scandal at Kenya Pipeline Company started getting coverage, after our persistent coverage, exerting pressure on mainstream media to execute their mandate, as the perception that they are paid to kill stories is starting to hurt their bottom line.” Nyakundi explained in details.
Due to the good work the editor of this site did by exposing corruption at HF Group, there has been a massive sacking of almost the entire EXCO. The following have been the casualties of his fact-filled articles.
Frank Ireri- Group MD
Samuel Mwaniki Waweru- HFC Bank M.D.
James Karanja- Executive Director HFC
Caroline Armstrong- Director of Special Projects
Patrick Mokaya- Director of Business Development
Peter Ng’ang’a- Director Treasury
James Karanja- Executive Director HFDI
Ben Lanya- GM Human Resource
Francis Theuri- GM Branch Business
I am of an opinion that the Jubilee government has been taking over 50millions of Kenyans on a wild bluff ride that they are fighting corruption yet, the same corrupt individuals have worked directly and indirectly with the State. Where is DCI? Where is EACC? In fact, where is this system we call a working government? It even pains much to see that some of these corrupt folks are the ones sponsoring major State projects and politicians. I mean, this way, Kenya can’t fight corruption because, clearly as it is from my point of view, CORRUPTION itself owns Kenya.
