Article on "Farmer Suicides in India"... [250+ words]Points : 25 ☺
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Farmer suicides in India refers to the national catastrophe of farmers committing suicidesince the 1990s, often by drinking pesticides, due to their inability to repay loans mostly taken from banks and NBFCs to purchase expensive seeds and fertilizers, often marketed by foreign MNCs.[1]
As of 2018, in Maharashtra alone, more than 60,000 suicides had taken place, with an average of 10 suicides every day.[2]
The National Crime Records Bureau of India reported that a total 296,438 Indian farmers had committed suicide since 1995. Of these, 60,750 farmer suicides were in the state of Maharashtra since 1995, with the remainder spread out in Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, all states with loose financial and entry regulations.[3][4]
Earlier, governments had reported varying figures, from 5,650 farmer suicides in 2014[5]to the highest number of farmer suicides in 2004 of 18,241.[6] The farmers suicide rate in India had ranged between 1.4 and 1.8 per 100,000 total population, over a 10-year period through 2005, however the figures in 2017 and 2018 showed an average of more than 10 suicides daily.[7] There are accusations of states manipulating the data on farmer suicides, hence the real figures could be even higher.[8]
India is an agrarian country with around 70% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. Farmer suicides account for 11.2% of all suicides in India.[5] Activists and scholars have offered a number of conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as high debt burdens, poor government policies, corruption in subsidies,crop failure, publicmental health, personal issues and family problems.[9][10][11]