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Flood kills 22 people in India, 170,000 homeless

A man rows a boat as they pull out a horse from the flooded river Ganga in Allahabad

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Flash floods triggered by torrential rain have killed at least 22 people in India and forced more than 170,000 from their homes, officials said on Monday, as forecasters predicted more downpours in coming days.

India’s monsoon rains, though vital for agriculture, regularly bring death and destruction. The rain was 35 percent above average in the week that ended on July 6, the weather office said.

Twenty people were killed in the central state of Madhya Pradesh where 70,000 people were left homeless as water rose to dangerous levels along parts of the Narmada river.

Firemen waded through thigh-deep water to rescue women and children in flooded villages while rescue teams used inflatable boats to reach people stranded in urban areas.

“Thousands of people will be evacuated today. We are working on a war footing mode to set up relief camps,” additional home secretary Basant Singh said in Bhopal, the state capital.

“The health department is distributing medicines to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases.”

Stormy weather also ravaged parts of the remote northeast.

Heavy rain pounded the tea-growing, oil-rich state of Assam killing at least two people. About 100,000 people were forced to take shelter on higher ground, officials there said.

The rain has also swelled the Brahmaputra river, which flows into Bangladesh, to dangerous levels.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal ordered officials to distribute food, clothing and medicines to people who could not return to their homes.

(Reporting by Biswajyoti Das in GUWAHATI Rupam Jain in NEW DELHI, Editing by Tommy Wilkes, Robeert Birsel)

Murders, violence rises as parched Central India battles for water

By Shuriah Niazi

BHOPAL, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Imrat Namdev and her younger sister Pushpa Namdev were neighbors in Chhatarpur district, in the drought-hit Indian region of Bundelkhand. Both relied on the same well for water and, according to police, frequently quarreled over how much the other was using.

In May, during one fight over water, Pushpa, 42, beat Imrat, 48, with a stick, police say. The injured sister was rushed to a hospital, but died there, and Pushpa was charged with murder.

“Our village faces a severe shortage of potable water,” Imrat’s son, Jitendra, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Pushpa always felt my mother drew more water from the well.”

As northern and central India continue to suffer thorough severe drought and oppressive heat, police in Bundelkhand and several other regions are reporting a rise in violent – and often deadly – clashes over water.

After almost 10 years of below-average rainfall and several consecutive years of drought, the region’s rivers, lakes, reservoirs and wells are drying up.

Disputes are a common problem in many places in India that face water shortages. But Indian police report that the fighting is getting more frequent and bloody. In many parts of the country, neighbors, friends and family are turning on each other, desperate to protect what little water they have left, police records suggest.

Last month, in the tribal-dominated Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh, 13-year-old Surmada, her brother and her uncle used a neighbor’s hand-pump, without permission, to get water for the family’s houseguests.

According to police, the owner of the pump and his son attacked the group with arrows. One pierced Surmada’s eye, killing her.

And in the village of Kanker, in Shivpuri district, a large-scale argument broke out after two motorcyclists got into an accident, causing one to spill the 15-litre (4 gallon) container of water he was carrying.

“The two later called their family members and friends and attacked each other with spears, axes and sticks,” said investigating officer Jaisingh Yadav of Sathanwada police station. Fifteen people were injured, five of them women, he said.

Lal Singh Arya, Madhya Pradesh’s urban administration and development minister, said the government is using all its resources to try to make sure everyone has water. But he predicted tensions will remain high until monsoon rains – which began recently in some areas – take hold.

“There have been disputes over water in many parts of the state because of two consecutive droughts,” he said. “The situation will improve with the monsoon rains.”

ONLY DRINKING WATER

Activists say the government’s failure to act to better manage water is partly to blame for the rise in violence.

“The present crisis is the fallout of over-consumption, wasteful use and inefficient water governance systems,” said Ajay Dubey, an activist with the environmental non-governmental organization Prayatna, based in Madhya Pradesh.

“People are going to any lengths for the sake of water. They’ve lost hope that the situation will ever improve. Things were never so bad,” Dubey said.

According to the Madhya Pradesh water resource department, out of the state’s 139 main reservoirs, 82 are at only 10 percent capacity and 22 are empty. As authorities try to make the remaining water last until monsoon rains help refill the reservoirs, the measures they have implemented have only exacerbated the sense of desperation.

Across much of the region, authorities have banned the use of water for washing cars or trucks, bathing cattle or irrigating crops. In most cities in Madhya Pradesh, the local government only supplies drinking water on one out of every two to seven days.

The district administration of Sehore in Madhya Pradesh has temporarily taken charge of all water sources, whether government or privately owned, so that it can manage use of the dwindling resource. And in three towns in Madhya Pradesh, the use of water for anything other than drinking is banned.

Lokesh Kumar, sub-divisional magistrate of Ichhawar town, said water can’t be used for farming or industrial purposes until July 5, when the monsoon is underway and authorities hope water sources will be replenished.

For many in rural India, the struggle to survive with very little water is proving too difficult. In areas like Bundelkhand, a growing number of people are leaving their homes and abandoning their work in hopes of finding water – even just a little more – somewhere else.

Asandi Das, who lives in a village in Chhatarpur district, plans to take his family to Agra, where the famous Taj Mahal is located, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. He said that right now his family has neither food nor water.

He knows it won’t be easy even in Agra – or anywhere else – but hopes to get enough work to make ends meet.

“We’ll not be able to survive in our village,” Das said. “There’s just no water. We’ll have to go to some other place if we want to live.”

(Reporting by Shuriah Niazi; editing by Jumana Farouky and Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)

Monsoon rains arrive at India’s Kerala coast

A commuter jumps from a bus during a heavy rain shower at a bus stop in Kochi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Annual monsoon rains arrived at the Kerala coast in southern India on Wednesday, a day later than forecast, a weather office source said, easing fears over farm and economic growth after two straight droughts hit rural income and agricultural output.

The monsoon delivers nearly 70 percent of rains that India needs to water farms, and recharge reservoirs and aquifers. Nearly half of India’s farmlands, without any irrigation cover, depend on annual June-September rains to grow a number of crops.

“We’ll soon make an announcement that the monsoon has arrived and it has already covered Kerala,” the source said.

After its April forecast of above average rains this year, the weather office on May 15 said the monsoon would arrive by June 7.

Despite the slight delay, the monsoon would not set back crop sowing and rains are expected to make rapid progress after their arrival, India Meteorological Department chief Laxman Singh Rathore told Reuters last month.

Farmers plant rice, cane, corn, cotton and oilseeds during the rainy months of June and July. Harvest starts from October.

Of its 1.3 billion population, more than 60 percent of people in India depend on agriculture to eke out a living.

Jettisoning a statistical method introduced under British colonial rule in the 1920s, India’s meteorology office is spending $60 million on a new supercomputer to improve the accuracy of one of the world’s most vital weather forecasts in time for next year’s rains.

(Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Biju Dwarakanath)

Almost 46 Million People trapped in slavery globally

Actor Russell Crowe launches the 2016 Global Slavery Index at the London office of Gallup

By Alex Whiting

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Almost 46 million people are living as slaves globally with the greatest number in India but the highest prevalence in North Korea, according to the third Global Slavery Index launched on Tuesday with Australian actor Russell Crowe.

The index, by Australia-based human rights group Walk Free Foundation, increased its estimate of people born into servitude, trafficked for sex work, or trapped in debt bondage or forced labor to 45.8 million from 35.8 million in 2014.

Andrew Forrest, founder of Walk Free, said the rise of nearly 30 percent was due to better data collection, although he feared the situation was getting worse with global displacement and migration increasing vulnerability to all forms of slavery.

Forrest, an Australian mining billionaire and philanthropist, urged businesses to check their supply chains for worker exploitation, saying he found thousands of people trapped in slavery making goods for his company Fortescue Metals Group.

“But I’ve had some of some biggest entrepreneurs in the world look me in the eye and say I will not look for slavery in case I find it,” he said at the launch of the index in London.

Crowe, who played Roman emperor-turned-slave Maximus in the 2000 movie “Gladiator”, described the plight of people “in our communities who are stuck, utterly helpless and trapped in a cycle of despair and degradation with no choice and no hope.”

“As an actor, my role is often to portray raw human emotion, but nothing compares with the people’s lives reflected in the report published today,” he said.

Incidences of slavery were found in all 167 countries in the index, with India home to the largest total number with an estimated 18.4 million slaves among its 1.3 billion population.

But Forrest said India deserved credit for starting to address this problem with the government this week unveiling a draft of its first comprehensive anti-human trafficking law to treat survivors as victims rather than criminals.

North Korea ranked as worst in terms of concentration with one in every 20 people – or 4.4 percent of its 25 million population – in slavery and its government doing the least to end this with reports of state-sanctioned forced labor.

“We need to make it clear we’re not going to tolerate slavery and when there is slavery in a regime we should not trade with them,” Forrest told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

NUMBERS CRITICIZED

Forrest acknowledged the latest data was likely to attract criticism with some researchers accusing the index of flawed methodology by extrapolating on-the-ground surveys in some countries to estimate numbers for other nations.

The 2016 index was based on interviews with about 42,000 people by pollster Gallup in 53 languages in 25 countries.

But Forrest said a lack of hard data on slavery in the past had held back efforts to tackle this hidden crime and it was important to draw a “sand in the line” measurement to drive action. He challenged critics to produce an alternative.

The United Nation’s International Labour Organization estimates 21 million people globally are victims of forced labor but this does not take into account all forms of slavery.

“Without measurement you don’t have effective management and there’s no way to lead the world away from slavery,” he said.

Forrest said the Global Slavery Index aims to measure the prevalence of slavery in the 167 most populous countries as well as the level of vulnerability of people to enslavement and strength of government efforts to combat this.

The 2016 index again found Asia, which provides low-skilled labor in global supply chains producing clothing, food and technology, accounted for two-thirds of the people in slavery.

About 58 percent of people living in slavery are in five countries – India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

However the countries with the highest proportion of their population enslaved were North Korea, Uzbekistan, and Cambodia.

The governments taking the least action to tackle slavery were listed as North Korea, Iran, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, and Hong Kong.

By contrast the governments taking most action were the Netherlands, the United States, Britain, Sweden and Australia.

Forrest said a reason for launching the index in Britain was to acknowledge the lead set by the UK government which last year brought in the 2015 Modern Slavery Act.

While Europe has the lowest regional prevalence of slavery, Walk Free said it was a source and destination for forced labor and sexual exploitation. The impact of a mass influx of migrants and refugees fleeing conflicts and poverty has yet to be seen.

Crowe said slavery was a problem that was not going away.

“I think all of us should keep focused on it until we get to that point … where it just gets pushed over the edge and it’s finished,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Almost 80 percent of Indian women face public harassment in cities

A woman adjusts her scarf as the sun sets over Kashmir's Dal Lake in Srinagar

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Nearly four out of five women in India have faced public harassment ranging from staring, insults and wolf-whistling to being followed, groped or even raped, said a survey by the charity ActionAid UK.

The study – which polled over 500 women in cities across India – found that 84 percent of the respondents who experienced harassment were aged between 25 and 35 years old and were largely working women and students.

“For us in India the findings are not big news, what is noteworthy of the 500 women interviewed in India, is the extent to which women have responded and reported boldly about facing harassment and violence,” Sandeep Chachra, ActionAid India’s executive director, said on Monday.

“It is as if society is telling women that public spaces are not for them, and what is more interesting is that women are asserting their claim of these spaces.”

Indian women face a barrage of threats ranging from child marriage, dowry killings and human trafficking to rape and domestic violence, largely due to deep-rooted attitudes that view them as inferior to men.

There were 337,922 reports of violence against women such as rape, molestation, abduction and cruelty by husbands in 2014, up nine percent from the previous year, according to the latest data from India’s National Crime Records Bureau.

The online survey, which was released on Friday, was conducted by British market research firm YouGov in early May. It polled 502 women living in cities across the country, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.

It said women faced harassment in multiple places – on the street, in parks, at community events, on college campuses and while traveling on public transport.

“CULTURE OF HARASSMENT”

Over a third of the Indian women surveyed said they had been groped in public or faced someone exposing themselves, while more than half reported that they had been followed.

Forty-six percent reported insults and name-calling in public, 44 percent experienced wolf-whistling, 16 percent had been drugged and nine percent reported they had been raped.

A wave of public protests after the fatal gang rape of a woman on a Delhi bus in December 2012 jolted many in the world’s second most populous country out of apathy and forced the government to enact stiffer penalties on gender crimes.

This included the death sentence for repeat rape offenders, criminalizing stalking and voyeurism, and making acid attacks and human trafficking specific offences.

Since then, a spike in media reports, government campaigns and civil society programs have increased public awareness of women’s rights and emboldened victims to register abuses.

But activists say the figures are still gross underestimates, as many victims remain reluctant to report crimes such as sexual violence for fear their families and communities will shun them.

ActionAid representatives urged authorities to work toward ending patriarchal mindsets and sexist attitudes which they said were to blame for this “culture of harassment.”

“Safety of women is directly related to patriarchal mind sets that manifests itself in streets, homes and workplaces,” said Sehjo Singh, ActionAid India’s director of programs and policy.

“The fear of harassment and violence has a crippling effect on women’s abilities and potential, and in itself it is an attack on women’s rights.”

(Reporting by Nita Bhalla, Editing by Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

India’s wholesale prices rise for first time in 18 months in April

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s wholesale prices <INWPI=ECI> unexpectedly rose for the first time in 18 months, posting an annual gain of 0.34 percent, driven up by higher costs for food and manufactured items, government data showed on Monday.

The data compared with a 0.20 percent annual decline forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. In March, prices fell a provisional 0.85 percent.

Wholesale food prices last month rose 4.23 percent year-on-year, compared with a provisional 3.73 percent gain in March. Prices of manufactured goods increased 0.71 percent year on year in April.

Fuel prices dropped 4.83 percent from a year earlier in April, slower than a provisional 8.30 percent fall a month ago.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by Malini Menon)

India working to curb trafficking of women and children

India’s Women and Child Welfare minister Maneka Gandhi, works on a computer before an interview with Reuters at her office in New Delhi, India, October 19, 2015.

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – India is working to find ways to curb the widespread trafficking of women and children in the country, including those from neighboring Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, said Maneka Gandhi, India’s minister for women and children.

South Asia, with India at its center, is the fastest-growing and second-largest region for human trafficking in the world, after East Asia, according to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime.

Speaking at a conference on child adoption in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya, Gandhi told delegates that the government was in the process of putting in place a series of policies to prevent human trafficking.

“We have discussed this issue in the cabinet. We had called a meeting with these countries last month in which all NGOs working on this and others in Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh came,” she said on Monday.

“We will have another meeting next week in India. We are telling each other what we can do. This month, we are going to see that specific solutions come into being.”

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there were 5,466 cases of human trafficking registered in 2014, an increase of 90 percent over the past five years.

Activists say this is a gross under-estimation of the scale of the problem, as much of the illicit organized crime is underground.

They claim thousands of people – largely poor, rural women and children – are lured to India’s towns and cities each year by traffickers who promise good jobs but sell them into domestic work or sex work or to industries such as textile workshops.

In many cases, they are not paid or are held in debt bondage. Some go missing, and their families cannot trace them.

Gandhi said India’s remote northeastern states, which include Assam, Sikkim, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, were a key source area for trafficking and called for the appointment of a special female police officer in each village to keep a check on crimes against women and children.

“There is an enormous amount of trafficking of children going on from the northeast. We find them in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and many going to Malaysia and Thailand. It is not fair,” she said.

“The job of special women police is to be vigilant in the village and see that children do not go missing, women are not beaten by husbands, girls are sent to school.”

A comprehensive new anti-trafficking law is also being drafted, say government officials. This will not only unify several existing laws, but also raise penalties for offenders and provide victims with rehabilitation and compensation.

The law, which is expected to be ready by the end of the year, will also provide for the establishment of a central investigative anti-trafficking agency to coordinate and work between states and special courts to hear such cases.

(Reporting by Nita Bhalla, editing by Alex Whiting. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

108 Killed in India Fireworks Explosions

People stand next to debris after a broke out at a temple in Kollam in the southern state of Kerala, India

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (Reuters) – Indian police have detained five people after a fireworks display at a Hindu temple set off explosions and fire killing 108 people, an officer said on Monday, in one of the worst accidents at a religious festival.

Thousands of people were gathered at the temple at Kollam in the southern state of Kerala on Sunday for the pyrotechnic show to mark the start of the Hindu year when sparks ignited a cache of fireworks stored inside the temple grounds.

The district administration said it had not given permission for the fireworks display following complaints of noise and pollution.

Police officer Anantha Krishnan said the five taken into custody were employees of a fireworks manufacturer who was given the contract for running the show at the Puttingal Devi temple.

The head of the manufacturing unit was injured, one of 380 people who were in hospitals across the state with burns as well as injuries caused by flying concrete and debris.

But police had not been able to reach members of the temple management, Krishnan said.

Kerala is studded with temples managed by rich and powerful trusts that often flout local regulations. Each year temples hold fireworks displays, often competing to stage the most spectacular ones, with judges who decide the winners.

On Monday, grieving relatives of the victims were scouring the temple grounds for possessions of their loved ones among the shoes, handbags and other articles strewn in a pile of debris and a puddle, dark red with blood.

“There were so many men and women lying on the ground, lifeless,” said Anish Kumar, a resident.

The scale of the tragedy has ignited demands that fireworks shows be banned at crowded places in Kerala. The chief of the state unit of the Indian Medical Association, A. V. Jayakrishna, said he planned to file a petition before the Kerala High Court on Monday curbing the use of fireworks.

Such has been the outrage across the nation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Kollam within a few hours with a team of doctors.

Opposition politicians led by Rahul Gandhi also visited the temple site, demanding a thorough investigation into the cause of the fire which took place amid a state election to choose a new assembly.

Modi has faced public criticism for failing to respond quickly to disasters such as the floods in Chennai late last year. Large parts of the city were under water for days before government help arrived.

But Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party said he was focused on the task in hand.

“Ever since the Gujarat earthquake, in any disaster, the prime minister wants to be hands on,” said BJP spokesman M.J. Akbar, referring to Modi’s work in his home state when the 2001 quake hit.

“Where he keeps aloof – and rightly so – is in all these artificial, emotional, sound-bite controversies. He is consistent in his interventions and in his silences.”

For a map locating the temple: http://tmsnrt.rs/1SXsCVB

(Reporting by D.Jose; Additional reporting by Doug Busvine in NEW DELHI Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Nick Macfie)

India Overpass Collapse Kills 14

By Supriyo Hazra

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – An overpass under construction in the bustling Kolkata, India collapsed on Thursday on to vehicles and street vendors below, killing at least 14 people with more than 100 people feared trapped.

Residents used their bare hands to try to rescue people pinned under a 100-metre (110-yard) length of metal and cement that snapped off at one end and came crashing down in a teeming commercial district near Girish Park.

“The concrete had been laid last night at this part of the bridge,” resident Ramesh Kejriwal told Reuters.

“I am lucky as I was planning to go downstairs to have juice. When I was thinking about it, I saw that the bridge had collapsed.”

Video footage aired on TV channels showed a street scene with two auto rickshaws and a crowd of people suddenly obliterated by a mass of falling concrete that narrowly missed cars crawling in a traffic jam.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose center-left party is seeking re-election in the state of West Bengal next month, rushed to the scene.

“We will take every action to save lives of those trapped beneath the collapsed flyover. Rescue is our top priority,” she said.

Banerjee, 61, said those responsible for the disaster would not be spared. Yet she herself faces questions about a construction project that has been plagued by delays and safety fears.

A newspaper reported last November that Banerjee wanted the overpass – already five years overdue – to be completed by February. Project engineers expressed concerns over whether this would be possible, The Telegraph said at the time.

The disaster could play a role in the West Bengal election, one of five being held next month that will give an interim verdict on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nearly two years in power.

Indian company IVRCL <IVRC.NS> was building the 2-km (1.2-mile) Vivekananda Road overpass, according to its web site. Its shares closed down 5 percent after falling by up to 11.8 percent on news of the disaster.

IVRCL’s director of operations, A.G.K. Murthy, said the company was not sure of the cause of the disaster.

“We did not use any inferior quality material and we will cooperate with the investigators,” Murthy told reporters in Hyderabad where the firm is based. “We are in a state of shock.”

NO ACCESS

A coordinated rescue operation was slow to get under way, with access for heavy lifting gear and ambulances restricted by the buildings on either side of the flyover and heavy traffic.

Police said that 78 injured had been taken to Kolkata’s Medical College Hospital after the disaster struck at around noon.

“Most were bleeding profusely. The problem is that nobody is able to drive an ambulance to the spot,” said Akhilesh Chaturvedi, a senior police officer.

Eyewitness Ravindra Kumar Gupta, a grocer, said two buses carrying more than 100 passengers were trapped. Eight taxis and six auto rickshaws were partly visible in the wreckage.

“Every night, hundreds of laborers would build the flyover and they would cook and sleep near the site by day,” said Gupta, who together with friends pulled out six bodies.

“The government wanted to complete the flyover before the elections and the laborers were working on a tight deadline … Maybe the hasty construction led to the collapse.”

(Additional reporting by Rupam Jain, Tommy Wilkes, Neha Dasgupta and Aditya Kalra and Reuters TV in New Delhi; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Weather-weary Indian farmers resort to selling blood for income

JHANSI, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Karna, a farmer from Badgaon village in northern India, has few options but to sell his blood for money, after persistent drought left him unable to live off his land.

The farmer, now 60, began commuting an hour and a half from his village to Jhansi town in Uttar Pradesh state for a job that paid little money.

“I was working as a labourer in Jhansi for survival,” said Karna, who goes by one name. “When my son fell ill, I had no other option but to sell my blood for his treatment.”

The hospital took almost two bottles of his blood and gave him 1,200 rupees ($17.50).

For many farmers in this part of Bundelkhand, blood is the new cash crop – a source of guaranteed income as they exhaust other ways of making ends meet.

In India, blood donors are not usually paid. But some hospitals buy blood, even though it is against the law.

Bundelkhand, a hilly region divided between the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, has struggled with extreme weather in the past few years.

Drought, hailstorms, unseasonal rainfall and most recently an unusually warm winter have played havoc with crop yields, making farming unviable for many.

Unemployment has soared, and locals are leaving the rural belt to work as unskilled labour in nearby urban areas.

Financial assistance provided by the authorities has failed to achieve much on the ground, as it is far lower than farmers’ losses.

Farmer Lakhan Ahirwar, 61, relies on intermittent labouring jobs to get through dry spells. But when work is scarce, selling his blood is the most reliable source of income.

“I could not find any work for almost five days,” he said. “What should I do? I had to feed my children.”

Rajendra Singh, a prominent water conservationist and winner of the Stockholm Water Prize, said it was “a matter of grave concern that farmers from many areas in Bundelkhand (have) sold their blood due to successive droughts”.

HIDDEN PLIGHT

Ahirwar, who once earned enough by selling tomatoes, potatoes and chillies grown on his 7 acres, is no longer in a position to provide two meals a day for his family.

His only son migrated to New Delhi with his pregnant wife.

“Even during the eighth month of her pregnancy she had to work as a labourer in Delhi, as they had no other source of income for survival,” said the farmer.

Tourists from all over the world who flock to Bundelkhand to visit Khajuraho, a world heritage site famous for its temples adorned with erotic carvings, are largely unaware of the plight of local farmers.

The region has received below-average rains since 2007, and is now facing its third successive year of drought. Agricultural production has declined substantially and livestock are suffering too.

Crops in nearly half the districts of Madhya Pradesh have been hit by insufficient rainfall, the state government says.

In neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, the situation is even worse, with 69 out of 71 districts receiving below-average rains in 2015, according to the India Meteorological Department.

Last year, unseasonably heavy rains and hailstorms devastated crops at the ripening stage in April and May in Bundelkhand. That was followed by drought in August and September, and a warm winter.

The freak winter badly affected the rabi crop, sown during the winter months, on around 40 percent of India’s farmland.

TWO SUICIDES PER DAY

The negative effects have pushed some farmers to commit suicide, even as state governments scramble to ease the agrarian crisis.

More than 3,200 farmers in Bundelkhand alone have killed themselves in the last five years, according to official records. Crop losses and worries over debt are the main reasons.

Local leader Shivnarain Singh Parihar of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (Indian Farmers’ Union) said around two farmers per day, on average, are committing suicide in Bundelkhand.

Many farmers are forced to borrow money at exorbitant interest rates from private money lenders to buy seeds and fertiliser.

“They are in debt but can’t repay (it) and face harassment by lenders. So they are taking the extreme step of ending their lives,” said Parihar, who fights for local farmers’ rights.

He himself has given money to the families of farmers who committed suicide, because they had nothing left to prepare for a funeral.

BEGGING ON THE STREET

Parihar said Bundelkhand farmers were facing a hunger crisis, and state governments had failed to provide relief.

In late January, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said all possible help would be provided to farmers in areas with a rainfall deficit.

The state government said it had already deposited around $550 million in farmers’ accounts. But in Uttar Pradesh, little aid has been offered.

Those lucky enough to receive some money say it is not enough.

For the elderly who cannot find work in the cities, selling blood and begging are perhaps the only choices left.

“I have two children and both of them are now working as labourers. I am too old to do anything, so I am begging to survive,” said 80-year-old Moolchand, looking at passersby through sunken eyes. He gets little more than $1 a day.

Around 100 farmers from his village of Badgaon, home to 4,000 people, have resorted to begging amid the repeated droughts.

“Farming is a curse in Bundelkhand,” Moolchand said tearfully. “No one cares for us – we will die one day in the absence of any help from the government.”

(Reporting by Shuriah Niazi; editing by Megan Rowling)

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