With farms, food prices and growth all riding on the rains, India needs contingency planning now, not after the kharif season fails due to deficient rains

India’s monsoon has arrived, but it has not turned up for work. The Southwest Monsoon reached Kerala on June 4 — three days behind its normal schedule — and after a brief burst of progress, it has since stalled. By mid-June, the country was sitting on a 38 per cent rainfall deficit, with central India, the heart of the rain-fed farm belt, down 62 per cent. The India Meteorological Department had already lowered its seasonal forecast to 90 per cent of the long-period average, with a 60 per cent chance of a deficient season overall. The reasons: a strengthening El Niño, a neutral Indian Ocean Dipole, a weak Somali Jet, sluggish convection over the Bay of Bengal, and an absent........

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