-The Times of India NEW DELHI: At the halfway mark, the monsoon shows no signs of flagging and, on current projections, is set to cross 100% of its long period average, promising to relieve a stressed economy and ease the Manmohan Singh government's political burden. A bountiful monsoon is likely to benefit the kharif crop despite some hiccups in east India and the government is anticipating record rice production with the area...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A day after more than 20 schoolchildren died after eating a contaminated mid-day meal in Bihar's Chapra district, Delhi had its own scare when 21 kids had to be rushed to hospitals across the city after they were given iron and folic acid tablets during a government drive against anaemia. The children, aged 9 to 17, had severe stomach ache, nausea and vomiting on Wednesday -...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The weather office may have jumped the gun in declaring last week's torrential rainfall in northern India as monsoon showers. Private forecasters say the devastating downpour was a freak pre-monsoon phenomenon that has been followed by dry weather. The India Meteorological Department insists that monsoon rains arrived two weeks early, but private forecaster Skymet says the claim is debatable. It says northern India will get the next...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Riding on strong easterlies, monsoon made a grand entry today in the national capital even as seasonal rains covered the entire country one month in advance. South-west monsoon, which kept its June 1 date with Kerala, made rapid progress across the country bringing bountiful showers all along and giving relief to most drought- hit regions. The monsoon onset in Delhi today was also a fortnight in advance as the normal...

-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...