-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Around 235 districts across the country face the prospect of drought this year as the monsoon appears headed for a below-normal performance, with the season's deficit currently at 6.2% of normal. These districts, accounting for 37% of India's 630 districts for which rain data is available, have monsoon shortfall of at least 20%, with nine show acute deficits of 60% or more, data from the India...

-Hindustan Times Productivity is also expected to drop further to about 35% owing to intermittent rains. Mumbai: Prolonged dry spells and deviation in rainfall for about six weeks in July and August has led to a drop in agricultural production and productivity when compared to the state’s five-year average and the bumper crop yielded last year. The drop, which ranges between 15% and 28%, in the production of pulses, cereals and oilseeds...

-Livemint.com Rainfall in the entire country in August has seen a deficit of 23% so far, according to IMD data New Delhi: A patch of red signifying deficit rains, cutting across the length of India from Haryana in the north to Kerala in the south, is threatening to worsen farm distress, shows rainfall data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The June to September south-west monsoon which irrigates over half of India’s crop...

-The Hindu Fifty years since the Green Revolution, the architect of the reform highlights the crisis facing Indian agriculture today It is 11 years since agronomist M.S. Swaminathan handed over his recommendations for improving the state of agriculture in India to the former United Progressive Alliance government, at the height of the Vidarbha farmer suicides crisis, but they are still to be implemented. To address the agrarian crisis and farmers’ unrest across...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Entire Vidarbha and parts of Marathwada region are reeling under acute shortage of water owing to poor monsoon. In fact, water stock was zero in some of the dams in the Vidarbha region on Monday. Further, a large number of tankers have been sent to several villages in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions. Last year, 176 tankers were deployed across the state, while on August 7, 440 tankers...