-The Times of India AURANGABAD/ KOLHAPUR: The parched Marathwada region and scarcity-hit parts of western Maharashtra received much-needed rainfall over the past two days. The sudden heavy showers brought cheer to the farming community that has been worried about the survival of the kharif crop. Barring Aurangabad district, widespread showers were observed in the seven districts of Marathwada region on Monday. Around 21 areas from Marathwada have recorded more than 50 mm...
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To stop suicides, Maharashtra to map farmers’ mind -Clara Lewis & Malathy Iyer
-The Times of India MUMBAI: Fifteen years since farmers in the state's Marathwada and Vidarbha regions started taking their own lives, the state on Friday announced the first psycho-social health plan to check the epidemic of suicides. The plan hinges on community health workers — the accredited social health activists (ASHAs) and anganwadi workers — carrying out a questionnaire-based screening test to assess the mental health of farmers. "We carried out an audit...
More »Marathwada: India’s emerging farmer suicide capital -Kavitha Iyer
-The Indian Express As many parts of the country reel under a back-to-back drought, Kavitha Iyer reports from the region that’s at the centre of the crisis. Weeks before hanging himself from a tree on his farm on June 1 this year, Kalyan Khomne, 55, read out a newspaper report to his son Shahdev. “It was about a farmer’s suicide in our taluka,” says 26-year-old Shahdev. His village, Nandurghat, and the nearby...
More »Failed crops, parched fields, now Marathwada faces the great thirst -Kavitha Iyer
-The Indian Express Wells dry up across 8 districts, storage down to less than 8%, residents trudge long distances, officials brace for worst drinking water crisis in 40 years. Beed/ Parbhani (Maharashtra): Seventy-year-old Parobai Shinde, carrying an aluminium pot that has seen better days, is briskly walking the 2-km stretch from her home in Manyarwadi village in Georai taluka in Beed district to Bharat Sonmali’s field. Sonmali is reploughing his 30...
More »What drought means to a Marathwada farmer? -Kavitha Iyer
-The Indian Express The big question in the minds of everyone who can recall is: Will 2015 for Marathwada turn out worse than the worst-ever drought of 1972? Parbhani (Maharashtra): Sadashiv Kathurappa Gajmal, 44, has long stopped introducing himself as a farmer. “I am a labourer,” says this father of four and owner of 2.5 acres of land in Charthana village of Parbhani’s Jintur taluka. Unfortunately, he has had little or no...
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