Farmer suicides down

Farmer suicides are down in six Vidarbha districts for the first seven months of the year, according to a report from Indian Express. Apparently the police and the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti have different ways to track suicides. The Samiti puts the figure at 605 for all eleven districts.

General observations:

1. There is something called "Agrarian suicides". Inasmuch as the dead can not be relied upon to testify for the reasons of their deaths, it would be great if the methodology followed to determine an agrarian suicide as opposed to a garden variety suicide was made known.
   
   
2. Apparently these numbers are "dynamic" in nature. But the Maharashtra Government is very confident about them.
   
   
3. Certainly, say officials, attributing this year’s improvement to policy interventions over the last one year in the form of packages from both the state and the Centre.
   
   
4. Add to this good rains that led to an unprecedented spurt in rabi production and lucrative prices for soyabean, which is fast replacing cotton as the main crop in these districts.
   
   
5. Once again, no data available to determine the relative effects of #3 and #4.
   
   
6. Cotton saw a bumper harvest attributed by authorities mainly to the huge spurt in the use of Bt cotton. Wait, what? Isn't Bt Cotton the infamous and ineffective seed introduced by the profit racketeering Monsanto?
   
   
7. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed. Perhaps they should be more confident on Government measures, no?

Yet another report called for urgent corrections to the relief package totalling Rs. 17,000 crores.

While searching for suicide statistics, we found this report: South India - world's suicide capital. Well, despair no more. Help is now available in the form of bomb blasts. No more messing around with amateurish rope knots, poisons etc. Just go out more on the weekends to popular venues.

The only consolation to Chandrababu Naidu (suicides were a primary reason behind his ouster), ex-CM AP, is that his son got married today. Sadly he could not enjoy the ceremony fully as he had to attend emergency meetings in the wake of the tense situation in the city.