-Livemint.com/ AP Hundreds of millions of people in at least 13 states are reeling from severe drought, a situation that is expected to worsen in the coming months Shahapur: Shantabai Babulkar’s day begins before dawn with a 5 kilometer trek across barren fields and dusty scrubland to fetch water from a distant well for her family. The two metal pots of muddy water that Babulkar, 58, balances on her head and a...
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The circle of economy, the cycle of drought -Sharad Vyas
-The Hindu Drought has devastated once-prosperous Latur. In this two-part series Sharad Vyas (text) and Vivek Bendre (photographs) report from the parched district. Latur: The water train chugging into Latur last week captured national attention. But it took the spotlight away from the daily struggle of lakhs of people facing the immediate consequences of extended drought and acute water scarcity in Latur district. The vagaries of nature have already taken their toll:...
More »3 Lakh Dead In 20 Years. Here's How World's Largest Democracy Failed Its Farmers! -Maninder Dabas
-IndiaTimes.com Since 1995, nearly three lakh farmers have committed suicide owing to agrarian crisis in the country. In Maharashtra alone nearly 60,000 farmers have ended their lives in last two decades. Last year itself, the western states recorded 3,228 farmer suicides with maximum cases coming from drought hit Marathwada and Vidharbha region. According to the census, nearly 2,000 farmers across India are giving up agriculture daily and opting for other menial jobs...
More »The myth of the dumb Indian peasant -Anil Padmanabhan
-Livemint.com The perception of a farmer as a ‘dumb peasant’ in public policy lies at the core of the agrarian crisis Last month, the agriculture ministry informed Parliament that 2,806 farmers committed suicide in 2015 due to “agrarian reasons”. The data further showed that the highest number of suicides were recorded in Maharashtra (1,841), followed by Punjab (449), Telangana (342), Karnataka (107) and Andhra Pradesh (58), among others. What is common to...
More »Why are India's housewives killing themselves? -Soutik Biswas
-BBC More than 20,000 housewives took their lives in India in 2014. This was the year when 5,650 farmers killed themselves in the country. So the number of suicides by housewives was over 250% more than the farmers. They also comprised 47% of the total female victims. Yet the high number of homemakers killing themselves doesn't make front page news in the way farmer suicides do, year after year. In fact, more than 20,000 housewives...
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