-News-Medical.net   A new study has found that India's shocking rates of suicide are highest in areas with the most debt-ridden farmers who are clinging to tiny smallholdings - less than one hectare - and trying to grow 'cash crops', such as cotton and coffee, that are highly susceptible to global price fluctuations. The research supports a range of previous case studies that point to a crisis in key areas of India's agriculture...

A study by Jonathan Kennedy and Lawrence King, published in the Lancet journal Globalization and Health (2014) has found that liberalization of the agricultural sector in the early-1990s is responsible for the agrarian crisis and, therefore, farmers with certain socio-economic characteristics -- cash crops cultivators, with marginal landholdings, and debts-are particularly at risk of committing suicide. In short, the study detects that the differences in the structure of agricultural production explain...

-The Times of India     NEW DELHI: Latest statistical research finds strong causal links between areas with the most suicides and areas where impoverished farmers are trying to grow crops that suffer from wild price fluctuations due to India's relatively recent shift to free market economics. A new study has found that India's shocking rates of suicide are highest in areas with the most debt-ridden farmers who are clinging to tiny smallholdings...

-The Hindustan Times   Bhilwara, Rajasthan: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Wednesday asked the Government of Rajasthan to pay Rs. 50,000 as monetary relief to a woman, who gave birth to a baby by the roadside in Bhilwara, after the medical staff at the Community Health Centre refused to admit her. The Commission had taken up the cognizance of the matter on the basis of a complaint filed by a human...

-The Business Standard   New climate report means big changes to future agreements Two distinct features set the third report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) apart from its two earlier instalments. First, even as the report points out that governments have not done enough to curb, let alone reverse, the rise in the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), it does not seek to instil a sense of despair....