Brajarajnagar: The body of well-known social activist Ravi Soni was recovered from the banks of the Ib River in Brajarajnagar area of Jharsuguda district Friday, police said. An Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) team recovered the body around 11am after being alerted about the incident. Soni’s wife, Sunita, alleged that he had been murdered and his...

Bhubaneswar: A delegation of concerned citizens met Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi Friday and urged the state government to impose restrictions on new bauxite mining projects, citing concerns over ecological degradation, tribal rights and the sustainability of the state’s natural resources. The delegation, comprising former administrators, senior citizens, academics, environmentalists and public representatives, handed over a letter...

Bhubaneswar: Noted environmentalist and innovator Trilochan Sahoo, popularly known as the state’s ‘Tree Man’, is set to receive a national award for his innovative contribution to school safety and disaster management awareness. The National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), New Delhi, under the Ministry of Education, Government of India, has selected Sahoo for the award...

Bhubaneswar: The state government has intensified food safety enforcement across the state in view of the ongoing rains and the upcoming festive season, with authorities conducting raids on food establishments in all 30 districts. Acting on the directions of State Food Safety Commissioner Poma Tudu, joint enforcement teams have been conducting inspections at food shops, eateries and...

New Delhi: Penguin Random House India (PRHI) Friday said it has been keen to publish Sonia Gandhi’s memoir “Belonging: A Journey of Love” throughout “the relevant discussions”, but it is their “prerogative and responsibility” to fact-check authors. It is not the publisher of the book in India, PRHI said in a statement, days after American publisher Alfred...

Bhubaneswar: More than 67,000 people in three districts of the state remain affected by the second wave of floods, with the meteorological department Friday forecasting heavy rain in the state’s north and coastal regions till September 2, potentially worsening the situation. The state has already suffered two bouts of flooding owing to heavy rainfall this monsoon. The...

Bhubaneswar: The 32nd Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra (GKCM) Award Festival will be held at Rabindra Mandap here from September 5 to 9, bringing together leading exponents of classical dance, music, theatre and cinema. Organised by the Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Odissi Nrityabasa in collaboration with Sri Sri University, the five-day event will begin at 7 pm each day. The...

Uttar Pradesh’s latest babu reshuffle, while seemingly routine, is difficult to view in isolation. The Yogi Adityanath government has moved 18 young IAS officers of the 2024 batch from Assistant Magistrate to Joint Magistrate postings across the state, giving them their first substantial field responsibilities. But this is only the latest piece of a much larger administrative...

At the governing council meeting of NITI Aayog earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for district-level GDP estimates to shift economic measurement from top-down national aggregates to decentralised, grassroots assessments. Aggregates are neat headline numbers, but they often hide the messy details underneath. The core objective of measuring economic performance across individual districts seems to...

Recent Reserve Bank of India surveys reveal stagnation in income growth with the net response on current income falling to 0.9 from 3.0 while overall spending sentiment moderated to 74.5 from 78.4. At a time when unemployment and even underemployment has emerged as a crucial problem, affecting even the highly educated, it’s worrying to see sharp decline...