Technology has taken over. Now, there is a new system to keep count of the number of suicide deaths by farmers in Vidarbha. It's the blog way. To maintain a regular electronic update of the suicides, Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, has launched a blog -- http://andolan.blogspot.com. According to Kishore Tiwari of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, this is to help the government remember the figures as they usually forget or don't accept suicide statistics easily.
Meanwhile, thousands of Vidarbha farmers have planned to hold a march in Delhi on Independence Day. This march comes at a time when suicides continue unabated despite prime minister Manmohan Singh's supposedly "big financial package" for the farmers of the region.
The last two days of July saw the death of 11 farmers, taking the suicide toll to 87 in July itself. So far, the statistics reveal that suicides in the past 14 months add up to 702.