-PTI IMD has forecast better than normal Southwest Monsoon for the year With pulses inflation high at 34%, a better monsoon would reduce price pressure in lentils and in turn food inflation, a latest report has said. Southwest Monsoon rains were lower by 16% as on yesterday. While June could still end with a marginal deficit, if rainfall remains adequate as forecast in July and August, it could provide much-needed support for growth...

-PTI After a making a slow progress, the southwest monsoon is expected to gain momentum and advance further into several parts of drought-hit Maharashtra and central India. “The southwest monsoon has further advanced into remaining parts of coastal Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gangetic West Bengal, more parts of north interior Karnataka, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Jharkhand and Bihar,” the India Meteorological Department said. Secretary in the Ministry of Earth Sciences, M Rajeevan, said the last...

-Business Standard FY10 was a drought year with a monsoon rainfall deficiency of 22 per cent of the 50-year average, resulting in a seven per cent dip in the total foodgrains production. But, that did not dampen the consumer sentiment as the auto sector grew by 26 per cent, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) 25 per cent and the consumer durables sector by 21 per cent. The momentum continued the following year,...

-Frontline Former psephologist Yogendra Yadav, now a member of the political collective Swaraj Abhiyan, recently toured India’s drought-affected districts. He called it a Samvedna Yatra. During the tour, he took note of the agony in rural areas affected by what he calls “one of the worst droughts in independent India” The drought, according to him, has left farmers and the larger rural community in extreme distress, leading to damaging changes in...

-Deccan Chronicle Pulses are truly the pulse of life: for the soil, for people and the planet. In our farms they give life to the soil by providing nitrogen. This is how ancient cultures enriched their soils. Farming did not begin with the Green Revolution and synthetic nitrogen fertilisers. Whether it is the diversity-based systems of India, or the three sisters planted by the first nations in North America, or the...