Farmers transport cotton on bullock-carts near Pandarkawhda, India, on April 24. India's cotton belt, a land of searing temperatures and backbreaking work, has been hit hardest by an epidemic of suicides. Life has never been easy in this swath of central India, but the current generation of farmers say it has become unbearable. With debts larger than their incomes, these steadiest of workers have become gamblers of the highest stakes, betting their land , and their lives, on one more good crop. Aijaz Rahi / Associated Press
