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Indian consumers are likely to get respite from rising prices just before the festival season. Some consumer companies, including automakers, have indicated that they are planning to pause price hikes just before demand picks up in August, while keeping a close eye on volatile raw material prices.
According to World Gold Council (WGC), gold jewellery demand in India, the world's largest consumer, touched record 662.1 tonnes in 2014.
The Sena has been ruling in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the country's richest civic body, for over two decades.
Large stocks were ruined in transit due to thunderstorm and rainfalls in the north and the north-east states, resulting in fewer kilos of potatoes at mandis.
Schools and colleges are set to reopen on Monday in three adjoining districts of Chennai, Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur after remaining closed for nearly ten days in view of the monsoon fury.
Several parts of north and west India reeled under scorching heat wave with the temperature touching 50 degree Celsius in Rajasthan's Churu district on Tuesday, even as the meteorological department predicted very heavy rainfall in Assam and Meghalaya till May 28.
In an unprecedented measure, the Maharashtra government requested defence officials to arrange airlift of the stranded passengers of the 17412 Mahalaxmi Express.
In just 10 days, the city received 864.5 mm rain, which is nearly equal to what it gets in an entire month.
As the number of districts witnessing drought has been revised sharply upwards from 207 just two days ago, the government said its main focus would now be on saving the standing crop and offsetting some losses in output during the coming Rabi season. The Centre has also asked states to lift more seeds for replanting the crops, if necessary, as it has about 15 lakh tonnes of surplus stock.
Close to half of the country is reeling under drought or drought-like situation with the number of districts affected rising to 246 as a poor monsoon has brought 29 per cent less rainfall, damaging standing crop.
Food production in the current fiscal is likely to go down as sowing will be 20 per cent lower due to the weak monsoon, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday. Also, 161 districts have been declared drought-prone, he added.
Storm clouds of a different kind are gathering on the macro-economic horizon and they have nothing to do with surging global crude oil prices. The monsoon has played truant across large parts of India, with western and southern India reeling under the impact of deficient and scanty rainfall
Spiralling vegetable prices are likely to remain firm for at least a month, till the new seasonal crop comes to the wholesale markets.
Till Thursday, the country had received 41 per cent less June rainfall than normal -- the scantiest in a decade and one of the rarest occasions when the shortfall in the month was more than 30 per cent -- private weather forecaster Skymet said in its daily weather forecast on Friday.
'The rivers that caused the maximum problem were the ones that had dams built on them.'
Mumbai witnessed an incessant spell of showers since Friday night disrupting rail, road and air traffic as several low lying areas were waterlogged.
The India Meteorological Department in its first forecast for 2014 had said southwest monsoon will be below normal at 95 per cent of the long-period average.
The weak monsoon this year will jack up prices of primary articles further, even as the country's inflation is likely to be in negative territory for the next three months, a report says.
A private sector weather forecaster, Skymet, and some global forecasters have already issued warnings for this year that this could happen.
In Chennai, rains are expected to start early Thursday morning and intensify gradually. Government schools in the city have been shut down for the next two days
Most of the sowing in the country depends on the monsoon as over half of the cultivable land, due to lack of proper irrigation system, is rain-fed.
Though the summer is expected to be hotter, global and domestic forecasts point to good rains.
For the current woes of the state to end, in city after city, town after town, village after village, unauthorised constructions have to be removed, no questions asked, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
