ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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Census 1961 New Pathways

Asok Mitra This narrative recounts the activities prior to and during the operation of the 1961 Census and describes briefly the 26 projects carried out during the process. While the problems were many, the 1961 Census saw a number of innovations at the administrative and operational levels.

Parting of Ways-Partition and After in Bengal

The reasons for the divergent patterns of growth in East and West Bengal long before partition are rooted in the political economy of the two regions. After 1947. Calcutta and West Bengal which had become so dependent on the import of talent and enterprise from East Bengal suffered immeasurably with the wilting of industry and commerce.

Juggling Fiends

and pro-Dilli Sarkar consequences of their ideological-political positions''. But this can be done, not by invoking abstract concepts, nor by resorting to police tenor. The struggle against these negative trends has to be blended with the "Indian people's broader struggle against the ruling classes, against their economy, politics, ideology, culture, etc, a struggle against the present economic and social order and for socialism'' Central to the author's concluding piece is the understanding that "the character of our national movement determined the nature of its outcome, the independence, which, in turn, became the basis for the development of India in the next forty years and more, providing us with the present for our future to grow equally 'naturally out of it

Is Calcutta Still Indias City

Asok Mitra Can Calcutta still lay a claim on being India's city above all others? Do Indians all over the sub-continent still regard Calcutta as a colossus to be seriously reckoned with for its wealth-generating capacity and as leader and innovator in science and technology or pre-eminence in cultural activities and creativity in general? Do the other great cities of India still took up to Calcutta for new leads or fresh light on complex urban problems of health and growth?

The Great Calcutta Killings of 1946-What Went Before and After

What has now come to be known as the Great Calcutta Killings between August 16 and 20, 1946 so dominates our memory that we tend to forget that the holocaust was followed by communal disturbances in Calcutta and in other places in the country almost without respite throughout the rest of the year and well into the next. This is a first person account of the August 1946 events and after, located in the historical perspective of political developments in India, the compulsions of the colonial government and political tensions among the Indian leaders.

Famine of 1943 in Vikrampur Dacca

Famine of 1943 in Vikrampur Dacca Asok Mitra Colonial policies in Bengal were at the root of the disastrous famine of 1943. The Denial and Evacuation policies implemented the year before with such ruthlessness only resulted in creating an artificial scarcity situation in some areas and sent the prices shooting up. The cyclone of 1942 made matters worse. Moreover, the British administrators suppressed all news of the situation for a long time. This is a vivid personal account of the famine as seen through the eyes of an administrator serving in Vikrampur, now in Bangladesh, during the famine and after THE Cripps mission had strengthened my antipathy to Amery, Linlithgow and Herbert and made me apprehensive of the future. Somehow I gained the impression that they were a bunch of crooks

Integrated Strategies for Economic and Demographic Development

Integrated Strategies for Economic and Demographic Development Asok Mitra Proceeding on the hypothesis that intensified programmes of population control have to be necessarily accompanied by an improvement in the quality of the population, this paper makes an attempt to assess the present demographic and economic situation, specially in the underdeveloped countries.

Housing the Urban Poor-The Case of Calcutta

The accent so far in building and town planning has been on conspicuous beautification. In the popular mind, therefore, town planning and architecture have come to be strangely associated with expensive show-pieces on which have been wasted valuable and scarce national resources that might otherwise serve for dozens of low-cost houses and neighbourhoods. The gulf between the town planner and the architect on the ore hand, and the poor citizen on the other, is thus widening with the great urban challenge.

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