More than 300 million Indians suffer from a crippling drought - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/more-than-300-million-indians-suffer-from-a-crippling-drought/2016/05/02/6bfa5a42-d504-4f69-93cd-6e8a07f09239_story.html?tid=sm_tw
Four years of drought here and crop loss have forced his family to take two loans and sell a third of his land, and driven him to do menial labor. In January, his mother gave up. She drank a bottle of pesticide and fell dead near the holy basil plant in the courtyard.
Relentless drought coupled with a record-breaking heat wave and bad farming practices in the western state of Maharashtra have slashed farm output and driven farmers to desperation.
This year is the worst in decades, officials say, because most farmers are also burdened by years of accumulated debt as they continue to deplete the precious groundwater.
About 330 million Indians are struggling under grueling heat and drought conditions across 10 states this year, the government said, severely harming the economy of a nation where nearly half the people rely on farming.