Suicide:One of the leading cause of death

Suicide is among the 10 leading causes of death for all ages in most of the countries. In some countries, it is among the top three causes of death among  people aged 15-34 years.Suicide may be hidden and underreported for several reasons, Unemployment,prevailing social or religious attitudes and dipression. Coronavirus is the latest reason.It  is believed that suicide is underreported by a percentage between 20% and 100%. This underlines the importance of bringing about corrections and improvement on a world wide basis. There is a shift in the predominance of the number of suicides from the elderly to the younger people all over the world.
Suicide is a major public health problem, with far reaching socio-economic, political, and emotional consequences. Southeast Asia accounts for roughly 40% of the estimated 800 000 annual suicide deaths globally.More than 1.39 lakh Indians died by suicide in the year 2019, 67 per cent of which were young adults (18-45 years), shows the latest data released by National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB).
This represents on average one death every 20 seconds and one attempt every 1-2 seconds. In tribal state of Jharkhand the situation is more alarming as there has been almost  20 percent increase in the incidents during the last year in comparison to previous year.
A  detailed age-wise breakup of causes of suicides as provided by the NCRB report reveals that family issues, love affairs, drug abuse, mental illness appear as the top cause of suicide among the youth. According to the report, among people aged above 18 and below 45, family problems were the biggest reported cause of suicide.
The fact that 71% of suicides in India are by persons below the age of 44 years imposes a huge social, emotional and economic burden on our society. Although suicide is a deeply personal and an individual act, suicidal behaviour is determined by a number of individual and social factors. Ever since Esquirol wrote that “All those who committed suicide are insane” and Durkheim proposed that suicide was an outcome of social / societal situations, the debate of individual vulnerability vs social stressors in the causation of suicide has divided our thoughts on suicide.      
Suicide is best understood as a multi -dimensional, multi factorial malaise. Suicide is perceived as a social problem in our country and hence, mental disorder is given equal conceptual status with family conflicts, social maladjustment etc.Poverty, unemployment, debts and educational problems are also associated with suicide.

The recent spate of farmers' suicide in India has raised societal and governmental concern to address this growing tragedy. The effects of modernization, specifically in India, have led to sweeping changes in the socio-economic, socio-philosophical and cultural arenas of people's lives, which have greatly added to the stress in life, leading to substantially higher rates of suicide.
There is  probably an appropriate alternative resolution of the precipitating problems. Suicide is perhaps  often considered  as a  permanent solution to a temporary problem by the ill-fated people. Psychiatrists are arguing that suicidal behaviour should be considered as a disease in its own right, rather than as a behaviour resulting from a mood disorder. According to psychiatrists regular couselling of a stressed person can reduce the suicide incidents .Since our country has been plagued by astronomical suicide rate, suitable policies require to be taken to meet the challenges ahead for suicide prevention in India.