BOMBAY: The Special Correspondent of the India Press Service learns that in addition to routine duties, Mahatma Gandhi did a lot of study during the course of 21 months’ detention in the Aga Khan’s Palace in Poona. He studied both the volumes of Karl Marx’s “Das Capital” and several works on Soviet Russia.

Besides he was closely following the International situation and the developments in war … The fact that despite his delicate state of health he consented to see for the first time a talkie film the other day at Juhu, “Mission to Moscow” is indicative of this desire to know more about Soviet Russia. Despite doctors’ anxiety, that Gandhiji sat late and saw through the picture is interpreted in circles closely associated with him as his keen interest in understanding Russia, her leaders, her people and her achievements.

[Meanwhile, as reported from Bombay,] Italian prisoners of war numbering 1,300 have arrived in Bombay to help in clearing up the debris left by the recent fires and explosions. It appears when a request for volunteer truck drivers was sent to one of the Italian Prisoner of War camps in Central India the entire camp volunteered. — Dawn Delhi

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2019