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The biggest and relief news of this time is coming out from the corridors of global oil market and geopolitics. US senators on Tuesday introduced a new revised version of the controversial bill imposing sanctions on Russia. This historic bill, supported by the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, marks a major diplomatic change by significantly reducing the threat of devastating 500 percent economic tariffs on India, China and other countries dependent on Russian energy. Indian business sectors and exporters have heaved a sigh of relief with this unexpected U-turn by the US administration and the White House. Pressure strategy continues: Punitive duty reduced from 500% to 100% The main objective of this new bill, which has the joint support of both Republican and Democratic major political parties, is still to dry up Moscow’s financial sources. Under this, along with imposing stringent personal sanctions on top Kremlin officials, economic pressure is being continued on big countries like India and China so that they gradually end their dependence on the supply of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia. However, amid diplomatic tensions and fear of a complete collapse of the global trade chain, US policymakers have rejected the original proposal of imposing a one-time 500 per cent duty and limited it to a maximum of 100 per cent for the top five buyers of the fuel. These countries will get big relief: India-China included in the list of top buyers According to the official data released by the Senate and analysis of allies, China, India, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan have been identified as the top five buyers of Russian crude oil. At the same time, the top buyers of Russian natural gas include China, France, Japan, Hungary and Belgium. After this historic amendment made in the new bill, the direct threat of American recession being imposed on big developing markets like India has been averted. This maximum slab of 100 per cent will act as a strategic buffer for those countries which have suddenly expressed their practical and domestic inability to give up Russian oil. New provision of special exemption for European countries and Japan Another most important feature of this amended law is that it has paved the way for a special legal exemption (Sanction Waiver) for those countries which buy less than 15 percent of the total gas exports from Russia for their total energy needs. Along with this, the condition will also be that those countries are taking concrete steps to find alternative energy sources. Under this new concession, America’s major strategic allies like Japan, France, Hungary and Belgium can be completely kept out of the strict scope of sanctions, which will be of great help to these countries in maintaining their national energy security and running domestic industries.