-IndiaSpend.com
With 25 farmers in Karnataka committing suicide in June, it appears evident that rural India is in distress–the long-term cause, a growth rate of almost zero (0.2%), and the immediate cause, crop failures caused by two years of unseasonal winter rain.
Crop failures = farmer suicides.
That’s a familiar equation. But as rural distress grows, farmer suicides dropped 67% over five years to 2014, according to the latest data released by the National Crime Records Bureau last week.
The data confound the familiar equation and raise five questions, the answers to which provide some explanation of what’s going on.
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