<p>Barely a week after Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar toured the flood-ravaged Vidarbha region, two heavily indebted farmers killed themselves on Saturday, taking the total number of farmer suicides in north-east Maharashtra to 62 this monsoon.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Landless labourer Thavru Rathod, tilling land that was taken on lease, killed himself in the village Kinhala. <br /><br />In Salod village, Shriram Talmale, another farmer, also committed suicide. Both were in debt, with their fields severely damaged by rain.<br /><br />Postmortems on Sunday revealed that they had consumed pesticide; ironically, the families of these deceased agriculturists will not be eligible for compensation since the land the farmers were cultivating was not under their name.<br /><br />Talking to Deccan Herald from Nagpur over the phone, farmland activist Kishore Tiwari said: “In Vidarbha, one in three farmers till land taken on lease. The recent suicides indicate a deeper malaise ravaging not just Vidarbha but the entire country, and despite this being an open social reality, the government has refused to take cognisance.”</p>
<p>Barely a week after Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar toured the flood-ravaged Vidarbha region, two heavily indebted farmers killed themselves on Saturday, taking the total number of farmer suicides in north-east Maharashtra to 62 this monsoon.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Landless labourer Thavru Rathod, tilling land that was taken on lease, killed himself in the village Kinhala. <br /><br />In Salod village, Shriram Talmale, another farmer, also committed suicide. Both were in debt, with their fields severely damaged by rain.<br /><br />Postmortems on Sunday revealed that they had consumed pesticide; ironically, the families of these deceased agriculturists will not be eligible for compensation since the land the farmers were cultivating was not under their name.<br /><br />Talking to Deccan Herald from Nagpur over the phone, farmland activist Kishore Tiwari said: “In Vidarbha, one in three farmers till land taken on lease. The recent suicides indicate a deeper malaise ravaging not just Vidarbha but the entire country, and despite this being an open social reality, the government has refused to take cognisance.”</p>
