Take a liberal mixture of a free market economy, deep drought and mass ignorance, and you end up with a deadly stew that is rapidly racking up human costs in rural India. Now, and here's the thing that may have relevence to our own regional deep-poverty depressions: Fold in a volunteer run program of basic education in hygiene, drought strategies and a crash course in stress-relieving kriya yoga breathing exercises, and watch what happens:

With alarming statistics of one farmer ending his life every eight hours, Project Coordinator Jayant Bhole claims that not a single suicide was reported in the 151 villages they have worked in so far. "There are about 1,000 villages in the Amravati region. The current suicides are happening outside this region."

Taking note of their success, the Swavalamban project recently got official backing and entered districts ... As of now, over 4,512 villagers have also learnt AOL's breathing technique, Sudarshan kriya, which has reduced stress levels. The biggest response came from Morshi taluka, with 16,000 locals taking the course in 14 days.
[ Art of Living rescues Vidarbha farmers ]

Admittedly it is probably the life skills that cause the turning around, but unless you stop the bleeding, no cut will heal, and thus the real value in a little burst of serotonin (or whatever) to tide them over, keep 'em hangin' on, hold tight until the other results can manifest... I wonder what sort of response we'd get sending a busload of yoga teachers to Labrador ...