ABSTRACT
Annual data on suicide rates are available to us since 1967, the fi rst year of publication of Accidental Deaths and Suicides. The average suicide rate over the 40 years for which we have data was 55 per 100,000. As can be seen in Figure 15.1, there is some volatility in Pondicherry’s suicide rate, in part an artefact, no doubt, of the sensitivity of the rate to its relatively small population. There appear to be three periods in the data. Between 1967 and 1976, we observe short-term fl uctuations around the mean, with a sudden fall in 1979. In the second phase we observe a pattern of nearly constant increase in the suicide rates, which rose from 29 to 73 in 1993. Since 1993 Pondicherry has entered a third phase in which rates have declined to the level seen in the 1970s.
