-Business Standard 85%of the country gets normal rains, but Karnataka declares drought The southwest monsoon season (June to September) across the country in 2016 was 97 per cent of the long period average (LPA). Although it fell short of predictions by the weather office, this was the first normal monsoon in the country since 2013. If the rainfall is between 96 and 104 per cent of the LPA, it is considered normal. LPA...

-The Indian Express Decentralised industrialisation, entrepreneurship from below have been absent in states that have seen recent unrest among agrarian communities. “The soil here is very saline with electrical conductivity value of 9. We can grow only chloride-loving crops like coconut and the MR-2 variety of mulberry.” That was Tamil Selvi, recently telling this correspondent about the 5.75-acre land farmed by her father Natarajan Gounder at Velayuthagoundanpudur, a small village around 25...

-The Hindu Governance performance ranked over a decade Regional disparity has been growing over the years, shows a new study which evaluates the governance performance of 19 major States. The research, conducted by Sudipto Mundle, Samik Chaudhury and Satadru Sikdar, was published in The Economic and Political Weekly earlier this month. Five of the six best-performing States in 2001 — Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Punjab — continue to be the...

A fall in the rate of inflation (on point to point basis) in Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) from 8.35 percent in July to 5.91 percent in August this year is indicative of the positive developments that has taken place during recent months in the agricultural sector, which is expected to further cool off food prices in the near future. A document from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare...

-Livemint.com While higher crop acreage should ensure positive growth, much depends on how September rains pan out and the kind of platform it lays out for the next crop season Caution is finally setting in for agriculture inputs stocks. As the weather office released two rain deficit reports (on a cumulative basis), shares of Rallis India Ltd, Dhanuka Agritech Ltd and Gujarat State Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd lost a bit of...