Middle East crisis: Amit Shah leads informal government to discuss ‘overarching strategic issues’

New Delhi: Home Minister Amit Shah is leading an informal Group of Ministers (GoM) to address “overarching strategic issues” arising from the ongoing conflict in West Asia, including declining supplies of cooking gas and liquefied natural gas (the main feedstock for urea production).Shah has held meetings with other ministers, including Fertilizer Minister JP Nadda and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, to assess the fertilizer and oil and gas supply situation.TOI has learned that another informal government has been formed, headed by Power and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal, to handle matters related to energy supply. The organization held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss in detail issues related to “pipeline gas supply to households”. The meeting was attended by Food and Renewable Energy Minister Pralhad Joshi, Heavy Industries Minister HD Kumaraswamy and Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri. This is important as the government is focused on getting more households using Papua New Guinea as an alternative to LPG.Chairing a meeting of the Cabinet Security Committee on Saturday, Prime Minister Modi Directs the establishment of a group of ministers and secretaries to work exclusively in a whole-of-government manner. He also sought sectoral groups to work in consultation with all stakeholders.On Tuesday, Modi announced the creation of seven empowered secretarial groups to deal with different issues arising from the crisis; some groups held their first round of meetings on Wednesday. “The course of action will become clearer in the coming days,” an official said.