April 25, 2008

Earth's Magnetic Field & Suicides

Like many Indians, I've been concerned and curious about the spate of suicides in certain pockets of our country. When I probed further, I found very interesting facts. Crop failure or money lenders were not the cause!! There was something to do with the place! I know you may think me to be out of my mind, but believe me, I have some hard facts to support me. Apparently, these very districts in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, some districts in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have had suicides even in the 1890s when there were no such social ills or GM crops to blame the suicides on...
I also had the opportunity to listen to the Director General of IFPRI a couple of months ago, on the same subject. He had an even more incredulous fact! He said, from the World data they have access to, the maximum suicides were from developed, super rich countries. Apparently, Canada tops the list and he said India is not anywhere close! He explained saying that suicides are a very complex phenomenon and there are many many factors that play a role. This got me thinking and more curious.
Today, I got to read the story on the New Scientist. The latest theory is that a number of intriguing studies have found a link between peaks in geomagnetism and either suicide rates or depression. This probably explains my earlier finding of 'something to do with the place'
Check the link for the full story
http://email.newscientist.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBU7Y0MY5lJ0mli0EyuB0Eg
Maybe we are close to getting to the bottom of the problem.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I would like to more on the subject "Earth's Magnetic Field & Sucides" or for that matter, its relation with any mass positive / negative impact on earth. Expecting more posts on the subject.

Devi said...

Your comment has spurred me on. I will definitely do some posts on this as this topic interests me. I was surprised I got no comments to the post so far!!