Washed out

It seems the India Meteorological Department firmly believes that no news is good news. The Met’s second advanced forecast for the 2011 monsoon issued in June did not find any mention in the government’s Press Information Bureau website, as is the norm, though its April forecast of a normal monsoon did. Though the June forecast was put up on the Met website, there was no public dissemination of the information. Maybe the fact that the June forecast was for a below-normal monsoon had something to do with the low-profile release.