-The Business Standard   The meeting has been called to discuss the preparedness of the states to handle less rainfall or drought like situations  Mumbai: The Ministry of Agriculture has called an urgent meeting of 18 states in the wake of delayed rains next week and prepare state specific contingency plan for crops. According to official sources, the meeting has been called to discuss the preparedness of the states to handle less rainfall or drought...

-PTI   Agartala: A farmer's successful attempt at growing grapes in a village in Tripura, considered as climatically unsuitable for the fruit plant, has made agricultural scientists in the state sit up and take notice. Muktal Hussain, a farmer of Rangkang village in Gomati district, is so happy, and surprised too, with his experimental planting of grape plants, which gave him enough fruits, that he now dreams of setting up a vineyard....

-Grist Media   The people of the Thar desert have their ways. This story unfolds over a year and recounts history through contemporary lives lived gently and with the land. It experiences first-hand the extraordinary old magic of growing lush crops in the desert. The land was the color of burnt caramel. It was flat and it was featureless: there was no tree in sight, no blade of grass, no ditch, no dune,...

-The Hindustan Times   The June 2013 disaster in Uttarakhand had taken many - including the state administration - by surprise. But it should not have been so because it was a tragedy waiting to happen. The immediate reason may have been a natural cause - the state was hit by its heaviest rainfall on record that month, causing lakes and rivers to burst their banks, inundating towns and villages downstream -...

-Outlook     Nagpur: The Maharashtra government has so far extended financial assistance to the tune of Rs 71.41 crore to farmers in Vidarbha region who were affected by excess rains recently. "The authorities received a total of Rs 100 crore, including Rs 80 crore on March 20 and Rs 20 crore on April 5, and have disbursed Rs 71.41 crore till today, to about 81,860 farmers affected by the heavy rainfall," official sources...