Farmers suicide: Pinarayi seeks Rahul's support in raising issue of farmer debt in parliament
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the issue of providing relief to the families of farmers, who committed suicide over failure to repay bank loans, needs to be raised in Parliament.
The Union government needs to take a stand regarding the agricultural loans taken by farmers from commercial banks, he said on Friday in a reply to the letter written by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.
A copy of the letter was released to the media.
Vijayan said since the farmers across the country were facing "severe distress" due to their mounting debts and difficulty in repaying the loans availed by them, the matter needs to be raised in Parliament.
"This issue needs to be raised in the Parliament and I hope that you will join us in taking up the issue of relief for the debt affected families," he said.
Gandhi, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Wayanad, had asked the state government to provide assistance to the family of V D Dineshan, a Wayanad farmer, who committed suicide allegedly due to mounting debt.
The chief minister said that since outstanding loans from commercial banks come under the SARFAESI Act, it is for the Centre to take a considered stand regarding the farmers' debts.
Vijayan also said he had asked the Wayanad district collector to conduct a detailed inquiry into the suicide of the farmer and submit a report to the government for taking further action, including providing financial assistance.
Pointing out that the state was making continued efforts to help the farmers, he said there was a moratorium on repayment of farmers' loans till December this year.
Dinesh Kumar, 53, had ended his life after consuming a poisonous substance on May 25. His relatives had said financial burden forced him to take the extreme step.
Gandhi, in his letter dated May 28, said he was "deeply saddened" by the farmer's suicide and requested the state government to conduct an inquiry and extend financial support to the family.
"Kumar's case isn't an isolated one. There have been a spate of farmer suicides in Wayanad, due to an inability to repay loans," Gandhi had said in his letter.
The Congress chief said it was important to consider "long-term measures" to free farmers from the "vicious debt trap" given the devastating impact of the last year's floods.
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Death toll from Afghan quake rises, including 8 members of refugee family returned from Iran
Ittefaq (Afghanistan) (AP): For several minutes after the earthquake struck, he could hear their screams. Then there was silence.
Mohibullah Niazi, a neighbour who helped in the rescue efforts, said Saturday that the eight people killed on the outskirts of Kabul after a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan the previous night were a refugee family recently returned from neighbouring Iran.
There was only one survivor: a boy of around 3 years old, who was injured and has been hospitalised in Kabul.
Afghanistan's deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat on Saturday increased the overall death toll from the quake to 12, with another four people injured.
Fitrat said five homes were destroyed and another 33 significantly damaged, affecting 40 families in the provinces of Kabul, Panjshir, Logar, Nangarhar, Laghman and Nuristan.
The Afghanistan Disaster Management Authority put the overall death toll at nine. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
The family near Kabul was among the millions of Afghan refugees who have recently returned from Iran and Pakistan, after both countries launched crackdowns in 2023 on foreigners — particularly Afghans — living in their countries.
They had arrived 15 days ago and were living in a tent on land next to Niazi's home. The family head, Najibullah, who was about 50 years old, “had no other shelter", Niazi said. “He was a very poor person.”
We tried our best
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The family had set their tent up next to a wall separating the plot of land from Niazi's home, which stood on higher ground, in the village of Ittefaq on the eastern outskirts of the Afghan capital.
Heavy rains over the past several days, which have led to deadly floods in many parts of Afghanistan, had left the ground sodden and soft. When the earthquake struck, the wall collapsed on the family.
“My daughter shouted to me that a wall had fallen on them. The whole family ran, but there were so many big rocks,” Niazi recounted Saturday as he stood at the scene. “We tried our best.”
On Saturday morning, piles of bricks and mud were all that were left, along with blankets, cooking utensils and other personal belongings salvaged from the rubble and set into a pile.
“For about three minutes, I could hear the voices of these people,” Niazi said. “But we couldn't do anything. There were two or three of us, but this was not the work of three people.”
Neighbours soon rushed to help, digging through the mud and rubble with spades and their hands. They alerted the local Taliban police checkpoint, which sent rescuers and ambulances.
The young boy, Aarash, was pulled out alive but injured, and rushed to the hospital. Health Ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman, who visited the boy Saturday, said he was being treated for a severe head injury.
For the rest of the family — the father and mother, four daughters aged between 12 and 23, and two sons — it was too late. The rescuers could only recover their bodies.
Niazi said he had hosted the family in his own home one night. On Friday, just half an hour before the earthquake struck, he had renewed the offer, telling the family they could spend the night in his own guest room to shelter from the cold and rain. “But they did not come with me,” he said.
A string of deadly quakes
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Friday night's quake had an epicenter in the Hindu Kush mountain range, about 150 kilometres east of the northern city of Kunduz, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre and the US Geological Survey. The area is roughly 290 kilometres northeast of Kabul.
Afghanistan lies in a highly seismically active part of the world, and quakes have caused thousands of deaths in recent years.
Last August, a 6.0 earthquake that struck a remote, mountainous part of eastern Afghanistan killed more than 2,200 people. Most casualties were in Kunar province, where people typically live in wood and mud-brick houses along steep valleys.
In November, a 6.3 earthquake struck Samangan province in northern Afghanistan, killing at last 27 people and injuring more than 950. It also damaged historical sites, including Afghanistan's famed Blue Mosque in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, and the Bagh-e-Jahan Nama Palace in Khulm.
On October 7, 2023, a 6.3 quake followed by strong aftershocks in western Afghanistan killed thousands of people.
