Govt poised to open 50 PG centre in State

New Delhi, Jan 12: In a shocking revelation, one unemployed person committed suicide every hour during 2018 when a total of 1,34,516 suicides, including 92,114 male and 42,391 female, were reported in the country, NCRB's "Suicide in India 2018" says.

The latest data, issued by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which comes under Ministry of Home Affairs, last week reveals that a total of 12,936 unemployed persons committed suicide in 2018, which accounted for 9.6 per cent of the total suicides, and were of aged below 18 years to above 60 years.

Those below 18 years include 31 males and nine females while those between 18 and 30 years comprise 1,240 male and 180 female. A total of 868 male and 95 female were aged between 30 and 45 years. A number of 237 males and 21 females were aged between 45 and 60 years while 2,431 males and 310 females were above 60 years.

Of the total suicides by unemployed persons, males are 10,687 while the females are 2,249.

The highest number of suicides - 12.3 per cent - committed by unemployed persons were in Kerala (1,585 out of 12,936 suicides), 12.2 per cent in Tamil Nadu (1,579), 9.7 per cent in Maharashtra (1,260 suicides), 8.5 per cent in Karnataka (1,094 suicides) and 7 per cent in Uttar Pradesh (902 suicides).

"Each suicide is a personal tragedy that prematurely takes the life of an individual and has a continuing ripple effect, dramatically affecting the lives of families, friends and communities. Every year, more than 1 lakh people commit suicide in our country. There are various causes of suicides like professional/career problems, sense of isolation, abuse, violence, family problems, mental disorders, addiction to alcohol, financial loss, chronic pain etc," says the NCRB adding it collects data on suicides from police recorded suicide cases.

As per the NCRB, rate of suicides has been calculated using projected population for the non-census years whereas for 2011, the population of the Population Census 2011 was used.

The NCRB data says that a total of 1,34,516 suicides were reported in the country during 2018 showing an increase of 3.6 per cent in comparison to 2017 and the rate of suicides has increased by 0.3 during 2018 over 2017.

Government servants accounted for 1.3 per cent (1,707 out of 1,34,516) of the total suicide victims as compared to 6.1 per cent (8,246 out of 1,34,516) of total victims from Private Sector Enterprises.

Employees from Public Sector Undertakings formed 1.5 per cent (2,022 out of 1,34,516) of the total suicide victims, whereas students and unemployed victims accounted for 7.6 per (10,159 victims) of total suicides. Self-employed category accounted for 9.8 per cent of total suicide victims (13,149 out of 1,34,516).

A total of 10,349 persons involved in farming sector (consisting of 5,763 farmers and cultivators and 4,586 agricultural labourers) have committed suicide during 2018, accounting for 7.7 per cent of total suicides victims (1,34,516) in the country.

A total of 11 transgenders have committed suicide in which three were daily wage earners, one each were 'professionals and salaried persons' and 'unemployed persons' while six falls under 'Other Persons'.

Belagavi, Feb 10: In comments that raised eyebrows, Ramesh Jarkiholi, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP and who took oath as minister last week, said his brother Satish has a bright future. The two siblings have rarely seen eye-to-eye — at least in public — in recent times.

He also trained his gun on Congress leader DK Shivakumar, sarcastically thanking the Congress MLA for his meteoric rise. “Had Shivakumar not stood against me, I would not have emerged as a tall leader in the state. I must thank him,” Ramesh said.

The Gokak MLA said Satish of the Congress, the most politically-savvy of the five Jarkiholi siblings, would reach “the top” in his political career. However, he advised him “to inculcate patience and adopt strategies”. “He should make his moves at the right time as timing is very important in politics,” Ramesh said.

He also urged Satish to keep his supporters happy. “Many of his followers are disappointed with his leadership because he does not extend a helping hand to his own people. In the present political climate, people do not endorse a leader who only talks about Buddha and Basava,” Ramesh said.

Ramesh took a dig at Lakan, the youngest sibling, saying, “Lakan speaks ill about me most of the time. He does not understand much. But we brothers are one when it comes to family. We are united when it comes to family matters, but when it comes to politics, we are at loggerheads.”

Bengaluru, Jun 18: Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah has accused the BJP-led government of not passing the benefit of the low price of crude to the common man and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps to bring down prices of petroleum products.

Hitting out at the BJP-led government, he termed it as "opportunistic" and said the price of petroleum products were being increased when people were facing difficulties due to COVID-19.

"It is very disheartening to witness and unprecedented opportunistic government which is trying to extract every pound and flesh from the common man, that too when the whole country is suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is in the backdrop of the continuous price hike in the last 10 days," said the letter was written on Wednesday.

The Congress leader said that the policy decisions taken by the government "with respect to managing fuel sources are inconsistent with the prudent measures generally adopted".

"When the price of crude oil was remarkably low in March, April and May 2020, your government was very reluctant to pass on the benefits to the people by reducing the fuel prices proportionately, but, instead, your government continued to capitalise by increasing the excise duty," he said.

He said the government had also "failed" in the last six years to increase the oil storage capacity which could have been used for the country's advantage when the international crude oil price fell really low.

He said the government should roll back the excise duty and help in the reduction of fuel prices.

"The reduced burden will help the common man to have additional money in hand that will be spent on essential goods and services which will ultimately help them tide over these difficult times," he said.