-PTI This rule will apply to essential commodities that are sold both in loose and packaged form in retail markets To check inflation, the government has amended the metrology rules which would allow it to fix retail prices of essential commodities like pulses and sugar in extraordinary situations. Under the present system, retail prices are fixed by market forces, leaving very little room for the government to check undue spike in prices. “We have...

-Business Standard 85%of the country gets normal rains, but Karnataka declares drought The southwest monsoon season (June to September) across the country in 2016 was 97 per cent of the long period average (LPA). Although it fell short of predictions by the weather office, this was the first normal monsoon in the country since 2013. If the rainfall is between 96 and 104 per cent of the LPA, it is considered normal. LPA...

-Hindustan Times Mumbai: The 2015-16 drought in Marathwada was caused not by climate change but poor management of water resources, a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology-Pune and the Indian Institute of Science-Bengaluru has revealed. The two institutions analysed 145 years of monsoon rainfall data to arrive at the conclusion. While admitting that the region is prone to droughts, the study states that the magnitude of the last drought could...

-Livemint.com The latest addition takes the total number of drought-affected talukas to 110, out of 177 talukas in the state Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Wednesday declared 42 more talukas or administrative units as drought-affected. The latest addition takes the total number of drought-affected talukas to 110 (68 were announced drought-affected last week). There are 177 talukas in Karnataka across 30 districts. T.B. Jayachandra, law and parliamentary affairs minister of Karnataka, said that...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today pulled up the Maharashtra government for "not taking any interest" although hundreds of children had died of malnutrition in the state's drought-affected regions. "You don't bother when people die of malnutrition because you think it is a small figure in a country with a large population," a bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and N.V. Ramana told a lawyer who appeared for the BJP-led...