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Famines and the Famine Policy in India
The Nature of Famines and their Effects
Famines recurred frequently in India and they were chiefly due to the vagaries of the monsoons, resulting in untimely, excessive or inadequate rainfall. The absence of easy means of communication in the past meant more or less absolute scarcity of food, starvation and death or migration. With the growth of the railways, the nature of the famines has been modified. It is now, not so much a lack of food, as a lack of employment and scarcity prices. Even when mortality rate due to starvation is prevented, undernourish ment weakens the people so much that the epidemics that follow in the wake of famines carry away considerable numbers. The general level of efficiency ...
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