Impoverished Indian farmer hangs self at protest

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-farmer-gajendra-singh-hangs-himself-protest/

April 22, 2015

NEW DELHI -- An impoverished Indian farmer died Wednesday after hanging himself in front of hundreds of other farmers who had gathered for a protest in the capital.

It was the latest in a wave of suicides that has left at least 40 farmers dead in recent weeks - and some 300,000 dead since 1995.

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According to a note he left behind and which police recovered, Gajendra Singh said he killed himself after his father, left with nothing after rainstorms destroyed their crops, forced him from the family home.

"I have three children. I don't have the money to feed my children. Hence, I want to commit suicide," said the handwritten note.

Police said the dead man was from outside the town of Dausa in western Rajasthan state. Rajasthan officials say heavy rains there have destroyed 30 percent of crops, though farmers say the amount is much higher.

The man's uncle, Gopal Singh, said the family owned 9 acres of land where they grew wheat, but that the rains had almost completely destroyed the crops.

"No one in the village has received any compensation from the government," said Singh, who was driving into New Delhi to retrieve his nephew's body.

State officials across north India have promised financial help to farmers who lost their crops - and who are often indebted to local loan sharks who advanced them money for seeds and fertilizers - but those payments have been slowed by bureaucracy and corruption, activists say.

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