Cultivating Hope for Our Farmers

As many as 5,650 farmers and 6,750 agricultural labourers committed suicides in 2014, according to National Crime Records Bureau. Their troubles could be traced to successive droughts, unseasonal rain, soaring prices and mounting debt. It is an issue the nation can no longer afford to ignore. As Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi says "they are not committing suicide voluntarily, there is a huge amount of agony, pain and compulsion which leads to suicide, so how can we talk on other things if we cannot protect our farmers who are the backbone of our country." Taking off from this grim reality, NDTV together with Piramal Foundation launched 'Cultivating Hope' campaign which aims at highlighting farmer related issues and finding ways to address the severe problem.