During the recent Holiday season about $60,000 worth of gifts were sent to some 40,000 European war orphans through the Foster Parent's Plan for War Orphans. While American children - not having been directly subjected to the terrors of war--continued to prize toy planes, pistols and machine-guns, European children requested peaceful toys such as tractors, trains, cars and trucks.

Mrs. Edna Blue, international chairman of the organization, made a two-month survey of conditions among children overseas, and was deeply impressed by their need for two things-possessions and affection. Having been deprived of their homes, families and belongings, they crave love and attention. "They throw their arms around you, hang onto your hands, and cover them with kisses. They go on and on and never seem to stop. Their behavior isn't normal, but it shows how great their heart hunger is," reported Mrs. Blue. Their need for belongings is so great that: "Some of the girls pick up rocks from the gutter, wash them and set them on their dressers. Those are their possessions--theirs alone."

Although the children ate uninteresting food without comment or complaint, they constantly called her attention to the condition of such toys as they had managed to keep through the war years. Little girls were especially concerned over their dolls. "A missing arm or leg was considered a very minor defect. It was children clutching dolls without heads that really made me downhearted."

Any plan to raise mass living standards must take into consideration electric power, irrigation and flood control. As America's TVA is a multiple-purpose project, so the three great works which are to be built on the Mahandi, Damodar and Kosi rivers of India will eventually: raise food production by about two million tons per year , generate one and a half million kilowatts of hydro-electric power and irrigate about six million acres of land. Plans for irrigation works are also under way in Hyderabad. Madras, the United Provinces and Sind. M. L. Savage (of Boulder Dam fame) is now designing a dam in the Punjab.

The ICS (Indian Civil Service, in force under British rule) will give place to a suitable Central or Provincial Service. A conference, convened to consider the question, was generally in favor of an All-India Administrative Service.

A conference of Provincial Ministers of Labor hopes to work out a short-term plan--one that can be carried into effect within the next few years--to improve the conditions and outlook of millions of Indian workers. Among proposals already made for such a program are: Fair-wage agreements, organization of industrial training and apprenticeship schemes, improvement of working conditions, elimination of contract labor wherever possible, social security measures, welfare work and housing.

The Congress Working Committee has already passed a resolution calling for land reform and the abolition of zamindaris (landlords). When this is carried out the condition of the peasants will be much improved since there will no longer be intermediaries between themselves and the state to absorb what little profit they might have made.

In Dr. S. Chandrasekhar's brief study on demographic facts, public health and population of India, a new blow has been aimed at those superficial know-alls who keep insisting that overpopulation is the basic cause of India's many troubles. His comments and figures indicate that a rough equality exists between the population and land area of non-Russian Europe and India. Although India is in about the same condition as Europe in respect to population-land ratio, too many people still speak glibly of the "overpopulation" of India, not realizing that her problem is one of economic development.