-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The India Meteorological Department (IMD), country's national weather forecaster, on Tuesday predicted normal monsoon rainfall for the year, sending a positive signal to the farm sector and the overall economy. "Even the distribution of the rainfall is expected to be good this year," said IMD chief KJ Ramesh, sounding quite optimistic about the prospect of having a good year for the country's agriculture. Good spatial distribution...

-Livemint.com Mint’s rural distress index is below its median value, but it conceals varying distress levels across states Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s announcement of farm loan waiver has given credence to similar demands from across the country. Those making these demands include political parties, protesting farmers and even the judiciary. An earlier Plainfacts column had pointed out how farm loan waivers can be counter-productive in the long run, a fact...

-HuffingtonPost.in Bhopal, Patna and Lucknow are in particularly bad shape. Some of India's major cities have worse rates of child malnutrition than rural India, an analysis of data from the National Family Health Survey shows. The data shows that over a quarter of children under the age of five are stunted (low height for age) in all of India's major state capitals, except in Kochi and Hyderabad. Bhopal has higher rates of child...

-Livemint.com The richest household’s assets are worth much more than that of all the others combined and the same conclusion holds if we take the distribution of rural assets We all know that Credit Suisse reckons that the richest 1% of Indians own 58.4% of the nation’s wealth, up from 36.8% in 2000. What is perhaps not so well-known is that, according to the Credit Suisse report, the bottom 70% of Indians...

-The Indian Express Vietnam is by far the largest importer, data show; it is likely, however, that the bulk of the over 6 lakh tonnes of carabeef shipped to Vietnam finds its way unofficially to China Brazil and India have been vying for the top spot in world beef exports over the past several years. In 2014, India dislodged Brazil from the number 1 slot, according to United States Department of Agriculture...