-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: A winter rain shortfall of 63% in January and February across India has led to reservoir levels dropping in the major river basins of the Sabarmati, Kaveri and Tapi. While agriculture ministry officials said this will not impact the rabi crop significantly, farmers in Gujarat--where water level in the Sardar Sarovar dam is below normal--are worried about cotton sowing. “In the current situation, there is deficient water...

-PTI ‘North central region seeing much wetter pattern, with stronger monsoons over the last 15 years’ Washington: Monsoon has strengthened over north central India in the last 15 years, researchers from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have said, indicating a reversal in the general perception that the region has dried up in over a decade. Chien Wang, a senior research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, the...

-Deccan Chronicle The slogan was that there would never again be scarcity of food because we can now make “bread from air”. There are two distinct futures of food and farming. One leads to a dead end. A dead planet: poisons and chemical monocultures spreading; farmers committing suicide due to debt for seeds and chemicals; children dying due to lack of food; people dying because of chronic diseases spreading due to nutritionally empty, toxic...

-PTI Minister says in line with rising temperatures across the globe, all India mean temperatures have risen nearly 0.60 degree Celsius over the last 110 years New Delhi: India’s temperature has risen by nearly 0.60 degree Celsius over the last 110 years and extreme events like heat waves have increased in the last 30 years, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Monday. “According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), in line with rising...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The rain-boosting La Nina phenomenon is completely ruled out this year and conditions are likely to remain neutral or turn toward the feared El Nino, which is not good for the monsoon, but forecasters said that a clear picture would appear only after a few months. Changes in temperature in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which scientists call El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), are a key influence on...