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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.

India is the world’s third-biggest consumer and importer of crude oil, and Sitharaman said Prime Minister Narendra Modi deserved credit for balancing trade and other ties with various countries.

“I give credit to the statesmanship of the prime minister to make sure globally that we did keep up the relationship with all countries but yet managed to get the Russian fuel, which is what Japan is doing today, which is what some other countries are doing,” Sitharaman said at an event in New Delhi.

Indian government ministers have repeatedly said the country needed to keep buying energy from Russia to keep inflation under check.

Sitharaman said India’s inflation management was “an exercise of so many activities, most of which are outside the (purview of) monetary policy”.