the country and the world. By the 1912–13 scarcity crisis, migration and relief supply were able to absorb the impact of a medium-scale shortage of food. Drèze concludes, "In sum, and with a major reservation applying to international trade, it is plausible that the improvement in communication towards the end of the nineteenth century did make a major contribution to the alleviation of distress during famines. However, it is also easy to see that this factor alone could hardly account for the very sharp reduction in the incidence of famines in the twentieth century". Bengal famine of 1943 The Bengal famine of 1943 reached its peak between July and November of that year, and the worst of the famine was over by early 1945. Famine fatality statistics were unreliable, and it is estimated up to two million died. Although one of the causes of the famine was the cutting off of the supply of rice to Bengal during the fall of Rangoon to the Japanese, this was only a fraction of the food needed for the region. According to the Irish economist and professor Cormac Ó Gráda, priority was given to military considerations, and the poor of Bengal were left unprovided for. However, it should be emphasized that food was the responsibility of the elected Government of Bengal and that it was the Army which helped break the Famine. Attempts were made by the Government of India to direct food from surplus regions such as Punjab to famine areas in Bengal but the provincial governments obstructed the movement of grain. The Famine Commission of 1944-45 admitted that the poor harvest had reduced supply of food till the end of 1943. Economist Amartya Sen found that there was enough rice in Bengal to feed all of Bengal for most of 1943 but his figures have been questioned. Sen claimed the famine was caused by inflation, with those benefiting from inflation eating more and leaving less for the rest of the population. The Famine Commission Report does not make this claim. It says that indigents and those in service occupations in villages starved because producers preferred to keep or sell rice at a high price. These studies, however, did not account for possible inaccuracies in estimates or the impact of fungal disease on the rice. De Waal states that the British government- which was in fact constituted by elected Bengali politicians- did