Indian PM Modi and Iranian President Pezeshkian to meet at 09:30 BST

Scheduled bilateral meetings between an Indian prime minister and an Iranian president follow a well-worn template: optics-heavy encounters on the sidelines of summits or multilateral gatherings that rarely produce immediate policy shifts. The standing agenda is familiar and durable: the Chabahar port project and its associated connectivity corridor, India's crude imports from Iran which have been effectively halted under sanctions pressure, and the broader balance India maintains between Tehran on one side and Washington and the Gulf states on the other. Historically, readouts from these meetings have been warm in tone and thin in substance, with progress measured in working groups and memoranda rather than contracts, a reflection of the sanctions constraints that bind both sides' room for manoeuvre. The distinction worth drawing is between routine diplomatic maintenance and any mention of oil, payment mechanisms, or port investment commitments, since those are the channels through which anything tangible would transmit to energy markets or regional freight. Worth noting are the accompanying delegations and whether any energy or transport ministers are present, which has in past episodes signalled whether substance beyond pleasantries is on the table. As a scheduled encounter rather than a response to events, the default precedent is low market salience.