The Mumbai Mirror

"Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay, is the capital of the state of Maharashtra, and the most populous city of India, with an estimated population of about 13 million."

- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While browsing for news about what is happening in North Korea, I found a news site in India called the Mumbai Mirror with some other interesting stories. Stephen Hawking is divorcing his second wife of eleven years, sex in space can jepordize missions and a story about Australian farmers not coping with the drought.

The Australian farmers story is particurlarly interesting becuase is claims...

"One Australian farmer commits suicide every four days, defeated by the country’s worst drought in 100 years which has left them with dust-bowl paddocks and a mountain of debt, says a national mental health body."

I hadn't heard any news like this locally so I thought I'd Google "Australian farmers commit suicide" and restrict the results to Australia only. The top link was from Oxfam Australia which had a story about...

"the growing crisis on the farm front that there is hardly a week when a couple of farmers do not commit suicide in several parts of southern India"

While it was strange to see these two stories one after another, a little further digging finds that both countries, and possibly many other countries are suffering from this problem. While I have heard some people comment on the drought our farmers are going through at the moment and opinions are mixed. Some think "They'll be fine, they got plenty of money to see them through..." but you wouldn't think that someone with plenty of money to see them through would want to top themselves.

There are departments and organizations that recognize the problem like The Rural Mental Health Network. Like I said, first I'd heard of it.