-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...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The bouts of rainfall that battered Houston, Mumbai and Calcutta last week, albeit in vastly different amounts, may earn tags of extreme rain events that weather scientists say are becoming more common under the influence of global warming. The tropical storm Harvey set a record for continental US with 132cm rainfall about 45km southeast of Houston on August 29. Mumbai's Santa Cruz weather station documented 31cm rain over...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation: On digital transactions, too, RBI data shows that the volume of electronic payments, after peaking in December 2016 at 957.50 million transactions compared with 671.49 million in November, has been on a decline. New Delhi: When it launched the currency withdrawal in November, the NDA government had outlined four key objectives of the demonetisation exercise: detection of black money, elimination of fake currency, squeezing funds available for...

-The Indian Express A scrutiny of RBI’s earlier provisional disclosures and the government’s structured public remarks reveal a pattern: aware that much of the money would return, the government and the political establishment kept shifting the goalposts. New Delhi: “Tab (previous UPA) aawaz uthti thi ki kitna gaya, ab aawaz uth rahi hai ki kitna laye. Isse bada jeevan ka santosh kya ho sakta hai…Yahi toh sahi kadam hai…Woh zamana tha tab...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The flood situation in Assam and Bihar remained grim on Tuesday with more deaths reported and lakhs remaining affected while it improved slightly in West Bengal. Ten deaths were reported in Assam, taking the toll in the second wave of floods in the state to 28, officials said. The Brahmaputra river and its tributaries are flowing over the danger level snapping surface communications across Assam, even as flood waters submerged...