The met department said that rainfall in August is projected to be within the normal range at 97% of LPA. In August and September, India receives around 43 mm of rainfall.
However, demand was still much higher compared to the previous years, underlining the scheme's vital role in providing employment to the rural poor, a vast majority of whom are migrants.
Any shift in investor sentiment may result in speculators fleeing the gold market, driving its price down sharply, quickly. One significant risk for gold is a near-term reversal in the dollar, which recently fell to a two-year low.
The demand for milk and milk products slumped during the Covid-19 lockdown mainly from hotels, restaurants, sweetmeat shops which were shut to control the spread of the disease.
Between June 1 and July 28, about 32 per cent of the 685 districts in the country did not receive adequate rainfall.
Those interested in investing in gold have shifted to instruments, such as sovereign gold bonds and gold ETFs. Many others are, in fact, selling gold or using it as collateral to generate short-term liquidity.
Distributing chana is easier than other varieties of pulses as it only requires cleaning and sorting and can be consumed whole; it was also abundantly available with Nafed.
The all-time high price of silver is Rs 75,000 a kg, recorded in April 2011.
Kerala, Punjab, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are among the major agriculturally important states that have banned the use of glyphosate citing its adverse impact on human health.
Data from department of agriculture showed that kharif crops had been sown in around 31.56 million hectares till Friday, which was 104.25 per cent more than the same period last year. Acreage of almost all crops was higher than last year.
Experts say while the increasing demand for a ban on Chinese goods might make for good optics, the reality is that India is still heavily dependent on that country in a wide range of industries like electronics, mobile devices, auto, pharma, telecom equipment, and fertilisers.
Since March 2020, WPI food inflation rate continued to fall but the CPI-food inflation rose, signaling a breakdown in supply chain from the mandis to the final household.
Till date, MP has procured around 12.77 million tonnes of wheat, which is expected to reach 13 million tonnes by the time the process ends in the next few weeks.
Kiran Vissa, co-convenor of National Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, said that amendments to the EC Act have nothing to do with farmers' welfare but instead meant to please big players and agriculture companies. This is because small and marginal farmers don't have the storage capacity to attract provisions of the EC Act.
As the growth figures relate to pre-Covid lockdown period it does not reflect the real picture of distress which unfolded from April onwards in the sector, when acute supply disruption led to sharp drop in prices of many commodities largely perishables impacting farmers.
The government has sold SGBs worth Rs 1,990 crore in April and May alone.
The locusts initially entered Rajasthan from Pakistan and from there the swarms moved towards Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab over the last few weeks and are now threatening to enter Uttar Pradesh, putting at risk the summer crop.
Silver has been quoting at a premium in India since mid-March because of huge scarcity.
It plans to use it as collateral, along with forex reserves, to print currency.
Gold and silver became costlier in the country following the international price rise over the expectations of negative interest rates in the US, the rising trade tensions between the US and China and the weakening of the rupee.
© 2025 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances