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Journalism of Courage
After the dry, dusty and rainless monsoon in most parts of the country, there is some good news.
The monsoon is all set to revive after July 25 at least in Central and Peninsular India, the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting said today. And the flood-affected areas in the east are expected to get a respite from excess rains.
The north-western states, however, will have to wait for another 3-4 days for rains.
Forecasters said that the low pressure building up in the north Bay of Bangal is gaining strength and the trough is slowly moving to its original position.
This is not to say that the monsoon will revive to full vigour but it will definitely be better than the previous week where it went into a ‘‘break phase’’ with isolated and scattered rains over peninsular India.
The regions where ‘‘considerable improvement’’ is expected: Telangana, Rayalseema, Madhya Maharashtra and Vidarbha, eastern UP, eastern Madhya Pradesh and the eastern part of western Madhya Pradesh.
Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan will only have isolated rains and will continue to remain ‘‘overall deficient.’’
For Delhi, there is a prediction of more pleasant days even though the amount of rain will not be close to that of a normal monsoon. The haze over the city with dust from Rajasthan is expected to disappear. With the trough moving southwards of Delhi, there will be easterlies flowing across the city.
The cause for real cheer is Andhra Pradesh where last week, there already has been an improvement in Telangana and Rayalseema. With only 8% sowing done the previous week, now farmers have almost caught up with their sowing schedule of cotton, oilseeds and chillies.
The other good news is that rainfall over Bihar, sub himalayan West Bengal and North-East states will reduce providing relief to states coping with floods. For agriculture, the crisis by this ‘‘break’’ in monsoon is not going to dissipate but is surely expected to ease.
The administration has prepared advisories on alternate cropping patterns for most of the stressed areas. If the rains come by the last week of the month, farmers can salvage some of the moisture stressed crops, or re-sow the damaged crops with short-duration varieties.
