Opinion News Updates

Odisha is all set to ban polythene from 2nd October 2018 starting with 5 cities namely Cuttack, Puri, Bhubaneswar, Sambalpur & Berhampur. Entire state is most likely to get rid of polythene in next two years. Recently, CM of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik has ordered this and accordingly state machineries are developing guidelines and drafting policy […]

Controversy has erupted again in Odisha. This time also, it is revolving around a word and its proper use.  Odisha this time seems squarely divided.  While a section of its population in western Odisha are demanding that the word Utkala in the famous odia poem “Bande Utkala Janani” be dropped and an alternate word – […]

In the month of March, India saw a very strong and disciplined march of farmers from Nasik to Mumbai. Hailed as Long March, it won hearts of many as it was unique in many sense. Unique the way it was planned and executed and farmers won the hearts of many by not disturbing the life […]

The PNB scam of Rs 11,300 crore is now rocking the entire country. It’s the talk of the town. Once again the banks are the target and the rapacious mud-slinging between political parties are going on. In between this me-vs-you battle of political parties, the common man is still baffled the way our internal control […]

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Bandh organised by Naba Nirman Krushak Sangthan (NNKS), an umbrella body of farmers, was a reminder that everything is not fine with the state’s vast farming community, a major contributor to the economy. Significantly, the shut-down coincided with the ruling Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) Chasi Mahasamavesh (mega farmers’ convention ) at Bargarh […]

Very few people, both in Odisha and Tamil Nadu are aware of the deep connection that Biju Patnaik had with Karunanidhi. In the third volume of his autobiographical book ‘Nenjukku Needhi’, Karunanidhi mentioned in detail about Biju Patnaik and it was he who referred to him as a “Uyarntha Manidan” (the tall man). The politics […]

The history of Christianity in Odisha is linked to the discovery of the sea-route from Europe to India by Vasco de Gama in 1498. The Portuguese traders played a vital role in the beginning of Christianity, particularly in the Balasore region. By 1514, they had made a settlement at Pipili, and ancient port at the […]

It is an architectural marvel with a conical pillar and a small room constructed on a submerged mass of rocks in Rambha bay near Ghantsilar hill, popularly known as ‘Beacon Point’. The small room and the gleaming white spire are visible from a distance both on sunny days and on full moon nights. Today, it […]

By Sanjoy Patnaik Film making in smaller regional locations/states is experiencing a range of critical challenges that largely emerges out of smaller markets, thus limited revenue and, therefore, less impactful cinema. Limited revenue is also responsible for attracting inadequately skilled human resource and averagely equipped techno-creative hands to make films that would at the least […]

By Sanjoy Patnaik The bulk of contemporary global literature on women’s land rights, largely emerging out of the work by practitioners and researchers at country level in the last two decades or more, has primarily focused on two key factors; a) why women need land and b) what are the key barriers to women getting […]

Berhampur's huge potential for growth remains untapped. Compared to the thriving economic activities during good part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries that had ramifications even offshore through movement of people and merchandise, there has been a steady slowdown.

There is little doubt that Odisha government has taken a huge gamble by deciding to reopen schools, even if only for Class X and XII students, at a time when the second wave of the Covid pandemic is not over yet.

THERE could possibly be no better topic to start a column with than one’s own city, Cuttack in my case. Born here, I haven’t spent more than six to eight months at a stretch outside, not once. Remember the frog in the well or “the wellsian frog” as R.K. Narayan had named it. I am […]

The current pervading moroseness in society, over women’s safety, tempts me to scan a recent memory; of a dark and sooty Kartika night when I stood stranded for two hours by a lone tea stall along the Bhubaneswar-Puri highway. I had got off on the spot from a ramshackle bus the conductor was stuffing with […]

At the Chanakya BNR heritage hotel in Puri, on an October 2012 forenoon, I am sitting with fourteen Santali translators to finalize the anthology of forty post-independent Odia short stories in Santali translation. The men, led by Dr Damayanti Beshra, academic and Santali language expert, the Director of this particular translation project, have travelled three […]