-The Economic Times That India has had an excellent monsoon is a given, as is the prognosis that it will more than double agricultural growth from the lowly 1.9% seen in the last fiscal year. The happy tidings on the farm front won't end there. The joy could actually multiply by the last quarter of this fiscal year because abundant rains will benefit the increasingly important winter rabi crop more than...

-The Telegraph New Delhi/Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today landed in the national capital with a demand of a relief package of Rs 12,000 crore from the Centre. A day after declaring 33 of Bihar's 38 districts as drought-hit, Nitish, who met finance minister P. Chidambaram and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, said the state's agrarian economy was totally paralysed because of the acute rainfall deficiency during the kharif season. Nitish requested Chidambaram to...

-The Telegraph Patna: Bihar's honeymoon with double digit growth appears to be headed for a rocky phase with the government today declaring 33 of the state's 38 districts as drought-hit. The agriculture and allied sectors, which contribute around one-fifth (18.91 per cent) of Bihar's gross state domestic product (GSDP), are staring at a lower growth rate for the second consecutive year. The overall growth rate of the state was a little...

-The Times of India PUNE: The surplus rainfall recorded by the country so far this season has come down to 11% above normal, as on Friday, from the 17% above normal recorded by end-July. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has attributed the reduced rainfall activity to factors like a continuing absence of an offshore trough along the west coast and a weak monsoon current. "There has been rainfall in most parts of...

The poor man’s rich grain is getting richer – a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition shows that a variety of new pearl millet (more commonly known as bajra), which was conventionally bred to be 10% richer in iron helped iron-deficient children under the age of 3 years, to absorb enough of this crucial mineral to meet their physiological requirements. (See links below for full text and a...