Guwahati: The Assam Government has declared the entire State under the grip of "agricultural drought" following scanty rainfall this year.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi chaired a high-level meeting on Tuesday night where the drought situation was reviewed and it was decided to declare the entire state to be under "agricultural drought", official sources said here on Wednesday.

Pune The city on Wednesday saw a lot of wind activity in most places, along with incessant rains.

Even as the wind velocity in the city on Tuesday was five nautical miles per hour (knots), it was low on Wednesday but could continue to scale up with the monsoon activity increasing in central Maharashtra.

Pune Heavy rainfall in the recent few days has been enough to turn the fortunes for the drinking water supply in city. It is another matter that it has not quite happened. This year, the city has five TMC more water than what it had during the corresponding period last year.

HYDERABAD: Cloud-seeding operations could not be undertaken for the third day on Wednesday following a technical snag in the Cessna plane being used for the purpose.

New Delhi: The finance ministry on Monday indicated that the government was preparing a back-up plan in case of failure of monsoon as it has already impacted crop sowing in a large part of the country.

- Special seeds distributed, agriculture training proposed

Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Balipur, Dhanbad.
Dhanbad, July 20: A weak and erratic monsoon has spelt doom for farmers of Dhanbad district this kharif season, prompting a worried administration to mount efforts to tackle the crisis.

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has admitted in the Lok Sabha that the country is facing a drought-like situation that will hit agricultural production but at the same time has allayed fears underlining that the government is well prepared to deal with the situation.

Twenty-one more people perished in heavy downpours that wreaked havoc in Orissa and Kerala even as raindeficient north India on Sunday received light to moderate showers at several places.

Thirteen fresh fatalities occurred in Kerala and eight in Orissa as torrential rains threw normal life out of gear and extensively damaged standing crops in the two states.

The State Government is all set to declare some more districts as drought affected due to deficit rainfall in the last few days. The final declaration to this effect is to be made tomorrow.

NAYAGARH: As many as 27 villages have been marooned due to heavy rains in the district since yesterday.

The villages have been inundated by the swelling Kuanria river, Brutang river, Mahisha and Besali rivulets.

One of the worst hit area is Daspalla which has received 140 mm of rainfall.