Roughly 70 million farmers work in India. Their loss of income to middlemen, subsidized imports, and debt repayment affects them to an extent of, say, 3 life-years each, for a total of 210 million life-years.

Human News aims to devote 1 character to each 40,000 life-years, or 1000 average lives. Thus, this story has about (210 million) / 40,000 = 5,250 characters.