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Ludhiana, Mar 2: MBD Group, one of India’s most trusted names in educational publishing and learning solutions, hosted its Distributors Meet 2026 in Ludhiana, bringing together partners from the Punjab region ahead of the upcoming academic year. The meet was led by Ms. Monica Malhotra Kandhari, Managing Director, MBD Group, and saw the presence of Mr. Praveen Singh, CEO, AASOKA, along with senior leaders from MBD Group, including Mr. Sanjay Bhatt, Senior Zonal Head, and members of the team. The meetunderscored MBD Group’s focus on strengthening long-term relationships, improving distribution effectiveness, and ensuring the timely and affordable delivery of learning resources to schools.

 The distributors meet focused on aligning book trade partners with the academic year’s priorities and product roadmap, while also addressing affordability, supply chain efficiency, and market readiness. It served as a strategic forum to review evolving curriculum requirements, market dynamics, and the changing needs of schools and educators. With a strong emphasis on quality-first education, MBD reiterated its approach of combining strong content with accessibility and cost-conscious delivery. Discussions also centred on equipping partners with clearer planning visibility, streamlined processes, and collaborative growth opportunities to ensure smoother reach across schools and institutions in the region.

Addressing the gathering, Ms. Monica Malhotra Kandhari, Managing Director, MBD Group, said,

“For MBD Group, the strength of our distribution network directly impacts the quality and consistency of learning delivered in classrooms. This meet was about setting clear priorities for the academic year ahead, including curriculum relevance, academic integrity, and execution excellence, while ensuring our partners are equipped to deliver consistently across geographies. Alongside this, we remain focused on responsible pricing, so that our books continue to make quality education accessible without compromising on standards.”

Sharing his perspective on the Group’s digital learning journey, Mr. Praveen Singh, CEO, AASOKA, added,

“Growth at MBD Group has been guided by disciplined execution and strong alignment across the ecosystem, rather than scale for its own sake. As blended learning becomes integral to classroom delivery, the focus remains on ensuring clarity around learning outcomes, effective use of technology, and consistent on-ground implementation. These elements are critical to building a sustainable education ecosystem that supports teachers, strengthens classroom effectiveness, and maintains rigorous academic standards, while also ensuring learning solutions remain simple, effective, and affordable for students.”

A key highlight of the meet was MBD Group’s integrated blended learning strategy, where academic content is designed simultaneously for print and digital learning. As part of this blended learning ecosystem, AASOKA has engaged with over 4,000 schools since its launch in 2021, supporting 9.5 lakh students and having trained over 80,000 teachers across the country. The discussions emphasised the role of distributors in strengthening the reach and delivery of AASOKA’s blended learning offerings, ensuring adoption aligned with curriculum requirements and classroom outcomes.

The MBD Distributors Meet 2026 concluded with interactive discussions and strategic exchanges aimed at reinforcing trust, collaboration, and shared growth. With a steadfast focus on quality, innovation, and partnership-led expansion, MBD Group continues to strengthen its mission of building a resilient, future-ready education ecosystem in India.

By Kirsten Hilgeford

When it comes to the price of financial services such as loans, mortgages, and insurance, the perception of what is “fair” has a lot to do with how wealthy you are. In the study “Seeing Like a Company or a Customer: Selective Empathy in Pricing,” appearing in the February 2026 issue of the American Sociological Review, authors Barbara Kiviat (Columbia University) and Carly R. Knight (New York University) examine how Americans evaluate the fairness of risk-based pricing—where consumers who are predicted to be high-risk/costly are charged more. 

Grounding their approach in previous sociological research on empathy, Kiviat and Knight demonstrate that either side of an economic transaction—company or customer—can become the object of empathy. To establish this, Kiviat and Knight conducted three studies on risk-based pricing, focusing on transactions between customers and companies. In the first study, they analyzed two nationally representative surveys to examine the relationship between household income and beliefs about the fairness of charging high-risk people more for insurance and credit. The authors uncovered a pattern in which wealthier individuals, regardless of their economic self-interest or ideology, were more likely to accept the moral legitimacy of tying prices to a person’s behavior.  

The authors then proposed the new lens of “selective empathy” to apply to their remaining two studies. Selective empathy is when an individual disproportionately directs their empathy to and takes the perspective of either the company or the customer in evaluating pricing arrangements. Kiviat and Knight found that wealthier individuals are more likely than lower-income individuals to empathize with companies—and less likely to empathize with high-risk consumers. 

“Our findings show that support for pro-business pricing practices is not simply about self-interest,” said the authors. “Instead, wealthier Americans more easily see things from a company’s ‘point of view,’ making these practices appear fair even when they consistently burden high-risk consumers. This class-based split in perspective matters to how people judge the fairness of our economy.” 

The authors note that their findings ultimately “reveal that risk-based pricing—even in its most institutionalized, ostensibly innocuous form—reflects a class-based understanding of market fairness.” 

New Delhi, Mar 02: Honda Cars India Ltd. (HCIL), a leading manufacturer of premium cars in India, announced that it recorded total sales of 7,212 units with domestic sales of 5,629 units and exports of 1,583 units in February 2026.

Sharing his thoughts on the sales performance, Mr. Kunal Behl, Vice President, Marketing & Sales, Honda Cars India Ltd. said, “We maintained our sales momentum through February, driven by strong popularity of Honda Amaze as a practical sedan with outclass safety. Honda City and Elevate also recorded steady volumes with exciting promotions during the month. As we approach the final month of the fiscal, we remain optimistic about market performance.”

The company had registered 5,616 units in domestic sales and 4,707 units in exports during February 2025.

LONDON/HOUSTON/SINGAPORE, Mar 2: Higher oil and gas prices are certain as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz threatens to disrupt 15% of global oil supply and 20% of global LNG supply, with oil prices potentially exceeding $100/bbl if tanker flows are not quickly restored, according to Wood Mackenzie. Following US and Israeli attacks on Iranian government, military and nuclear facilities, Iran warned shipping away from the waterway and insurers withdrew coverage, effectively halting tanker traffic.

The disruption creates a dual supply shock: not only are current exports through the Strait halted, but OPEC+ additional volumes and ultimately most of OPEC’s spare capacity—typically a key lever for balancing the global oil market—are inaccessible while the waterway remains closed.

“The key question is when do vessels re-establish export flows,” said Alan Gelder, SVP of Refining, Chemicals and Oil Markets at Wood Mackenzie. “No doubt, tanker rates and insurance will increase dramatically, but these costs would only be a small part of the oil price impact associated with a curtailment of oil flows if they last for more than a few days.”

Given the uncertainty around events, it is plausible that it takes a few weeks for export flows to re-establish themselves in the most optimistic scenario (in which the Iranian regime elects to co-operate with the US), Gelder added.

“During that time, oil prices are heavily risked to the upside,” Gelder said. “The most recent comparison is during the early days of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, when the fear of loss of Russian supplies drove the oil price to over US$125/bbl.”

In the current scenario, oil prices over US$100/bbl are possible if transit flows are not re-established quickly, according to Gelder.

OPEC+ production response

The group of eight OPEC+ countries responsible for voluntary production cuts – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman – agreed on 1 March to resume unwinding the April 2023 1.65 million b/d cut. They will increase production by 206,000 b/d in April and meet again on 5 April to assess next steps.

“The OPEC+ decision does not come as a surprise, due to the uncertainty surrounding the US-Iran tensions, and that the market for non-sanctioned crudes is tight,” said Gelder. “There is, however, a risk that the OPEC+ decision is moot if flows do not resume through the Strait of Hormuz.”

While there are potential alternative supply routes available to Middle East producers—including Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline to the Red Sea and additional Iraqi volumes via the Mediterranean—no alternatives can fully compensate for the loss of exports that transit the Strait of Hormuz. Strategic stock releases by IEA member countries could provide some relief, but IEA members account for less than half of global oil demand.

Gas market implications

A halt in LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz would be equally disruptive for global gas and LNG markets, according to Wood Mackenzie. Around 81 Mt (110 bcm) of LNG transited the Strait in 2025—primarily from Qatar—accounting for nearly 20% of global LNG supply.

“Disruptions to LNG flows would reignite competition between Asia and Europe for available cargoes, particularly at a time when European storage levels are below seasonal norms and around 10% lower than at the same point last year, following a severe cold spell in January,” said Massimo Di Odoardo, Vice President, Gas and LNG Research at Wood Mackenzie. “With approximately 1.5 Mt (2.2 bcm) of LNG exports at risk for each week that flows through the Strait of Hormuz are halted, both Asian and European markets would need to draw more heavily on existing storage and would increase the need for restocking over the summer. This would tighten market conditions well beyond the eventual resumption of trade through the Strait.”

Precautionary closures of the Leviathan and Karish gas fields in Israel—which supplied more than 10 bcm to Egypt last year—could add further pressure, as Egypt would likely increase LNG imports to offset lost volumes. Potential disruptions to gas exports from Iran to Turkey, which accounted for more than 7 bcm in 2025, could compound the supply strain.

A halt in LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz would be comparable in scale to the curtailment of Russian gas supplies to Europe, which sent prices soaring to nearly US$100/mmbtu at their peak and averaging US$40/mmbtu in 2022, according to Di Odoardo.

“This time, however, the reaction is unlikely to be as extreme,” added Di Odoardo. “Unlike the prolonged disruption of Russian pipeline flows, a blockage in the Strait could be viewed as temporary, tempering the upside. Still, Monday will see a dramatic price jump at market opening, and any signal that disruptions could drag on would add further fuel to the rally.”

Looking forward

“The nearest historical analogue in our view is the Middle East oil embargo of the 1970s, which increased oil prices by 300 percent to around US$12/bbl in 1974,” said Gelder. “That is only US$90/bbl in 2026 terms. Eclipsing this in today’s market concerned about significant losses of supply seems very achievable.

“The global economy is now far less oil intensive than 50 years ago. The shock at the time of the oil embargo was the pace and scale of the price increase. Oil prices would need to reach well over US$200/bbl to exert a similar level of shock to today’s global economy.”