-DNA Govt gears up to ring-fence farmers, prices from poor rains India's farm sector shrank for the first time in five years in the year ended March 31, Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh said on Wednesday, a day after the government forecast a likely drought this year that could hit output again. The Met office cut this year's Monsoon forecast on an El Nino weather pattern that has raised fears of...

-Livemint.com The govt is taking steps to check rising prices of pulses and may import more to meet domestic demand, says minister New Delhi: The Union government is taking steps to minimize the impact of a likely deficit Monsoon on agricultural production and the overall economy, farm minister Radha Mohan Singh said on Wednesday. “We are prepared with contingency plans for 580 districts and are reviewing these on a daily basis. We...

-The Hindu ‘Its geographical distribution is what matters’ Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said here on Thursday that concerns about the impact of a deficient Monsoon on the economy were “misplaced” and “far-fetched”. He told presspersons that conclusions were being made in an exaggerated manner after the India Meteorological Department forecast on Tuesday that rainfall would be only 88 per cent of the long-term average. “The speculation and analyses we have seen in the...

-Hindustan Times Policy makers have no control over fickle weather whims and complex forecasts. Regardless of the eventual course and quality of summer rains brought on by drafts of breeze that stream 8,000 km from the southern Pacific, the early predictions did give an early heads up of what was likely in the next few months. Yet, every drought year, India’s response to deal with scanty summer rains has been knee-jerk, marked...

-PTI A group of American students led by an Indian has developed a low-cost way to improve the yield of agricultural produce for the farmers and reduce the use of fertilizers in Telangana through desilting of ponds. "A group of students from here in a year-long study in Telangana have found that silt from ponds reduces the use of fertilizers by 36 per cent and increases the crop yield by nearly 50...