PUNJAB’S ‘CANCEROUS’ GROWTH

September 16, 2022
By Tej Bahadur Singh

Harsimranjit Singh spent much of his youth looking after his father, who had cancer. Fazilka, where he lives, is one of the 11 districts that comprise Punjab state's "cancer belt," the Malwa region. In the nearby Ferozepur district, Kuldeep Singh had to quit farming as his wife was diagnosed with cancer. In 2021 in this agrarian state, nearly half of all suicides were due to diseases, government data says. Activist Pritpal Singh blames it on the Green Revolution, which began in Punjab in 1960s.