LONDON: Describing the Governor of Bengal, Mr. Casey’s official optimism about the Bengal famine as “alarming”, an article in the “New Statesman” says: “Authority in India as in White Hall was complacent throughout this calamity as it was inert. It foresaw nothing; then it minimised and denied and when at last it admitted something of the truth it consoled us with the estimate that ‘only’ a million had died.

“Even if it is true as we hope that the worst is over, the abnormal mortality caused by diseases that follow in the famine’s wake will go on swelling the total that may already be nearer three than one million. So long as inflation rages, it is obvious that hunger if not famine still threatens the land.”

[Meanwhile, as reported from New Delhi,] the Government of India has introduced a scheme for training suitable boys from scheduled castes as artisans in the Printing Industry at the Government of India Presses, says a Press Note. During this period of Apprenticeship, which will last for a period of two years, the selected candidates will be given a subsistence allowance of Rs. 20 p.m. if matriculates and Rs. 15 p.m. if non-matriculates.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2019