sarf.120030

Description

The New Review, first published from Calcutta in January 1935, was a monthly journal of ‘one of the international group of Catholic Journals of general interest, conducted by the Society of Jesus, for the educated public’. The journal, it was stated, ‘takes a keen interest in the comparative study of the traditional philosophies of India and Europe, and in India’s cultural achievements’. The New Review published a series of essays and smaller articles ‘in the fields of Religion, Philosophy, Literature, History, Education, Art, Science and Economics’. The journal also reviewed ‘literary productions in the more important vernaculars and in Sanskrit’. With an annual subscription of 12 rupees in India and GB£1 for subscribers abroad, the journal was published by Macmillan and Company Limited. However, the publisher had changed by 1949 when it was ‘edited and published by A Lallemand, S J. from 10 Government Place East, Calcutta’.

The journal published the article ‘Public Expenditure in India’ (P.C. Jain, 1949), and contained information such as ‘for all the nine provinces in the Indian Union and the central Government the total expenditure is budgeted at Rs. 515.64 crores in 1948–49 as against an expenditure of only Rs. 170.91 crores in 1938–39’. The journal stated that ‘one of the many resolutions which the AICC recently passed at its plenary session at Jaipur asked the central and provincial governments in the Indian Union to reduce their expenditure as much as possible … This is a vital resolution’.

Other articles published in the journal included ‘Growth of Population in British India’ (N. Sundararama Sastry, 1942), ‘Bhojpuri Ahir Folk Songs’ and ‘Racial Problems’. In the essay on population increase, the author uses data from the censuses published at the start of each decade to demonstrate the sharp rise in population in the country. Between 1901 and 1941 the population had increased by over 15% and stood at 389 million. This increase happened despite the large number of deaths in the country during 1918/19 from an influenza epidemic.

With time the journal started to publish a number of essays on world affairs, a significant change in comparison with the initial years of publication.

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