-The Times of India There is more to this year's rainfall deficit than meets the eye. After the monsoon was officially declared over on September 30, 17 of the country's 36 weather subdivisions had received deficient or scanty rainfall. That's about 39% of the country's area, home to over 66 crore people, nearly half the country's population. Deficient is when rains are below the average by 20% or more while scanty...

-Livemint.com Despite reeling under a severe monsoon deficit, the region has seen a surprise fall in demand for jobs under MGNREGS New Delhi: Although reeling under a severe monsoon deficit for the second year in a row, the Marathwada region of Maharashtra has seen a surprise fall in demand for jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)—the result, said experts, of years of government neglect, low wages...

-Business Standard This is our season of despair. This year, it would seem, the gods have been most unkind to Indian farmers. Early in the year came the weird weather events, like hailstorms and freak and untimely rains that destroyed standing crops. Nobody knew what was happening. After all, each year we witness a natural weather phenomenon called the "western disturbance" - winds that emanate from the Mediterranean and travel eastward...

-The Indian Express In the end, the Madden Julian Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole failed to cancel out the warming of the Pacific — a situation the Met Office had predicted as early as in April, giving govts time to prepare. In June, a rain-bearing weather phenomenon called Madden Julian Oscillation, or MJO, came to India’s rescue. July was bad, but a few timely interventions by convectional, or heat-induced, rainfall in...

-PTI New Delhi: The spectre of a drought looms over large parts of the country with 40 per cent of its land mass receiving "deficient" rainfall. "As of today, 47 per cent of the country has witnessed normal rainfall, 40 per cent deficient and merely 13 per cent excess precipitation. The overall deficiency has increased to 12 per cent," India Meteorological Department said, adding with the southwest monsoon expected to start withdrawing...