OB Special

Ashok Mohapatra was a post-graduate student of History in Utkal University campus at Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar, while I was an Assistant Professor of Political Science in 1965. He was sharp,...

Bhubaneswar: All eyes are on Cyclone Jawad. I’m also following the news closely. I have been in Odisha -- in its capital, Bhubaneswar -- only during two cyclones: October 29,...

It was more than a decade ago and I was travelling in a bus from Bhubaneswar to Puri for a work assignment. A middle-aged lady sitting next to me began...

I met him for the first time when I joined the Home Department of the Odisha government in 1982. He was the Home Secretary. I had come on deputation from...

A friend of mine whose son has qualified for one of the top engineering colleges in the country is inconsolable. Because the son doesn’t want to join the engineering college...

That was college time. And a fantasy-laden, violence-ridden time it was. Please don’t get me wrong. The violence was not so much out there in the street as it was...

I joined the erstwhile Ravenshaw College in 1958 and stayed in East Hostel. Room number 36, a large lecture hall, was close to the hostel. The loud and smart footsteps...

Bhubaneswar: Woman documentary maker Lipika Singh Darai's 'Backstage' tugs at the heartstrings, enlivening the process, the transition, the loss of originality and the socio-political milieu that shaped puppetry in Odisha....

Switch on a news channel or open a newspaper, photographs framing Delhi’s pollution look grim. Everything is hazy and opaque. The sky can be grey one day, or a bit...

After completion of my professional training at the National Forest Academy, I joined for district training at Cuttack in 1984. Harmohan Patnaik, an IAS officer of the 1974 batch, was...