India faces 'severe' drought

INDIA: India faces a "severe" drought but the country's ample food grain stock will ensure no one goes hungry, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Saturday.

Monsoon rains, the lifeline for farms that support more that half of India's 1.1 billion population, have been scant and about 40 percent of India's districts have declared a drought.

"No one has control over drought. It's a severe drought," said Singh during a trip to the arid western state of Rajasthan to inaugurate a giant new oilfield, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Singh said there was sufficient food grain stocks to support the Public Distribution System, a government network that manages food distribution and the supply of grains to poor households at subsidised levels.

For India's 235 million farmers, a bad monsoon can spell financial disaster because of the lack of irrigation.

New Delhi, Sunday, AFP