-Business Standard Spread of irrigation, rise in drought-tolerant seeds have come as saviour, says study The southwest monsoon might have made a good start, but its future looks bleak, with many models predicting a let up in showers around the first week of July. The picture for north-west India, the country's premier paddy-producing region, looks gloomier with most weather forecasts predicting below-normal rains in the region this year. However, how far will...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Financial Express The NITI Aayog must firm up a concrete plan involving the states to deal with monsoon deficiency to avoid all-round confusion. This is an old and oft-repeated story in the media, but worth mentioning here for the readers who have missed it. It goes like this. During the period of erstwhile Planning Commission, one of the officials in-charge of projecting agricultural growth found out an innovative way to do...

-Business Standard Govt takes stock of pulses situation in wake of weak rains The Cabinet might discuss increasing the minimum support price (MSP) of kharif crop for the 2015-16 season at a meeting expected to be held on Wednesday. Officials said the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) had recommended Rs 50 a quintal increase in paddy MSP for the 2015-16 season and the agriculture ministry favoured this. But a higher increase of...

-The Hindu ‘Its geographical distribution is what matters’ Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said here on Thursday that concerns about the impact of a deficient monsoon on the economy were “misplaced” and “far-fetched”. He told presspersons that conclusions were being made in an exaggerated manner after the India Meteorological Department forecast on Tuesday that rainfall would be only 88 per cent of the long-term average. “The speculation and analyses we have seen in the...