-The Telegraph In the desert-like barrenness of brown around him, Suresh Mangsuli is growing grapes. As the rest of his drought-hit village thirsts for drinking water, he splashes his three acres of vines with over 10,000 litres a day. His huge farm pond is brimming, insured against seepage by a black polythene sheet stretched across its floor. Its water is pumped out to irrigate the vineyard through a network of drip pipes. Growing grapes...

-The Economic Times   MUMBAI: Maharashtra's mega irrigation scam, which strained relations between Congress and its alliance partner, Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP), is getting murkier. In another explosive revelation, TOI has learned that costs of 38 irrigation projects in Vidarbha were increased from Rs 6,672 crore to Rs 26,722 crore by the Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC). More shockingly, this mind-numbing 300% cost escalation of over Rs 20,000 crore was approved in a...

-The Times of India The empowered group of ministers headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is likely to meet again on Wednesday to discuss measures to counter the impact of spreading drought. The meet, the second in successive weeks, will take place after the India Meteorological Department officially announced a 15% deficit in rainfall for the monsoon season of 2012. Pawar has just concluded his first tour of drought affected states...

-Outlook Kejriwal’s original experiment in Sundar Nagri lies in tatters It was the summer of 2002. An IRS officer on study leave from the Income Tax department would travel daily to the slums of Sundar Nagri, in the north-east district of Delhi, close to the Uttar Pradesh border. Working with friends, he aimed to make the locality a powerful example of people’s empowerment. He was then an unknown; now, everyone knows...

-The Hindu Death toll in Uttarakhand alone is 28 After weeks of deficient monsoon in the northwestern region, the three Himalayan States of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, as well as Uttar Pradesh, on Saturday faced cloudbursts, landslips and floods, causing at least 31 deaths. Authorities issued a flood alert as the level in the Chenab, Tawi, Ujh and Basantar rivers approached the danger mark in Jammu. In Himachal Pradesh, the police...