-The Hindu Business line Farm output hit; water levels in reservoirs at their lowest; Kerala, Karnataka looking at cloud seeding Bengaluru/ Thiruvananthapuram: The near-normal monsoon in 2016 may have helped most parts of the country come out of two successive droughts and perhaps propel foodgrain output to a new high, but not in the South. The drought has extended its grip in the South, with the South-West monsoon falling significantly short and the...

-The Indian Express One of the key issues that any incoming government in Punjab has to immediately grapple with is high state debt estimated at Rs 1.25 lakh crore in the last year’s budget. A clutch of other key reforms such as improving land allotment process and streamlining property registration would also need the attention of the new government. Punjab has steadily accumulated the debt over the years, resulting in its...

-The Economic Times SILIGURI: Acute shortage in cold storage capacity has put potato farmers in great distress in west bengal, which is the second largest producers of the tuber in the country after Uttar Pradesh. The situation, if not managed soon, may cause severe rural level socio-economic crisis in many districts of the state. As the potato sowing and reaping timeline goes, farmers start loading their produce at cold storages during March...

-The Hindu Business Line 'Above normal' temperatures forecast across the country Prepare for a scorching summer as the India Meteorological Department has forecast “above normal” temperatures across most of the country. Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir — or hill-station States popular among tourists wanting to escape the heat — are expected to be particularly hot with predicted temperatures, on average, likely to be well above 1 degree C above their normal...

-IANS Kolkata: Lack of policy directions for ensuring quality implementation of programmes makes the Union Budget 2017-18 allocations to ailing core social sectors like education and health inadequate in delivering the benefits, experts say. Schemes like Swachh Bharat-Urban and the National Social Assistance Programme saw no increase, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan got a mere 4.4 per cent rise in allocation, while the Integrated Child Development Services got an enhancement of about five per...