Think Before...

A number of farmers committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh during the tenure of Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu as the Chief Minister.

When Late Mr Rajashekhar Reddy came to power, he came out with a policy of paying ex gratia compensation to the family members of all those farmers who committed suicide.

To everyone's shock and horror, the incidents of suicides increased after the said policy was announced. Extreme Poverty and want drove the farmers to take such drastic steps. There was more monetary incentive in dying rather than surviving and seeing ones family members starve.

The Government of Kashmir has proposed to come out with a rehabilitation policy for stone pelters. I do hope that the Governments decision is based on expert advise and that the Policy does not create more problems than it aims to resolve.

In my opinion though, a better option would be to identify the root causes of the problem and seek to address them instead.