Suicide rate in Japan

It was surprising & sad. Some 33,000 people killed themselves in Japan in 2007. Here is the related news link.

It was hard to beleive this would be the case in an advanced country like Japan. What is also surprising is the US has half that rate.

What is not surprising but even more sad is 25,000 farmers committed suicide in India in 2007. That's just farmers - the total number goes beyond 100,000. It was something like 3 suicides every 15 minutes. Link with some stats. It was not surprising to me because life isn't easy in India, with so many facing debt problems, family issues, parent imposed peer pressure and what not.

Ultimately, the cause is usually a mental depression or disorder that triggers people to commit suicide. We hope more people call suicide prevention hotlines before taking that drastic move. We can also hope that families and society in general communicates better, stay knowledgeable and sensitive to mental condition of individuals, so much of this is prevented in the first place.