On the contrary suicide is not rare in India. Various groups do it. For example, students.
Even in USA there are farmer suicides but in India it is vastly more because India is an extremely capitalist country and that has been so for 3000 or so years. The caste system is one component of this. In India, suicide for socio-economic reasons is an acceptable part of culture.
To come back to present times India, and this is my refrain here, just between the ten year period of 1995 to 2015 there were 300,000+ farmer suicides. If these many suicides would have happened among say the middle class software engineers the middle class would have probably risen in revolt. But in case of the farmers the middle class has not done so.
The article in the OP speaks of depleted ground water as one reason for suicides. Another reason in India is the small size of farm lands - of a few acres - which get smaller through distribution among children during inheritance time.
Another reason for farmer suicide in much of India is micro-finance given by private lenders, dedicated micro-finance ( such as SKS Microfinance ) and sometimes regular banks. Many a time the loan ( small ) is given at high interest rate. The loan will be enough only for some immediate necessity ( say purchase of fertilizer ) and not for turning the loan taker to become rich. Harassment by agents of the loan giver in a social environment where suicide is acceptable turns thoughts of the farmer towards suicide. And some do it.
What should be done in India should be to turn agriculture into a scientific practice / methodology : Collectivized farm labor, computer-controlled Vertical Farming and Urban Farming; and water pipelines from rivers to the point of farm usage ( like the Libyan GMMR ( Great Manmade River ) project. Gather the populations of say ten villages and provide the people with a new township where farming is done is the aforementioned way.
