Iran war: Indian migrant workers hit by cooking gas cylinder shortages leave cities

Every morning, Shakuntala Devi and Shakiba Bibi - neighbours at a slum in India's capital Delhi - leave their homes, walking from one shop to another in search of a cooking gas cylinder. For three weeks now, they have returned empty handed. "If it continues like this for a few more days, we will run out of gas in our kitchens and have to return to our villages," Shakuntala says. Shakuntala, Shakiba and many of their neighbours who join them in the cylinder hunt work as domestic helpers in middle-class neighbourhoods near the slum, earning around 15,000 rupees (£122; $161) a month. Their families migrated to Delhi from villages in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh and eastern Bihar state over the past decade. The disruption to global shipments caused by the war in the Middle East has strained cooking gas supplies in India. Many people are finding it difficult to access Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders, the most widely used cooking fuel in the country. India depends heavily on LPG imports, much of which reach the country through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow, critical shipping route affected by the conflict. While Iran is now allowing Indian vessels to pass, the situation is still u