Rainfall during the remaining two months of the monsoon season is likely to be 10 per cent below normal, weather scientists said today, predicting monsoon behaviour that they say “has the potential to hurt crops in some places”. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said rainfall over India during August and September is likely to be 90 per cent of the long period average, after a copious 111 per cent rainfall in...

-AFP   Asia could be as wealthy as Europe by mid-century, but only if it tackles key challenges from inequality and corruption to climate change, an Asian Development Bank study said Tuesday. On current trends, Asia will make up half the world's economic output by 2050, and another three billion people will have joined the ranks of the affluent, their incomes matching those of Europe today, said the report. But the ADB study...

-The Times of India   Defending the Congress's stand of keeping the Prime Minister's Office out of the ambit of the Lokpal, PM Manmohan Singh on Sunday said the move was not considered advisable and a decision had been taken keeping all factors into account. This is the first time Singh has come out openly in favour of keeping the PMO out of the Lokpal's ambit. Incidentally, Singh had been overruled by...

-The Hindustan Times   After farmers, the Central government is looking for a higher compensation regime for forestland acquired from tribals and forest dwellers for various projects. The move comes after the rural development ministry issued a draft land acquisition bill providing for market-linked compensation to farmers and the demand by tribal groups for a national policy on the rehabilitation of tribals displaced by large-scale mining across India to end lop-sided growth....

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government’s proposed land acquisition law, a politically sensitive and critical piece of legislation that could potentially remove a big roadblock to industrial investment, aims to address rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R), providing safeguards for both land owners and livelihood losers, while clearly defining the “public purpose” for which land can be acquired by the government. “This draft Bill seeks to balance the need for facilitating land acquisition...