if it were not bad enough that farmers have to take their lives before the government sits up and takes notice that something is seriously wrong, we now have a cruel farce on our hands. Prime minister Manmohan Singh went to Maharashtra's Vidarbha district where heavily indebted cotton farmers have been committing suicide in large numbers from last year. After the trip, the government announced a package that gives an entirely new meaning to the idea of a dud cheque on a crashing bank.

What Singh offered was a waiver on interests on bank loans and a rescheduling of loan repayments. Obviously, his advisors did not do their homework, even after the experience of Andhra Pradesh. Before Vidarbha, Andhra had seen a spate of suicides in 2003-2004. It had then become evident that farmers were committing suicide because farming was not profitable