-The Economic Times This year's frail monsoon has depleted Indian reservoirs to alarming levels last seen during the devastating drought of 2009, threatening even winter-sown crops and making the country vulnerable to drinking water scarcity by February as India's grossly inadequate storage capacity magnifies the impact of weak rainfall. The situation is precarious because the monsoon has delivered normal rainfall to only one-third of the country. The total deficit so far this...

-The Hindu With sowing of kharif crops lagging by over 86 lakh hectares compared to last year, owing to an erratic southwest monsoon and the average water level in major reservoirs declining by 2 per cent (to 59 per cent of last year’s storage) over the previous week, the country faces a grim situation. The area under rice, pulses, oilseeds and coarse cereals is less than what it was last year. Earlier, the...

-Reuters India's monsoon rains retreated to below average levels in the past week, the weather office said on Thursday, after scraping above average the previous week for the first time this season, keeping overall rainfall under par and pushing futures higher. Monsoon rains were 22 per cent below average in the week to July 18 against one per cent above average rains in the previous week, reflecting the return of a weak...

-The Telegraph The poor rainfall performance is likely to impact India’s rice yield this year, a senior agrometeorology scientist said today amid growing concerns over the rainfall deficit persisting 45 days into the monsoon season. Rainfall activity over the past week has reduced India’s land area under rain stress from 82 per cent on July 7 to 59 per cent today, but the cumulative rainfall is still 21 per cent below normal,...

-The Hindustan Times Despite a pickup in rainfall last week, the southwest monsoon remains in deficit by a significant 22%, almost certainly lowering annual production of grains, pulses and oilseeds, the three crops where sowing has been worst hit. The Met office’s estimate coincided with the release of food inflation data that showed a worrying 10.81% rise in June from a year earlier, up from a 10.74% rise in May, an...