-Hindustan Times Parbhani: It took Pandurang Shinde three trips to the weekly Khandoba cattle bazaar in Parbhani, one of the eight drought-hit districts of Marathwada, to find a buyer for his pair of bullocks. After much heckling, he managed to sell his coveted pair at Rs 50,000, half the price at what the animals had cost him. The weekly cattle bazaar, held on Thursdays, at Parbhani taluka is packed these days, full...

-Hindustan Times India’s sugar and cotton output is showing signs of falling for the first time in five years and insufficient pulses production could keep prices high, early estimates showed in the midst of a crippling drought across a vast swathe of the country. However, the country will still have a surplus of cereals despite back-to-back drought trimming overall foodgrains output from normal-year levels. Sugar output is projected to fall between 8% and...

-Livemint.com/ AP Hundreds of millions of people in at least 13 states are reeling from severe drought, a situation that is expected to worsen in the coming months Shahapur: Shantabai Babulkar’s day begins before dawn with a 5 kilometer trek across barren fields and dusty scrubland to fetch water from a distant well for her family. The two metal pots of muddy water that Babulkar, 58, balances on her head and a...

-The Hindu Business Line The priority for this government is to promote the medical care market, not ensure universal healthcare for the majority Those at the helm of policymaking in the country have been, for some time, strongly advocating austerity as the principle for public expenditure policies, particularly for the social sectors. Arvind Panagariya, the vice-chairperson of the NITI Aayog, suggests that “for just three-quarters of a per cent of the GDP”, 0.76...

-FirstPost.com New Delhi: India is in the grip of a drought for the second year running. On an average, 9 farmers committed suicide daily in Maharashtra alone last year. A fight against drought of course needs adequate supply of drinking water and foodgrain but it also requires the government to augment existing Central initiatives and launch new schemes for affected states. Is the government doing enough to help drought affected regions? Last week,...