DACCA: Amongst thumping of tables … the East Pakistan Assembly today [Feb 16] passed the … East Pakistan State Acquisition and Tenancy Bill designed to abolish zamindari in the province which will now go into the Statute Book. The Bill will replace the 150-year-old land tenure system known as the “Permanent Settlement” associated with Lord Cornwallis and enable the State to take over zamindaris within a period of 10 years. Mr Nurul Amin, Premier and Leader of the House, described the occasion as “a red letter day in the annals of Pakistan”… . — News agencies

[Meanwhile, according to news agencies in Washington,] Senator Millard Tydings today [Feb 16] forecast an “X-Bomb” of the future which … could destroy mankind. He urged Secretary of State Dean Acheson to start working immediately for world disarmament.

Mr Senator Tydings, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, did not say whether science even now is at work on the X-Bomb. But he told the Senate that “development of the first Hydrogen Bomb is not the end. It will not be the most decisive weapon mankind will ever construct. … .” — News agencies

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2025