Bengal panel moves to restore Tagore legacy

Dismayed at the dilapidated state of Rabindranath Tagore’s dilapidated ancestral house in a remote village of Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district, a Kolkata-based socio-cultural organisation has shot off an SOS to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his intervention for conservation of great poet’s house.

“As the country celebrates Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary, the Nobel laureate remains unsung and unrecognised in Pandua village in coastal Odisha which once was his home.

“Last Sunday a six-member team paid a visit to the village and we were shocked to find the governmental insensitivity and neglect meted out to Tagore’s house”, said Utpal Roy, secretary of ‘Diganta’, a Kolkata-based organisation.

The bard’s ancestral house at the village under Kujang tehsil in Jagatsinghpur faces the imminent threat of being reduced to rubble in the absence of any conservation effort, he said.

Full report here Kalinga Times

Shishu Sahitya Ratna award for Punyaprava

Well-known writer Punyaprava Devi was conferred the ‘Shishu Sahitya Ratna’ at the 9th Oriya Children’s Literature Writers’ Conference held in Cuttack recently.

She had received the National Award for best children’s literature in Oriya in 1960 and Akashvani Award for her martial songs in 1962.

Staying in Visakhapatnam since 1964, she is also equally good at writing short stories and novels in Oriya and has six anthologies, six novels and 11 children’s books published so far.

Many of her children’s stories, translated into English by her husband Prahlad Chandra Mohanty have been published in Readers’ Bulletin by National Book Trust and translated into Telugu. A number of short stories have been published in ‘Vipula’.

Full report here Express Buzz

Patnaik releases book on Orissa governance

A Book titled  Odishara Swarna Youga published by Ama Odisha released in Bhubaneswar on Friday, March 19 by former Chief Minister of Orissa and Governor of Assam State Jasnaki Ballav Patnaik and freedom fighter  Bibhudendra Mishra.

The freedom fighter Bibhudendra Mishra told that the book Odishara Swarna Youga is the history of ruled period of Janaki Ballav Patnaik. The history of this period has written by 76 eminent persons. It will be informative for the people of Orissa.

The former Chief Minister of Orissa and Governor of Assam Janaki Ballav Patnaik expressed that many dreams of his period has kept unfulfilled. The writer of the Book Surya Mishra expressed that from 1981 to 1989 and from 1095 to 1999 , 67  writers expressed about education, health service, social living, economy etc . The occasion managed by Editor of Sambad Soumya Ranjan Patnaik .

Full report here Orissa Diary

Recognising women, their creativity

Bhubaneshwar witnessed a unique event at the Red Cross Bhawan on Sunday – hosted exclusively by and for women. It was the 17th annual literary festival of Orissa Lekhika Samsad (Orissa women writers’ forum) that has above 500 members spread across all the 30 districts of Orissa.

“We have no gender bias but we love to celebrate the creativity and achievements of our sisters,” remarked Samsad’s founder-president and Akademi awardee celebrated fiction writer Binapani Mohanty. True to her observations, the meet had a number of women writers who are hardly being acknowledged.

One such surprise was 86-year-old Durgabati Tripathy from Baripada – the chief speaker of the event - who writes in English, Oriya and Bengali and whom legendary litterateur late Mayadhar Mansingh had encouraged to write. Durgabati, who had not even finished her schooling, received thunderous applause as she recited her autobiographical poem “My identity” in English that depicts the identity of a woman.

Full report here Express Buzz

Orissa bans book on Aurobindo

The Orissa government has decided to strictly enforce a ban on Peter Heehs' The Lives of Sri Aurobindo after state CID reports indicated that circulation of the book could inflame religious sentiments.

The ban would be imposed by invoking Section 95 of the Criminal Procedure Code as the book reportedly contains defamatory content about the spiritual leader.

It is published by Penguin India.