German Women Join Hands With Vidarbha Widows

The readers of a leading German ( Deutsche )news paper, "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" have given relief aid to Vidarbha Farm Widows.
They were moved by Karin Steinberger's article based on the struggle of farm widows, after the suicide of their farmer husbands, when local Maharashtra govt. turned blind eye towards the plights of these widows.
This amount was collected by news paper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" was transferred to INDENHILFE, an NGO working for the Indian people.
Their Kolkatta base office is arranging a function for Relief Aid disbursement at Pandharkawada in Yavatmal district of Vidarbha, Maharashtra in India on 17th March. INDIENHILIFE office in charge, Kumar Roy and Shibani Bhattacharya have been touring in rural part of Vidarbha to identify the widows who are working hard to save the surviving family, from agrarian crisis.

Karin Steinberger, is with the German news paper, "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" since 2000, writing features from all over the world, but most of stories are from rural parts of India. This article was based on the hardships faced by Farm Widows of Vidarbha and their "struggle to remain live", without any meaningful and coordinated government aid.
It was published in 2006, and the article has been read by the thousand of readers in Germany, but relief aid programme, has just coincidently matched with the timing when one of Indian media, TV news channels, has been running a premeditated campaign, to run fabricated stories of Farm widows and has been evoking very strong response from Vidarbha and all over the world.

This German relief aid distribution programme, will boost morale of these farm widows, at last, after the sheer apathy of local Congress and NCP government, and top local bureaucrats of Maharashtra, who are more interested in book keeping and making media statements, debating the reasons for farm suicides in cotton belt of Vidarbha.

Three Widows

The Tale of Three Indian Widows :
Savita, Sunita and Pratibha are three women from different contexts, background and age groups, yet engulfed by the continuing tragedy that plays out in Maharashtra. The number of widows is growing at a frightening speed in the cotton country. Jaideep Hardikar reports.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/feb/agr-widows.htm

The most senior Indian bureaucrats and politicians, continue to deny any agricultural emergency in Indian rural areas, that calls for their attention.
Some IAS Relief Commissioners, are waxing eloquent on farmer's folly, in pursuing high cost cultivation practices in un irrigated parts of India, while some IAS bureaucrats are issuing mental insanity certificates to suicidal farmers as "sirfira". The Indian story of bureaucratic incompetence is tragi comic.

The Sensex Minister is following the bears and the bulls closely, while the Cricket Minister is celebrating the return to form of Saurav Ganguly in Indian cricket.