Death by cotton

Ravinder Kisan Piwar's brother came back at five o'clock in the evening as usual to turn on the electric pump. This is the one time the erratic electricity supply can usually be counted on in the eastern Maharashtra village of Chalbardi. He found the 23-year-old Ravinder bent over, holding his stomach and retching. He had swallowed a lethal dose of the pesticide he had purchased to safeguard the cotton crop on his family's four-hectare plot.