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| For over thirty years now, parts of Punjab have been plagued by the suicides of small farmers. A fatal combination of factors, including successive seasons of bad weather, the soaring cost of seeds and fertilizer, a falling water table and the usurious rates imposed by moneylenders, have combined to make it impossible for them to sustain themselves on the land as their fathers did. Seeing no way out, thousands have taken their own lives. Their deaths are tragedy enough. But for the widows and children they leave behind, life becomes a desperate struggle simply to survive. |