1,83,000 producers of food commit suicide
Bombay:
Suicides by farmers of Maharashtra crossed the 4,000 mark in 2007, for the third time in four years, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). As many as 4,238 farmers of the State took their lives that year, the latest for which data are available, accounting for a fourth of 16,632 farmer suicides in the country. The national total represents a slight fall, from 17,060 in 2006, but the broad trends of the past decade seem unshaken. Farmer suicides in the country since 1997 is now 1,82,936. Yet again the five worst affected states Maharashtra, AP, Karnataka, MP and Chhattisgarh account for two-thirds of all such suicides in the country. Together, they saw 11,026 in 2007. Of these, Maharashtra alone accounted for over 38%. Of the “Big five”, AP saw a decline of 810 suicides against its 2006 total.
-(Hindu, dec. 12. 2008)
India has largest number of hungry people
New Delhi: Over 40 million people joined the ranks of the chronically hungry in 2008, taking the world further away from its millennium goal of reducing hunger by 2015, according to preliminary data released by UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization on Dec 9, 2008. FAO’s latest report, the State of Food Security in the world 2008, attributes the surge mainly to the world food crisis which led to an unprecedented rise in prices from late 2006 to the first half of 2008. Though there has been a sharp drop in foodgrain prices since then cereals are now more than 50% cheaper from their peak prices earlier in 2008 the FAO Food Price Index was still 28% higher in October 2008 compared to October 2006. And, with the global financial crisis. showing no signs of abating, the ranks of the hungry are only expected to swell further, FAO says. According to a release accompanying the report, the number of the world’s chronically hungry currently stands at 963 million, Through 2006-07, when food prices began to rise steadily, 75 million people were added to the ranks of the undernourished, the report says. The developing countries account for more than 93% (901 million out of 963 million) of the world’s hungry, the report says. Out of these, 65% are from seven countries alone -India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Congo, Indonesia and Ethiopia. The report says these countries are key to fighting poverty and malnutrition.
India is home to the largest number of hungry people in the world, accounting for more than 20% of the total.
-(Times of India, Dec. 12, 2008)
