High suicide rate

Sir, - The alarming reports of the high suicide rate in Kerala of people driven to despair by the sheer impossibility to make a living should awaken all those in authority from their smugness. Because of the fall in the prices of rubber and coconuts to half of what they used to be, those without a salary or relatives in foreign countries have no way of surviving.

Both the State and religious authorities are steeped in a feudal set-up. The political leadership of the State with the highest literacy is unfortunately in the hands of those whose main qualification is trade union or student union leadership, without any vision or drive for essential innovative industrialisation, as one finds in the neighbouring States.

Due to a pernicious policy of unreasonable strikes, factories such as the Punalur Paper Mills and Chalakkudi Coates Mills, run by people outside the State, have been closed down.

This irresponsible perversion of democracy, brought about by those blinded by unproductive political ideologies, has got to be ended somehow for the present rate of suicides to end soon.

Mar George Theckedath,

Kottarakara (Kerala)

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