-The Telegraph   Paddy may not be the climate culprit that the world is making it out to be Agricultural scientist Pratap Bhattacharyya may have found a remarkable piece of evidence that absolves swathes of paddy fields stretching over millions of hectares of a climate crime. On the contrary, he believes that rice is doing its bit for the environment. A study by Bhattacharyya and his colleagues at the Cuttack-based Central Rice Research Institute...

-Reuters   The extra irrigated area would cut India's dependence on annual Monsoon rains that water crops grown on nearly half of the country's farmlands New Delhi: India plans to expand its farmland under irrigation by at least a tenth in the next three years, potentially boosting grains output by an equal proportion in the world's second-biggest rice and wheat producer, a top government official told Reuters. The extra irrigated area would cut India's...

-The Hindustan Times   New Delhi: Forecasting the June-to-September rains, which account for three-quarters of India's annual rainfall, is becoming tougher. Last year, six states had to declare droughts despite predictions of a normal Monsoon. Although India is scaling up its prediction techniques, including joint Indo-American forecasting under a bilateral agreement, too little is understood about how pollution and rising temperatures are impacting the Monsoon. But new research shows that they are surely...

-The Hindu   With an El Niño brewing, there is disquiet over what that might mean for the coming Monsoon. Many droughts experienced by this country have, after all, been associated with the exceptional warming of the equatorial waters of the Pacific that is characteristic of an El Niño. The forecast issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday is in line with other predictions that warn of poor rains this...

-The Times of India   PUNE/NEW DELHI: Acknowledging the shadow of El Nino on this year's Monsoon, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday predicted below normal June-September rains at 95% of the long period average. In its first long period forecast for this year, IMD said there was a 56% probability of below normal to deficient rains, as compared to a 44% chance of rains being normal or better. The department...