Odisha is India’s ninth largest state — a state known for its stunning architecture, delicious food and unique styles.

But more than anything else, the state is home to numerous inspirational people, whose struggles and innovations maintain and add to its beauty. Their lives and deeds become an example for the state and the whole country.

In this article, we look at seven such people, who are taking Odisha, and India, forward.

1. Avilash Mahananda – Urban organic farmer

Source: Avilash Mahananda/Facebook

For Avilash, an alumnus of the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology in Bhubaneshwar, it was the personal loss of his mother to cancer that brought his attention to food.

His mother never smoked or consumed alcohol. So her cancer diagnosis and sudden demise took Avilash by surprise and left him distraught.

He began to investigate the causes and discovered that the long-term build-up of the chemicals in the body, especially through the food we consume, was considered one of the major probable causes of cancer. At least that is what he was told.

And thus began his quest to provide chemical and toxin-free food to people. His desire to do so eventually led to the inception of C&G Agroventures – A company that provides toxin-free vegetables at an affordable price.

Speaking to Edex Live, he said, “The vegetables go through a unique three-step process which reduces the chemicals in them by up to 60-90%.”

After the vegetables are thoroughly rid of the chemicals, they are packed so as to retain hygiene and carry a barcode sticker on the package. Scanning the barcode will tell you where the vegetables have come from—which village and which farm!

The project certainly seems like a sustainable fight against chemicals in our diet. Starting in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, the project will now reach people in other parts of the country too.

2. Epari Krishna Rao – Pensioner turning barren patches to green belts

Picture for representation only. Source: Pixabay

As a retired 75-year-old, Epari Krishna Rao could have easily put his feet up and settled into a routine to enjoy his post-work life. However, what he did is not just inspirational, but also goes to show how indebted he felt towards making his city hospitable for the next generation.

A resident of Berhampur, Rao believes that maintaining one’s city need not be the responsibility of its municipal corporation or development authority. Even citizens can make an active contribution.

And he has been doing so since 2010 when he shelled out lakhs of rupees from his own pocket and planted trees along the inner boundary of the Khallikote College Stadium. The move would benefit numerous walkers using the walking lanes with shade and a cool atmosphere.

His next crusade was in 2016, when he decided to convert a patch of land between the busy Kamapalli Square in the city to a mini-park and down two years, he continues to spend an amount of ₹ 10,000 every month from his pension towards its maintenance.

Truly, if determination and dedication could be considered as virtues, Odisha man Epari Krishna Rao would definitely be a champion.

3. Sruti Mohapatra – Crusader for the Differently-abled

This Odisha resident had dreams of becoming a civil servant. Unfortunately, just a few days prior to her interview, Sruti damaged her spinal cord in a devastating car accident.

At that point in time, no constitutional or legal provisions existed that could be directed in her favour. Even the Equal Opportunities Act (1995) was put into effect over a decade after the incident that left Sruti wheelchair-bound.

After multiple requests to the UPSC, she was only offered a relegated post. When she questioned the system, demanding a better position, the initial job offering was also withdrawn.

While this changed her life’s course, it was really just the beginning of a whole new journey. Indeed, today, the work that Sruti does provides hope to differently-abled people across India.

Sruti chose to pursue advocacy and social activism to initiate changes for the differently-abled community in Odisha—and that in turn changed her life.

In 2001, she established Swabhiman, the State Disability Information and Resources Centre in Bhubaneswar, which works towards empowering differently-abled people in the state and has been essaying the role of the chief executive since its inception.

The iron-willed lady will forever be remembered for by the differently-abled citizens of Odisha, will be the elemental role she played in paving the way for devotees who use wheelchairs to access the Jagannath temple, in October 2009.

Today, the 54-year-old’s life is a shining example of how to overcome a terrible situation. Not just for people afflicted with varying forms of physical and mental limitations, but for all of us.

A salute to the unstoppable woman that is Sruti Mohapatra, who did not let anything, not even failure, to pull her down.

4. Omprakash Mishra – National award recipient

For this Odisha-based teacher, the journey has been long and hard but fulfilling. From arriving in his first posting in a government school in the remote district of Koraput and finding only two students in 1998, to winning best teacher awards at the district, state, and national level – it has been a steady climb for Mishra.

It took him a good five years to get villagers to see the benefit of educating their children. From an initial two students and no record of anyone passing matriculation, the numbers have steadily increased. Today, this proud teacher’s students attend various science exhibitions and seminars representing the school.

He is doing everything he can to help them – from taking extra classes to writing entire textbooks to help them learn better. At every stage, his revolutionary ideas have transformed education for the most backward, most deprived communities in rural Odisha.

Recently he became the only teacher from Odisha to be selected among 45 teachers to win the national award for 2017 by the Prime Minister.

“A teacher could be highly educated, but his qualifications are a waste if he cannot accommodate himself and his teaching methods to the needs of his students. He/She cannot demand respect. Instead, their work must command respect,” he says.

5. Dr Kailash Chandra Sahu – Scientist

Having grown up in a village with no electricity, one of Dr Sahu’s favourite things to do, as a young boy, was to star gaze at night. Little did he know that this would turn into a passion and subsequently lead him to become an astronomer.

With a humble beginning in Belagaon in Ganjam district, his journey to the Space Telescope Science Institute has been truly remarkable.

Dr Sahu received a Master’s degree in Physics from Berhampur University in Odisha and went on to pursue his Doctorate in Piezoelectricity at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

In a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of gravitational deflection, a group of astronomers led by Dr Sahu successfully validated Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity by measuring the mass of an isolate object in the galaxy.

While Dr Sahu’s work has taken him to the US, he makes it a point to come back to the state and visit his village every time he comes to India.

6. Dr Sumona Karjee Mishra – Prantae Solutions

Dr Mishra’s personal experience of the pregnancy-related complication called Preeclampsia – among the top three causes of maternal mortality in the world – that led her to work in this very field.

Armed with a PhD in Biotechnology, Dr Mishra founded Prantae Solutions in Bhubaneswar in 2015, a startup focusing on developing diagnostic health care for the pregnant using state-of-the-art technology.

Dr Mishra and her team have innovated two devices for early detection of preeclampsia at an early stage that enables health practitioners to identify high risk pregnancies so that they can design an appropriate schedule of monitoring and management.

With 75% of the workforce with Dr Mishra being women, she is surely a path breaker who is ensuring that no other women in Odisha succumbs to Preeclampsia because of a lack of access to health care.

7. Siddharth Bhatter – Karkhana

Source: Siddharth Bhatter/Facebook

Known for voicing his opinion on things that matter, Siddharth has on many occasions spoken about the loopholes in the Indian education system. It was when a father-son duo approached him to help them with a college project that Siddharth saw the lacunae in the technical and scientific education we get.

Not one to just sit around and crib, Siddharth decided to do something constructive and thus was born his venture Karkhana (Hindi for factory).

Today Karkhana is a place where one will see young tech enthusiasts and incredibly energetic kids make gadgets in a few hours.

Students are provided with a lab where they can harness their interests and create things with the help of mentors. Karkhana has trained over 523 students and also developed drones and robots for the government. With a current workforce of over 15 people, Siddharth has also provided 500 training workshops to students and faculties in Odisha and beyond.

If you are a resident of Odisha and know of people who are doing their own bit for the society, do use the hashtag #IAmOdisha to tell us their story.

(Edited By Vinayak Hegde)

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Just like the birthday of the father of the nation calls for Gandhi Jayanti, today marks ‘Gopabandhu Jayanti’ for the state of Odisha. Today, we celebrate his 141st birth anniversary.

This is a small tribute to the freedom fighter who earned the crown of ‘Utkalamani’ (meaning Jewel of Utkal or Odisha) for his tremendous contribution as a social worker, reformer, political activist, journalist, poet and essayist.

Gopabandhu Das was born on October 9, 1877, in Suando village in erstwhile Puri, Odisha, to mother, Swarnamayee Devi and father Daitari Das, the mukhtiar or the head of the village.

Even though they were well-off, Das was married off to Apti at the tender age of twelve. As a school kid, his teacher Mukhtiar Ramchandra Das, a nationalist and a champion of the people in distress, majorly influenced him.

When the authorities failed to rush to the aid of ailing people during a cholera outbreak in the village, Gopabandhu started a voluntary group called Puri Seva Samiti. The volunteers helped those suffering from the outbreak and also conducted final rites of those who were robbed of their lives by the epidemic.

As a student at Ravenshaw College in Cuttack, he wrote for local literary magazines like Indradhanu and Bijuli. His views such as widow remarriage and women’s education were radical for his time. He once submitted a satirical poem that so enraged the Inspector of Schools that Das was punished when he refused to apologise for it.

It was during his stint at Ravenshaw that he started a discussion group, Kartavya Bodhini Samiti (Duty Awakening Society), where his group of friends discussed and acted towards social, economic and political issues.

His dedication to social work had its repercussions, which included failing his BA degree examination the first time. He cleared it in the second attempt.

When his newborn son died, he was providing relief to flood victims. When asked why he chose helping others over staying by his own son, he said, “There are so many to look after my son. What more can I do? But there are so many people crying for help in the affected areas and it is my duty to go there. Lord Jagannath is here to take care of the boy.”

He then moved on to study MA and LLB at the Calcutta University. But even then, he did not lose sight of his social work, where he worked for the education of the Odiya people living in the city by opening night schools for them.

The schools he established in Sakhigopala, known as Satyabadi Bakul Bana Bidyalaya, operated by the gurukul tradition. The idea was to impart liberal education on a non-sectarian basis, despite opposition from orthodox Brahmins. He believed education was necessary if people were to become aware of their innate freedom and their duty to their country. Apart from residential schooling, he emphasised on inculcating patriotism among students through education and teaching them the importance of service to mankind.

When caste-based oppression became rampant, his gurukul system allowed children of all castes and backgrounds to sit, dine and study together.

The gurukul system was converted into a high school and even secured affiliation from Calcutta University to hold its first matriculation exam in 1914. It also got affiliated with Patna University in 1917 and became a National School in 1921.

But the existence of the school was short-lived as it struggled with finances, and finally shut down in 1926.

Read More: His Experiments with Food: The Fascinating History Behind Bapu’s Diet Plans!

On the day he cleared his LLB, his wife died. After this, he decided to dedicate his life to the welfare of the people. He even gave up the care of his two daughters to an older brother, along with his share of property in Suando.

Political career

His political career began when he joined the Utkal Sammilani in 1903.
During one of the meetings, he voiced his opposition to Madhusudan Das’ suggestion that Odiya-speaking areas be amalgamated with the Bengal Presidency.

When he was elected to the Legislative Council in 1917, his work concentrated on four themes:

First was the administrative amalgamation into a single entity of the Odiya-speaking regions of the Bengal Province, Central Province, Madras Presidency and Bihar and Orissa Province.

Second was the eradication of famine and flood in Odisha, third was the restoration of the region’s right to manufacture salt without incurring excise duty and lastly, the expansion of education on a model similar to the one he established at the Satyabadi School.

He stopped being a member of the Legislative Council in 1919 and joined the Indian National Congress after the members of the Sammilani joined the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920.

He attended meetings of the All India Congress Committee at Calcutta and Nagpur to persuade Mahatma Gandhi to adopt the Utkal Sammilani’s primary goal of organising states based on language.

He served as the first president of the Utkal Pradesh Congress Committee in 1920, holding the post until 1928. He got Gandhi to visit Odisha in 1921 to inspire people to join the non-cooperation movement.

During the freedom struggle, he was jailed plenty of times. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose referred to Gopabandhu as the ‘father of national movement in Odisha’.

The power of the pen

He used journalism as a means of showing a mirror to society. He ran a monthly magazine called Satyabadi from 1913 to 1915 from the campus of his school. He wrote several poems during the period.

He believed that journalism could serve as a medium of educating the masses often neglected by the society due to illiteracy.

He edited Asha, a newspaper published in Berhampur. But the stint was short-lived as he found it restrictive. In 1919, he started a weekly newspaper The Samaja, based at the school campus. It became a daily in 1927 and eventually, a significant media presence for Indian nationalists. The style of writing was maintained simplistically for the masses.

He also joined the Lok Sevak Mandal (Servants of the People Society) after meeting Lala Lajpat Rai at a session of Congress in 1920. He even served as its All India Vice-President in April 1928. He edited the society’s newspaper which promoted the work of the Indian National Congress, despite operating independently. Das served as its editor until he died on 17 June 1928.

Summarising the role of this ‘father of the freedom struggle in Odisha’, who seems to have gotten lost in the pages of history, Brahmananda Satapathy, a professor of political science, says, “His crusade against untouchability, advocacy of widow remarriage, campaign for literacy, new model of education, stress on both rights and duties, emphasis on women education, particularly vocational training and above all, a deep commitment and compassion for poor and destitutes have immortalised him in Orissa and India.”

Feature Image Source: Twitter/Odisha Channel

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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The Titli cyclone over the Bay of Bengal has intensified and is likely to hit the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh coast tomorrow around 5.30 am, as per the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). The states have been issued a “very severe” warning for the cyclone which is likely to hit coasts between Gopalpur in Odisha and Kalingapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

As per a bulletin issued by the IMD, “Titli moved with a speed of about ten kmph and intensified into a severe cyclonic storm and lay centred over the west-central Bay of Bengal, about 370 km south-southeast of Gopalpur in Odisha.”

The Ganjam district in the state has already started evacuating people from the town of Gopalpur.

As a result of the cyclone, Odisha is likely to receive “heavy to very heavy rainfall” in some places and “extremely heavy rainfall” in isolated areas till Thursday, 11 October 2018.

“A storm surge of the height of about 1.0 meter above astronomical tide is very likely to inundate low lying areas of Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh; Ganjam, Khurda and Puri districts of Odisha at the time of landfall,” warns the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

In light of the looming disaster that Titli is likely to bring Odisha, the NDMA has enlisted some critical Do’s and Don’ts. You can read them here.

What to do before the cyclone:

1. Keep your phones and power banks fully charged. The cyclone could result in a power loss in your area, and you do not want to stay stuck without your phone. As far as possible, avoid using the internet on your phone so that you can preserve your battery.

2. Make sure all your important documents, papers and valuables are safe in well-sealed plastic bags and containers.

3. Prepare an emergency kit which is packed with dry food, water bottles, a first-aid kit, torch, toiletries etc. Also, keep rubber footwear handy since they work well in wet patches and even in case of loose electric wires.

4. Keep yourself updated and listen to news on the radio, TV and internet while you have electricity.

5. Carry out repairs in your house well in advance and don’t leave any sharp objects lying around. In case your house is under repair, and the work cannot be finished before the storm, move to some other place till it subsides.

6. Remove dead branches, trees near residential areas. Securely tie up tin sheets, poles, garbage cans, sign-boards etc., so that they don’t pose a threat in the strong winds.

What to do during and after the cyclone:

1. Switch off electrical mains and the gas supply.

2. Keep your doors and windows shut. Take special care of glass windows because strong winds have a chance of shattering them.

3. Drink only chlorinated or boiled water.

4. Do not believe in rumours. Only refer to official warnings by reliable sources.

5. If you are outdoors when the cyclone or heavy rainfall strikes, ensure that you take shelter in undamaged buildings. Beware of broken poles, trees and wires. Please stay away from them.

You may also like: #IAmOdisha: 7 Everyday Odia Inspirations We Should All Celebrate

The NDMA also advised fisherfolk to be prepared with an extra set of batteries for their radios and tie up their boats securely. They strongly warned them against venturing out to the sea and even asked the general public to refrain from visiting the beaches.

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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Did you know that bamboo rice – traced back to Odisha – grows only twice or thrice in a hundred years?

This unique variety of rice was last seen in the state in 1979, nearly forty years ago!

The fiber-rich and calorie-dense kernels of bamboo rice are also found in parts of Karnataka, locally known as ‘Mulayiri’. Further south, in Kerala, the harvesting of bamboo rice is a major source of income for the tribal communities living in the interiors of the Wayanad Sanctuary.

So, what is bamboo rice?

Bamboo rice is a special rice variety grown out of a dying bamboo shoot.

When the bamboo shoot breathes its last, it flowers into a rare variety of rice seeds, which are known as bamboo rice. Harvesting and collecting this crop is a source of income for the tribals in the region.

Some interesting facts:

• Bamboo rice looks like paddy rice but tastes more like wheat.
• It is not commonly available as it takes many years for a bamboo tree to flower.
• It is believed to contain a low glycemic index compared to other varieties, and is, therefore, good for diabetics.
• It’s also rich in proteins and does not contain any fat.
• Bamboo rice is also believed to contain medicinal values like alleviating neck and back pain.
• It’s also a good detoxification agent and is known to improve reproductive health.

The gates of Chandaka-Dampara Wildlife Sanctuary in Cuttack have been opened for forest dwellers to collect the rice because otherwise, rats will attack it.

What’s the connection between Bamboo rice and rats?

Once the bamboo plant bears fruit, millions of bandicoot rats are attracted by its easily accessible source of protein. Given that these rodents multiply rather quickly, they start attacking and raiding the other plants when they are done with eating the bamboo plants.

It is said that in 1959, when the bamboo plant last flowered, there was a deluge of rats, resulting in a famine.

Is it different from regular rice?

Although bamboo rice has a slightly sweet taste, it can be cooked like any other regular rice variety. It becomes moist and sticky when cooked and chewy when consumed.

A Forest Officer in Odisha told Down to Earth, “The forest department also purchased around 80 quintals from rice collectors for Rs 15 per kilogram. The department will use this rice to germinate bamboo trees in other areas of the state.”

To cook bamboo rice:

• Wash the rice and soak it in water for about 30 minutes.
• Pressure cook it with about 2.5 cups of water, for about six whistles.
• Then, allow the rice to simmer for about ten minutes.
• If the rice still has some water, drain the excess before consuming.

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While it has many health benefits because it blooms only once every few decades, it is not easily available or accessible. One kg sells at approximately Rs 500-600.

To know more about other rice varieties grown in the country, read Menaka Thilak Raj’s fascinating journey here.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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Cyclone Fani made its landfall on the coastal city of Puri, Odisha, on Friday morning, leaving behind a trail of utter destruction in its wake. With wind speeds in excess of 200 kmph, the enormous tropical cyclone is the strongest storm to hit India in two decades destroying vast amounts of private property and critical infrastructure.

However, unlike previous cyclones, particularly the one in 1999, when more than 15,000 perished, this time the State government has limited the death toll to 34, eliciting praise from the international media and agencies like the United Nations. Earlier today, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the midst of a heated general elections, took time out to praise Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s “excellent planning.”

Addressing the press yesterday, Chief Minister Patnaik outlined the meticulous planning and preparation that went into not just preventing loss of life, but also offering relief to millions.

“A record 1.2 million people were evacuated in 24 hours, 3.2 lakh from Ganjam, 1.3 lakh from Puri and almost 7000 kitchens catering to 9,000 shelters were made functional overnight. This mammoth exercise involved more than 45,000 volunteers,” Patnaik said.

Speaking to The Better India (TBI), Odisha’s Special Relief Commissioner Bishnupada Sethi offered some interesting insights into what it takes to prepare for such natural disasters. It begins with timely forecasts and coordination between different agencies.

Early warning systems

Through April 30 and May 1, the Indian Meteorological Department issued a ‘yellow warning’ to authorities in Odisha, predicting heavy to very heavy rainfall along its vulnerable coasts in the wake of the fast approaching Cyclone Fani. It said that Fani had transformed into an ‘Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm’ and was expected to make landfall by the afternoon of May 3.

With the IMD issuing an accurate warning at least 72 hours in advance, it gives authorities time to prepare for the worst. In 1999, when the State was hit by the super cyclone, the warning came just two days before the cyclone made landfall.

“We took the early warning from IMD very seriously, studied it, and quickly formulated a plan of action developed over years of experiencing such cyclones. The State government also received timely information from other forecasting agencies like the Andhra Pradesh government’s Real Time Governance Society (RTGS), the United States Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center and other such agencies,” says Sethi.

When the RTGS, for example, saw that the cyclone would make its landfall south of Puri, the Andhra officials quickly reached out to their counterparts in Odisha. In fact, a WhatsApp group was created which included the Odisha Chief Secretary, and the respective District Collectors of the vulnerable coastal areas, offering them regular updates.

“There were no surprises this time. We analysed all the necessary data and forecasting patterns, and this gave us the time to prepare well,” adds Sethi.

“The next step is to inform everyone likely to be affected by the cyclones. When, where and at what speed the cyclone is going to hit the coast, how many people are likely to be affected, and basically targeting the most vulnerable after making a list of non-cyclone resistant homes, particularly housing the elderly and young children. Emergency personnel were deputed to different district operation centres to oversee relief. We spread the warning message through multiple mediums—employing television channels, our early warning system towers, which are structures along the coastline that can blow a siren over a radius of 1.5 km, and millions of text messages among other modes of communication,” says Sethi.

These warnings were put out round the clock. Officials ensured that not a single fisherman was out at sea. Authorities conducted many village to village campaigns, warning locals of the imminent dangers. They requested the people, particularly those living in vulnerable areas and temporary settlements with thatched house to move to the government sponsored shelters. Basically, there was probably no one in the State who wasn’t aware of Cyclone Fani, when it was coming or where it was going to hit and at what wind speed and time.

Similarly, they also took into account the secondary impact the place where the cyclone would hit, in case of a storm surge. Those areas that require mass evacuations were identified and accordingly, the State machinery was prepared.

“It was a very well coordinated effort, taking assistance from the local police, National Disaster Relief Force, Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (well-trained personnel with disaster relief capabilities), fire safety personnel and the Indian Navy,” says Sethi.

On Thursday morning before landfall, the State government put out it’s five page action plan, detailing how citizens must be brought to cyclone shelters away from their homes.

By the same afternoon, as the rain fell heavily, the same early warning structure with a loudspeaker, constantly directed people to approach the nearest cyclone shelter. Local police officers were seen escorting emergency personnel moving from town to town or village to village along the coasts, pleading with people to leave.

Cyclone Shelters

Following the 1999 super cyclone, a critical step taken by authorities in Odisha was the construction of hundreds of cyclone shelters along the coast. This two-storey structure, constructed a few km from the sea shore designed by researchers at IIT Kharagpur, have proved their mettle during these natural calamities, according to this report in The New York Times. Each of the estimated 879 multipurpose cyclone shelters can house hundreds of people.

“These are very robust cyclone shelters, possessing all necessary facilities. Besides, we also identified temporary buildings to ensure that people don’t have to move over a long distance and stay close to their respective communities,” informs Sethi.

More than 15 lakh (1.5 million) people took shelter in these cyclone shelter, he claims.

“We have 50 volunteers attached to each cyclone shelter trained in first-aid, and ready to help locals come up to the cyclone shelters. Besides, there are approximately 400 Aapda Mitras (community volunteers) in the severely affected districts of Puri and Jagatsinghpur, who perform additional rescue operation during emergencies,” he adds.

“Cyclone shelters have been provided with a number of shelter equipment like First Aid Box, Free Kitchen Utensils, Inflatable Tower Lights, Aluminum Ladder, Power Saw, Life Buoy, Life Jacket, Search Light, Stretcher, Siren, Flexi-Water Tank, Fire Extinguisher, Foldable Stretcher, Solar Lantern, Water Filter and Handheld Megaphone, etc,” says the Odisha government website.

Latest reports also state that the government has supplied trucks filled with bottled water and food to these shelters. “The government has made arrangements to provide cooked food for free over the next 15 days. We will also take up tree plantation on a mission mode,” claims the chief minister.

Communication systems & preparations

Assisting them in times of Cyclone Fani is a robust emergency communication system, which has helped them coordinate rescue and relief. Each district collector has in his/her possession satellite phones and digital mobile radio connectivity, while some officials have resorted to HAM radio. This is unlike 1999, when authorities were more or less in the dark, resulting in a mass casualty count.

“Moreover, on June 19 every year, Odisha holds mock simulations and familiarisation exercises on flood and cyclone management to test the preparedness of ODRAF, NDRF and fire personnel. We conduct simulated sessions performing various rescue drills. Our objective is rather simple, prevent every single casualty,” says Sethi.

Post disaster

According to the Scroll.in, “Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday announced financial assistance and relief packages to families affected by Cyclone Fani. All families covered under the National Food Security Act in Puri and Khurda administrative division, who have been severely affected, will get 50 kg of rice, Rs 2,000 and polythene sheets.”

“In all the affected districts, one month additional pension and house building assistance as per relief code that is ₹95,100 for fully damaged structures, ₹5200 for partially damaged structures and ₹3200 for minor damages will be made available,” the chief minister said.

“Loss of agricultural, horticultural crops, animal resources and fisheries will be assessed and compensated accordingly,” he said. After the short-term relief work is done, the state government will plant trees “in mission mode” to offset the massive loss of tree cover.

“The District Collector will conduct an assessment of the loss, ask for funds, get them sanctioned and the money will go into the accounts of those affected. This will take a while. In the medium term, damaged roads have to be reconstructed, houses have to reconstructed, and basic communication systems have to be set up,” says Sethi.

“In the long term, we must design a certain scheme to help people construct cyclone-resistant homes, which will naturally be costlier. However, with these homes people don’t have to leave everything behind to go to cyclone shelters.

We have constructed similar houses under the World Bank’s loan assistance programme for affordable housing. These people did not have to leave their houses. For example, people living across 17,000 houses in Ganjam tehsil did not have to escape to cyclone shelters. We need to construct more such houses,” he adds.

Also Read: Real-Life Rancho Returns to Odisha Village, Sets Up Innovation School for Rural Kids!

Sethi also acknowledges the need to improve our post disaster communication systems. Cities need to be more disaster resilient with underground power lines and systems, so that even in the event of a cyclone, it can get back up on its feet quickly.

Currently, the state government’s priority in Odisha is to restore electricity and telecommunication systems. Another critical point is committing public health interventions to prevent any outbreaks of disease.

Having said that, the State has come a long way since 1999.

“We had nothing back then. There was not a single cyclone shelter. We were bereft of communication systems, there was no awareness of cyclones, and people did not when and where the cyclone would hit,” informs Sethi.

“Now, we are closely tracking it and telling people that these areas will be flooded, what the wind speed will be, and how much rainfall will come crashing down. This time we formulated impact analysis and accordingly informed the people. In 1999, we weren’t mentally prepared as an institution and people to deal with a cyclone,” adds Sethi.

This time the State was equipped with 20 teams of ODRAF, 28 NDRF teams and 335 units of State fire services who have been kept in readiness. These units are very modern, with the latest equipment and are professionally trained.

Odisha has indeed come a long way.

#Odisha has been devastated by #CycloneFani. Please help rebuild precious lives with your online contribution to Chief Minister Relief Fund via link: https://t.co/C2LrUttIsr pic.twitter.com/gtEb9viHk2

— Naveen Patnaik (@Naveen_Odisha) May 4, 2019

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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A 2015 survey jointly conducted by the US-India Policy Institute and the Centre for Research and Debates in Development Policy put eight districts in Odisha among the 50 most backward in the country. As woeful as Nabarangpur’s position was—ranked the third most backward district in India—it did not come as a huge shock to the residents.

With most of its land under forested area and over half of its population tribal, Nabarangpur was looking at a limited pool of opportunities to emancipate its residents from the shackles of poverty.

Interestingly enough, the administration was looking at increasing the income of villagers here rather than worrying about the short-term goals of feeding the residents. That goal, admirably, was already achieved.

Over 95 per cent of families living in the South-West Odia district had a ration card and were given rice at a subsidised rate of Rs 25/kg. This is a simple example of how the villagers were well-fed but still struggling to improve their lives.

IAS officer Rashmita Panda’s appointment to Nabarangpur would turn this fate for the better. “In August 2015, I was appointed as the district collector here. Around that time, the Indian Express started its District Zero campaign. Nabarangur was one of the most deprived districts in the state, and we had to take a multi-targeted approach to ensure that health, livelihood and agricultural infrastructure improved simultaneously. Under this aim, one of our initiatives was the cultivation of cashews,” she tells The Better India.

A dry fruit that emancipated farmers

Cashew was extensively grown in Odisha since the late 1970s. With over 18,000 hectares under cashew plantation till the early 1990s, the East-Indian state was a major contributor of the dry fruit in the country. This had cut out an easy job for Rashmita. She didn’t have to search for a crop that was exotic to the state and introduce it to the farmers.

Rather, she had to convey to them that the crop that had earned the state over Rs 180 lakh in revenue in 2004-05, and reassure them that it could be grown by them too and aid their income.

Explaining how cashew was never intended to replace the current agricultural techniques of Nabarangpur farmers, Rashmita says, “About 30 per cent of cultivable land in this district is high land where common crops like paddy and corn cannot be grown. Parts of these lands which were lying waste from a lack of irrigation were to be used as cashew plantations. The generous rainfalls, climatic conditions and altitude here are perfect for the growth of cashews and that is exactly why we chose to reintroduce poor farmers to this traditional crop.”

Under different schemes, government wasteland was given to agencies, NGOs and even individual farmers on lease. These wastelands in Nabarangpur were allocated to landless farmers so that they could plant about 70-80 saplings in one acre. Moreover, the saplings were given to them for free to further push them towards this crop.

A tree could yield an average of 12-15 kg of cashews, each of which would fetch Rs 120-150 in the market. This could instantly increase the income of the farmers.

“R Balakrishnan, who was the Nodal officer of the district at that time, had been a great support throughout this initiative. Taking help of the local Krushak Saathis, we identified farmers who could be helped through the scheme. We went door to door, asking them to utilise the wastelands for an additional income. Regular visits and discussions went a long way in enrolling farmers in this project,” the IAS officer shares.

However, their initiative could not be focused only on cashews.

Supporting the plantations with other initiatives

The lands utilised for this initiative were not well-irrigated, and so, Rashmita and her team had to start separate initiatives. In any case, their approach was multi-faceted and irrigation was one of its primary concerns.

So, borewells were dug in the fields that did not have them previously, and fields that had them were electrified. Each of the new borewells could support two crops to empower the farmers.

From August 2015 to the end of 2017, about 13,000 hectares of irrigation potential was created, not only in Nabarangpur but also in nine other districts in Odisha.

Also Read: How an Accident Inspired This Ex-IAS Officer to Give Free Artificial Limbs to Lakhs

“A well 25 feet wide and 17 feet deep helps recharge groundwater and encourages marginal farmers to raise vegetables in the Rabi season,” IAS Rashmita had presented to the Odisha government in 2017. She added, “113 such wells have been excavated, and 1,354 farm ponds (each 30 sq feet big and 10 feet deep) were dug for the benefit of farmers.”

In addition, over 140 check dams were constructed in places with perennial streams, creating irrigation potential of 1,920 hectares.

Farmers who were using these facilities to grow maize were connected to The Odisha State Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation (OMFED), so they could supply them with cattle feed. Rashmita also introduced crops like sweet potato to enhance nutrition in their diet.

If livelihood is maintained, how could health be left far behind?

“One of the initiatives that I am most proud of 25 digital dispensaries in Nabarangpur. In addition, we made sure that each of the 49 Public Health Centres (PHCs) were manned by MBBS graduates instead of local nurses. This way, the villagers did not have to travel for several kilometres before they received basic medical attention. Health was a major issue here, and our initiatives also ensured that maternal healthcare was optimised,” the IAS tells us.

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Further, the commissioner’s department also roped in students from classes 9 and 10 to develop their skills in the sector. To begin with, the administration had highlighted five main sectors—health, education, agriculture, irrigation and livelihood. The district was divided into ten main blocks, and the work was initiated, based on their potential of development in each of these sectors.

The initiatives reaped wonderful results within four years. In February 2019, Rashmita was transferred to Sundergarh district in the capacity of a collector. Even so, her work in Nabarangpur has blazed a trail in other deprived regions of the state.

If you wish to reach out to Rashmita, write to her on venusrashmita@gmail.com.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

Images: courtesy Rashmita Panda

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The incident dates back to the early 90s. But retired teacher and octogenarian paddy farmer Natabar Sarangi remembers it as though it were yesterday. After 32 years of service as a government school teacher, the man had turned to his ancestral profession of farming in a 3.5-acre land. He had inherited 1.5 acres from his family and acquired the remaining two over time.

This was also the time when the Green Revolution was at its peak. With the dawn of mechanisation in agriculture, the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides was incessant.

So, when the notorious Rice Tungro affected his paddy field, causing leaf discolouration, stunted growth, reduced tiller numbers and sterile or partly-filled grains, authorities suggested he spray carbofuran to tackle the pests.

“10 kg of pesticide per acre,” was the measure he was told.

“I bought 35 kg of the pesticides and mixed it with sand. I hired a labourer to spray it across the field. The man had only covered 40 cents of land before he dropped unconscious in my field. I was terrified that he would die of pesticide poisoning and I would be put behind bars. But acting quickly with the help of a few others, we took him away from the field to a safe spot and sprinkled some water on him. He gained consciousness, and I heaved a sigh of relief. I gave him a glass of warm milk to drink.”

He continues, “When he insisted he wanted to continue the work, I refused. I had realised the pesticide was poisonous. So I told him to dig a hole and empty bag’s contents in it. The next day, when I visited my field, I was aghast! All the crabs, snails, earthworms and snakes that frequented the field were dead. I thought if this is what chemicals could do to the microorganisms that kept my soil healthy, how gravely they would poison the food we grow and eat!”

This marked a turning point in Sarangi’s life. The following day, the man stopped using all kinds of chemical pesticides and fertilisers, and set himself on the path of organic farming.

It’s been more than two decades and he continues to grow chemical-free paddy. But that’s not the only reason the retired teacher-turned-organic farmer is famous.

In the last 24 years, the man has trained more than 2,000 farmers on the use of native seeds, organic manure and pesticides at a knowledge and training centre he set up in collaboration with like-minded farmers. Their group is called the Rajendra Desi Chasa Gabesana Kendra (Rajendra Native Farm Research Centre). It is run by a Trust, Loka Samabaya Pratisthan, chaired by Sarangi.

Through this initiative, he has preserved, multiplied and distributed close to 700 varieties of indigenous paddy!

This is his story.

The First Chapter: Growing up in abject poverty

Sarangi was born to marginal farmers in the small village of Niali in Orissa (now Odisha). Despite a small landholding of 1.5 acres, his father ensured that his six children never missed a meal.

“He may have been poor, but my father was a very good farmer,” the octogenarian recalls in an exclusive interview with The Better India.

Unlike many farmers who practised monocropping at the time, his father grew more than 30 types of vegetables on the small family land. He also grew paddy. While much of the produce was used for home consumption, the surplus was sold in the local market.

Growing up, Sarangi wanted to pursue higher studies. But abject poverty at home only allowed him to study until intermediate, post which, he started teaching at the government high school in his village.

“I was the first student of this school, and I was glad for the opportunity to teach at the same school. I taught science, math, English and geography,” he smiles.

The 86-year-old started teaching in 1960, and had an illustrious career spanning 32 years before he retired in 1992.

His parents passed away a few years before his retirement, and his siblings were all settled with their own families and careers. His brother, Damodar, became an IPS officer of the West Bengal cadre and retired as the Director General of the National Human Rights Commission.

“After retirement, I could not sit idle. I had to do something. I thought of returning to our ancestral profession of farming. With the addition of another two acres, our family’s landholding spread across 3.5 acres.”

Chapter 2: Post-retirement, a new beginning with farming

The pesticide poisoning incident pushed Sarangi to switch to organic farming in 1996. In the first phase, he grew high-yielding varieties of paddy with organic inputs. His son insisted that he preserve indigenous paddy varieties. Unfortunately, the young man succumbed to brain malaria a decade ago.

“He used to tell me, ‘Nona (‘father’ in Odia), instead of these high-yielding varieties, why don’t you start growing indigenous varieties?’ He kept pushing me. So alongside Yuvraj, who I continue to work with, I started travelling across the state in search of desi seeds.”

Why desi varieties?

Apart from their high nutrition value, indigenous paddy varieties are known for withstanding even extreme changes in climate. Though India once boasted of 1,10,000 traditional varieties of paddy, after the dawn of the Green Revolution, we lost more than 90 per cent of these varieties.

In the first year, despite long travails in the nooks and corners of Odisha, the duo could only find five varieties. But as the years passed, this number steadily grew, and today, Sarangi has preserved close to 700 varieties!

“We do not preserve these in a museum. Instead, we believe in reviving these varieties by growing them on our 3.5-acre field, multiplying their number and distributing them to farmers. While we began distributing them for free in the initial years, we now charge nominal rates for the seeds.”

Each year, they produce 100 quintals of these indigenous seeds and distribute them across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat.

Chapter 3: Recognition and Impact

When the veteran began his journey, not many understood his vision. While farmers who heard about his work flocked to his farm and switched to organic manure, a few authorities questioned if organic farming could even manage to serve a big population.

Today, the Odisha Government has tied up with the octogenarian and his research institute Rajendra Desi Chasa Gabesana Kendra to implement its Paramparagata Krishi Vikash Yojana. This is a training programme on organic farming which benefits farmers across the state.

The government pays for the three-day workshops that include theory and practical demonstrations of the best organic practices, and the trainers are mostly elderly farmers who have spent decades toiling in the soil. These sessions have seen a steady flow of farmers, as well as agricultural officers.

“I regard any farmer over 60 as an agricultural scientist. Scientists work in air-conditioned labs, but these veteran farmers, who I call ‘agricultural scientists without a degree’, work in the fields day in and out. They are much closer to the soil and know it better. We are very thankful to the Odisha project for appreciating our persistent work and declaring us a state resource centre. Through our training sessions, we have been able to turn 1,500 acres of land organic.”

How does the centre run?

The Rajendra Desi Chasa Gabesana Kendra has not received any grant from the government or any international agencies. But they are continuing their work, regardless, through training, sales of seeds and donations from well-wishers.

Sarangi says, “Our biggest joy is eating chemical-free organic food.”

The centre aims to build a one-of-its-kind agricultural heritage museum in Odisha. While a few intellectuals have extended help, it is presently accepting donations.

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Sarangi ends with a message that encompasses his life and work, “We want to revive traditions and return the former glory of native varieties. Our library has over 500 books on organic farming from different countries. Organic, for us, is not just a method of farming but a way of life. For all those who ask if organic farming can feed our population, I say, not only can it feed our country but also provide surplus produce to export to other countries and boost our economy. Chemical farming has killed our soil over the years. She is in a coma now, it is time to revive her, and there is no better method to do it than organic farming!”

If this story inspired you, write to Natabar Sarangi on saranginatabar@gmail.com or call him on 9937620883.

To further the work of Loka Samabaya Pratisthan, consider donating to:
A/C holder name :- M/S Loka Samabaya Pratisthan
A/C number :- 083810011300919
Branch :- 0838 LEWIS ROAD, Bhubaneswar Andhra Bank
IFSC code :- ANDB0000838

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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For nearly 800 children of brick kiln labourers from Western Odisha working in Telangana, the faint hope of accessing formal education has become a reality.

Thanks to the collective efforts of the Rachakonda Police Commissionerate, the District Collectors of Yadadri Bhuvanagiri and Rangareddy, the Brick Kiln Owners Association in Telangana and global non-profit Aide et Action, these children will now go back to their homes in Odisha in the upcoming academic year starting July and enroll in Odia-medium schools instead of getting caught in the vicious cycle of child labour.

With assistance from the Odisha government as well, these children can now aspire to break out of the poverty trap that has ensnared their parents.

In 2016, Aide et Action began a small-scale initiative to help a few children of migrant brick kiln workers in Telangana access basic education in and around their parents’ work sites. The initiative has now grown into a successful education project spread across nine worksite schools.

Scaling up efforts

“Operational Smile is a programme envisioned by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, under which the police department, in coordination with other government departments, rescue and rehabilitate children working in hazardous industries. Driving these efforts in my area of jurisdiction, which includes the districts of Yadadri Bhuvanagiri, Rangareddy and Medak, we formed teams and conducted multiple operations,” says Rachakonda Police Commissioner, Mahesh M Bhagwat, in conversation with The Better India (TBI).

In one such January 2017 operation near Choutuppal town in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district, the police team rescued around 180 children working in brick kilns who were not going to school. Some of these children even had their parents working in the same kilns.

After this operation, the police immediately received a tip-off about another brick kiln factory employing children nearby. They rescued another 170 children who were reportedly being paid a measly Rs 10,000 for six months work.

After booking 16 brick kiln owners under various provisions of the law, including human trafficking, the police had to figure out what to do with these 350 children from Odisha.

“What were we going to do with these children? Where could we send them? Keeping them in a children’s home wasn’t advisable,” says Commissioner Bhagwat.

Once these children are rescued, they are either sent back to their villages or reunited with their families. Since some of them were already living with their parents in small huts at the brick kiln worksite, the Commissioner began looking for an alternative to rehabilitate them.

Fortunately, Aide et Action already had the worksite-schools model in place, where it would bring teacher volunteers, either high school graduates or college dropouts, from the home districts of these migrant workers to teach them in Odia-medium.

These ‘worksite schools’ are essentially under-attended Telugu-medium government schools, where volunteer teachers use the school premises to teach in Odia.

“What worked for us is that many of these schools had meager local attendance and this gave migrant children the space to learn. There is one school where the number of local children was around 17, but the number of migrant children was 130. We enrolled around 20-30 volunteers, who were being paid around Rs 8000 per month by the respective district administrations and brick kiln owners association,” says Daniel Umi, Director of Migration and Education, South Asia at Aide et Action, in a conversation with The Better India (TBI).

For these worksite schools, teachers were brought in from Bolangir, Nuapada, Kalahandi, and Nabrangpur districts, which have been facing drought-like conditions for the past three years. Daniel played a crucial role in establishing Odia-medium schools in Telangana.

“We approached the police commissioner, asking if the authorities would like to expand this programme, and bring in more schools. By schools, I mean government-run Telugu medium schools around these brick kilns. We surveyed the number of schools in these areas, their current conditions, whether these children could be enrolled in the Telugu-medium school, and if they could learn in Odia,” adds Daniel.

Joining the Rachakonda Police Commissionerate and the non-profit was the Brick Kiln Owners Association. After getting booked in cases where they couldn’t even get bail, many brick owners approached the Police Commissioner. “The owners approached us, saying they were ready to take care of the children’s education,” says Commissioner Bhagwat.

The Commissioner then asked the brick kiln owners to come forward and offer assistance in this regard, making up for employing children in their facilities.

In collaboration with the non-profit, the owners were sensitised about offering healthy spaces for children in and around the brick kilns. They were also asked to cooperate with the authorities in sending these children to school, paying for their transport and even repairing nearby schools.

These owners acquiesced to all these demands.

Meanwhile, we conducted surveys, identified children, mobilised volunteers, trained them, supervised, arranged for textbooks from Odisha, and classroom material. We essentially offer technical support and have an office in Hyderabad overseeing it, says Daniel.

Alongside other stakeholders, Aide et Action also helped children acquire uniforms and school bags.

However, the Rachakonda Police Commissionerate was the leading player in this regard because they brought in other stakeholders—brick kiln owners, district administration, education and labour departments.

Commissioner Bhagwat was the key conduit for the critical administrative support this initiative needed.

What happens after the school season?

These worksite schools enrol children in Class I to Class 5, which make up 90 per cent of the student intake. Children from Class 6 and 7 also attend these schools. After spending the October-May season studying in these schools, these children will be eligible for a grade-level transition into Odia-medium schools in the following year back in their native villages.

“For this process, we obtain a certificate with a photograph from the education department of Telangana. For each child, we have a database with their photograph and the school where they studied. The parents receive a letter officially confirming their child has undergone education in this school, appeared for examinations and is eligible to attend so and so class,” says Daniel.

Accompanying parents and their children back home are the teacher volunteers, who spend a further one and a half months to re-integrate them into the education system in Odisha. These volunteers, who are also natives of the same villages, also conduct regular inspections across the homes of different migrant workers to see if their children have been re-admitted and are going to their new Odia-medium schools.

“We provide a database of these children to the entity in the Odisha government overseeing the implementation of the Samagra Siksha Abhiyan (an overarching Central programme for the school education subsuming three schemes—Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and Teacher Education). The state administration sends these details to the district and village administration. The parents also furnish these letters at their native schools, and thus the loop is closed from either side,” says Daniel.

Why is this initiative important?

It’s about the portability of education for migrant children. Wherever their parents move for work, children should have access to schools, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and other basic entitlements like vaccinations available to them. At the worksite schools programme in Telangana, for example, children are also given daily mid-day meals.

Migrant families have the right to mobility but don’t have the right to access to government-sponsored entitlements like education. People migrate, but their families are excluded from accessing basic state-mandated amenities. On migrant families, authorities often have a discriminatory approach. These families often slip through the cracks. To get a sense of how many families remain neglected, the total number of internal migrants in the country stands at a staggering 139 million, according to the 2011 Census.

“We, at Aide et Action, are looking to fill these gaps. In Telangana, for example, we are working with labourers at construction sites, helping them set up a worksite creche, a day care centre for their children, and link their families with ICDS. We are similarly doing work in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha as well,” informs Daniel.

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This initiative is vital because without it, migrant workers and their children miss out on education. It has given us a lot of satisfaction, says Commissioner Bhagwat.

Since January 2017, 2,194 children have passed out from these worksite schools with 774 students alone in this migration cycle of October-November 2018 to May 2019.

Take a step further

Despite the apparent success of this initiative, there are some critical challenges, particularly for children who want to continue their education. The Odisha government does run seasonal hostels for children of migrant workers. Here, the parents can lodge them when migrating outside the state to work, and the hostel looks after their well being.

But Daniel believes there are some critical logistical and management issues that remain unaddressed.

“Unfortunately, these seasonal hostels start quite late. While people migrate in October for work, these seasonal hostels only begin in November and December. Thus, many children are unable to stay in these hostels. In Telangana, we are trying to ensure that at least they have some provision for living in a decent environment. Another challenge is the unpredictable migration cycle. We have to consider that sometimes parents don’t migrate to the same places or aren’t sent to the same worksite. For example, those working in Telangana this year, may find themselves in Karnataka next year,” says Daniel.

However, beyond educating them, students at these worksite schools are being given an experience beyond the classroom.

Last month, Commissioner Bhagwat took 50 students from these schools to watch an IPL match between the Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals. A week later, another batch of students was taken to the Infosys campus at Pocharam, where they saw how IT engineers work and what is required to enter such professions.

These experiences establish a sense of aspiration among children.

“When they went to the Infosys office, one of their employees noticed that these children did not have adequate footwear. Through a crowdfunding initiative, he bought footwear for 186 children, and inspired by the idea, we raised money to buy footwear for the rest of the 550-odd children at these schools,” says Commissioner Bhagwat, who bagged the prestigious International Association of Chief of Police Civil and Human Rights Award 2018.

There is hope

The worksite schools initiative has not only brought disparate groups together to serve one of the most impoverished and most disenfranchised communities in India (migrant labourer) but also brought hope to a generation of children who were lost to the vicious cycle of child labour and poverty. This initiative may not solve all their problems, but it gives them hope.

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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What do you do when the government stalls on your access to basic public goods and services?

Sexagenarian Gangadhar Rout, a retired livestock inspector with the Odisha government, has waited all his life for the local administration to build a bridge across the Salandi river in Keonjhar district.

His village of Kanpur, which gets cut off during the monsoon, loses access to its farmlands, which are on the other side of the river. Even when it’s not raining heavily, the lack of a bridge compels the villagers to row across the water or take long detours on foot to reach their farmlands.

Tired of waiting, Rout dipped into his savings and pension to start building the 270 foot-long bridge across the river that links Kanpur village to Daneipur in October 2016.

The circumstances leading up to this decision highlight the apathy many of our fellow countrymen endure at the hands of the state. For many years, nearly 1,200 residents of the village have demanded the construction of a bridge.

More than a decade ago, a local truck owners’ association, a local legislator and the Hatadihi block administration, donated funds to the tune of Rs 6 lakh to construct the bridge. However, due to the paucity of funds, the construction of the bridge was incomplete.

“We requested officials and local people’s representatives for [the] completion of the bridge, but no one paid any heed towards our demand. Local truck owners’ association and other private organisations also did not help us financially. With no other option in sight, I decided to shoulder the responsibility,” said Rout, speaking to The New Indian Express.

Dipping into his retirement benefits of Rs 12 lakh, he took his nephew and surveyed various bridges in the area to understand what it takes to build one. Following this, they bought the necessary cement, bricks and iron roads, and in October 2016, with some external assistance, began constructing the bridge.

Initially, he had thought about using the money to buy a car, but the decrepit condition of the incomplete bridge cause him to decide against it, instead, spending the money on fixing and completing it.

However, the process of building the bridge has not been without its challenges. Speaking to the Hindustan Times, he says that the initially, the bridge was to be constructed within Rs 6 lakh. However, erecting pillars that hold the bridge had cost him around Rs 10 lakh.

“I almost ran out of money. Luckily, I did not have any small children in my family to look after, so I could spend without thinking much. My two sons are well-settled in life, and my daughter is married. I have very few needs,” he told the Hindustan Times.

Also, the local district administration has finally taken cognisance of his efforts.

“A team has already visited the site. The administration will complete the bridge with its resources,” said Keonjhar District Collector Ashish Thakre, in a conversation with IANS.

Thakre even admits that had it not been for Rout’s efforts, the bridge would not have been completed. Meanwhile, the administration will also help build approach roads to the bridge for vehicles to pass.

Also Read: Real-Life Rancho Returns to Odisha Village, Sets Up Innovation School for Rural Kids!

Rout is awaiting his pension arrears from the Odisha government to facilitate his efforts towards building the bridge. Reports indicate that he will spend an additional Rs 2 lakh to complete construction by next month.

Locals at Kanpur village in Odisha have praised his remarkable work in the face of government apathy. “Nowadays, people run the extra mile to make money. Gangadhar is a man of the rare gene who defies the stereotypes. We had approached many, including politicians, but no one took [an] interest. He is a messiah for us. We are proud of him,” said a local to The New Indian Express.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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Around ten years ago, Vedabandhu Mishra, civil servant, was searching for an Odia song from the 1950s.

Mishra searched with dedicated passion but soon realised that the song would remain alive only in his memory. There were no records of it.

A little disappointed that a tiny piece of Odisha’s oral literature was lost to time, Mishra made a promise to himself. He was going to retrieve as many vinyl and shellac records as he could find, and keep them alive through the ever-changing waves of technology.

Today, Mishra has a collection of over 4000 vinyl, and 500 shellac records, in addition to the ones has borrowed from friends, digitised and returned.

While the earliest record he has, dates back to 1906, most of them are from the mid-1900s.

The earliest phonograph disc records were made of a variety of materials including hard rubber. Around 1895, a shellac-based material was introduced and became standard.

These discs would run at the speed of 78 rotations per minute but were quite brittle. Eventually, around the 1950s, they were replaced by long-playing vinyl records

Mishra, however, was on a quest to collect and archive both, 19th-century shellac and 20th-century vinyl records.

“Since a very young age, I was very passionate about collecting old records. But this was just a hobby, and I hadn’t taken it seriously,” says the civil servant tells The Better India.

“Only when I failed to retrieve that 1950s Odia folk song in 2009 that I took up this hobby as a personal mission. shellac records are quite brittle, and if not preserved carefully, we would lose old pieces of literature, so I took up this quest,” he adds.

Mishra has been working with the Odisha governor’s office for about 20 years and is currently the deputy secretary to the state governor.

A state civil officer, he had the added advantage of accessing government files and records. With due permission from his seniors, he started searching for Odia songs and recordings.

Some records were relatively new, but others were almost a hundred years old. In fact, the oldest record he has is a song recorded on a shellac disc in 1906!

However, he didn’t just stop at retrieving the records and preserving them. Taking inspiration from Michael Kinnear, a discographer who researches Indian, Asian and Persian sound recordings, and archives them, he digitised the songs.

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Following this, he started a YouTube channel called Odia Melody and began uploading the digitised copies.

Today, the channel has over 59,000 subscribers and a list of over a thousand songs.

The playlist comprises not just folk songs but classics sung by the likes of Sunanda Patnaik, Akshaya Mohanty and Sikandar Alam.

Some of his archives also include songs recorded to ignite the freedom struggle in Odisha.

“One among the several iconic records is a satire recorded by Banchhanidhi Mohanty, a freedom fighter who picked the pen to channel his aggression against the British Raj. This particular recording, called “Simon Report Lekhaa” is his critique against the Simon Report. I have also archived the earliest known recorded rendering of Bande Utkala Janani, which is considered to be the state song of Odisha,” says Mishra.

Sita Bibaha, the first Odia movie and based upon the epic Ramayana was also archived in four parts on the audio technology. Mishra has the 1936 film archived in his collection too.

“It is challenging to know about the origins of these songs, but it is equally important to dig into their history and find out what we can,” the 48-year-old tells TBI.

“I found it extremely hard in the beginning to find such rare records. But thankfully, I had resources through my job that got me there. Over the past ten years, I have made it known in my social circle that I am collecting and archiving Odia literature. They help me get in touch with those people who have old shellac and vinyl records,” he adds.

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Once he gets the tip, the civil servant travels to various parts of Odisha to get his hands on the records. He sits with the owners, makes them understand why it is crucial to archive and update these precious pieces of history and assures them that the records will be available for public use too.

Some owners are happy to loan their records while others sell them to him. For some people, the records are too precious to give away and understandably so. Mishra doesn’t claim to be the only rightful archivist of the records. He borrows the records from them, digitises them and returns them in perfect condition.

The last 100-odd years have seen an evolution of physical music formats—shellac records have given way to vinyl, vinyl to cassettes, cassettes to CDs, and now, CDs to digital archives.

Recordings give a living picture of the world as it changes, and without sound archivists working to preserve them, we would lose an irreplaceable part of our national heritage.

Mishra’s efforts are but a drop in the ocean, but they deserve to be praised and commended. After all, who knows what hidden gem he might discover in his quest?

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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Odisha, which is one of India’s poorest and most underreported states, is today at the forefront of innovation in agricultural policy.

Going beyond the piecemeal treatment this sector has received over the years, the Department of Agriculture, Odisha government, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Delhi-based governance consulting startup Samagra, initiated the Analytics for Decision Making and Agricultural Police Transformation (ADAPT) initiative in November 2017.

“This partnership aims to enhance the prosperity of farmers, particularly those with small holdings, and drive inclusive agricultural transformation through evidence-based decision making at all levels of government,” says Utkarsh Vijay, Manager at Samagra.

If you’ve followed recent developments in the agricultural sector, you would have heard about the Odisha government’s Rs 10,000 crore-Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme covering 54 lakh farm households in the state. Many have touted this scheme as a paradigm shift in the approach to agriculture, but this is just one of the many facets of the ADAPT initiative.

Like any robust agricultural policy initiative, ADAPT seeks to address three key questions. How do you increase the income of the farmers? How do you improve the productivity of various crops? How do you take care of farmer welfare? To address these questions, however, there are a couple of crucial elements that any administration must address before proceeding.

For starters, the timely availability and better visibility of data across the hierarchy of the state administration, which aids policymakers to fill glaring gaps in the governance systems. Instead of merely focussing on the resources available to the state, policymakers can make better decisions on significant ticket concerns or develop better systems backed by data so that administrations can know how to prioritise their resources for greater tangible impact.

Agriculture is one domain where there is a plethora of data, but which has not been used to its full potential. Making matters worse, the key data points in Odisha’s agricultural system were available in silos. For example, the data set for seed quality, supply and certification were available in separate systems.

A senior bureaucrat in the state would know whether a particular scheme was working in an administrative block or not.

“However, Odisha runs 95 agriculture-related schemes. If the office wanted to obtain a comprehensive view of an administrative block, asking how many schemes are being effectively implemented or not, it would be a nightmare for her. It would take officials working under her a month to analyse it before coming to a conclusion,” says Ankur Bansal, co-founder of Samagra, speaking to The Better India.

“Can we bring all these 30-40 different data sets into one comprehensive system? Anyone looking at this one system can get a thorough understanding of how agriculture in the state is evolving and performing across a particular geographic area, crop or season,” he adds.

The objective here is to get the junior most bureaucrat access to necessary data so that they can plan and execute works on the ground. Eventually, it’s the block level official who will oversee the execution of government schemes and programmes on the ground.

In developing the ADAPT Decision Support System (DSS) dashboard (inaugurated on November 2018), the state government set an institutional framework which gives greater scope for the right sort of decision making at every level of government.

Here, you have entire state machinery working on a streamlined system. The whole approach was to get all data consolidated onto one system, create an access-based login tool, where the Principal Secretary will get to look at information relevant to his office while the Block Officer will look at data vital to him.

KALIA

“However, as we started to look at data more closely, we realised that only providing data will not solve the problem. We needed to get into some of the design elements of the problem. One of the critical elements that came into our work is KALIA. We started working on it sometime in May-June 2018 at a time when nationwide farmers were under a lot of distress,” says Bansal.

What could we do about it? What was the root cause? Was it because of a natural calamity like the drought? Was it because of a pest attack? Was it about access to formal credit or market accessibility? Such were the questions on the team’s mind.

However, these consultations happened just as election season was around the corner where various opposition parties promised farm loan waivers if they came to power. Going through several studies, the Samagra team found that loan waivers have a detrimental effect on the state’s long-term financial health, and offer only very temporary relief to farmers.

The solution to this problem entailed a more comprehensive approach than loan waivers.

Aside from providing Rs 10,000 per family as assistance for cultivation (Rs 5,000 each in kharif and rabi seasons for five cropping seasons between 2018-19 and 2021-22), the Odisha government created a comprehensive assistance package whereby it also included a life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh and additional personal accident coverage of the same amount.

Essentially, this sets up a social security system for farmers.

“Also, like in many states, Odisha has farmers who have stuck to traditional crops like paddy where there is procurement at the state level, even though research suggests it isn’t the most profitable crop. Through some financial levers, we are shifting the behaviour of farmers to other high-value income-generating activities. For example, the landless will be supported with a unit cost of Rs 12, 500 for activities like poultry farming, goat rearing, mushroom cultivation, beekeeping, and fishery. The attempt is to eventually incentivise the farmer to move away from paddy to something of greater value gradually. It’s all about putting more money into a farmer’s pocket,” says Dr Saurabh Garg, Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmer Empowerment, Odisha.

The total number of farmers who have benefited from the scheme is 51 lakh, as per the latest figures.

As stated above, another critical element of the KALIA scheme is the emphasis on sharecroppers and the landless. Policymakers have long ignored them when devising plans, policies, etc. But these people exist, and in huge numbers that have been increasing, especially in the last 20-30 years.

The number of sharecroppers and the landless who have benefitted from the KALIA scheme stands at 15 lakh. While the number of landowners in India is decreasing, the number of sharecroppers or agricultural labour is increasing.

Can we create benefits that include sharecroppers and the landless? How can we incentivise them to better their lot?

In late December 2018, the KALIA scheme was announced, followed by the Centre’s PM KISAN scheme which was modelled on the former but does not include landless farmers.

“When the policy was announced, we were sure everyone would stake their claim, stating ‘I’m a farmer and give me that money’. How do you prevent the money from going into the wrong hands? How do you ensure no one is left out? The department conducted meetings with bureaucrats from the education, health, labour, industry, food and civil supplies, police departments, ascertaining what databases exist. A lot of them exist, but the databases often are not programmed to talk to each other,” Dr Garg adds.

The first step was to bring all the databases together, trying to ascertain a unique identity because in some systems people have registered to different databases using Aadhaar, while in others it’s the voter ID or ration card.

Working on a war footing, what they did was create a strategy to verify and unify these beneficiaries. After that, the state government conducted a ground verification exercise to validate these beneficiaries.

“Within two weeks, we received 95 lakh applications from people stating they are farmers. How do you verify them? A verification system was put in place stating that if anyone in the family is an income taxpayer, then you can’t receive these benefits,” recalls Dr M Muthukumar, Director, Agriculture and Food Production, Odisha.

Through the verification process, the team found full-time teachers and police constables claiming to be farmers. They excluded thousands of applications as a result.

“The systems were created to ensure no wrong inclusions happened and we tried our best to ensure no genuine beneficiary was excluded,” he recalls.

Within a month, the state leadership, with assistance from Samagra, managed to set the entire machinery in place to implement this gargantuan scheme.

This was a remarkable feat.

90 per cent reduction in pest attacks

Besides extreme climatic conditions, Odisha once suffered from a high incidence of pest attacks. On an average, roughly 1,80,000-1,90,000 hectares of crop suffer pest attacks, and that’s only during the Kharif season burning a real hole in the cash flow of the farmers.

Alongside the state government, Samagra helped create a strategy to tackle it from the time seeds are sown to the time when pests hit.

A large area of concern was the delivery of Uniform Pest Advisory for all 314 administrative blocks in Odisha. But with different climatic conditions affecting various parts of the state, individual blocks may not find that information relevant.

“The solution was to change the design of this system. We get weather and forecasting data from the IMD for all 314 blocks. Instead of putting out one advisory, we customised it to many mini advisories and personalised it for each block. We created 314 WhatsApp groups for each block, with government officers (each block has about 15-20 officers from the agriculture department) available on them,” says Dr Muthukumar.

The advisory is then disseminated to farmers through WhatsApp, SMS, IVRS, and videos in the local language, improving penetration from 27 per cent to 76 per cent of villages. This advisory is also uploaded on a YouTube channel informing how one can notice the pest and what steps one can take, he continues.

Pest attacks, meanwhile, has dropped by 90 per cent, according to government data.

Another critical facet of pest control is handling it in a time-bound manner. Between October to around mid-November, during the Rabi season, a lot of pest attacks happen. Out of 314 blocks in the state, there were 57 which suffered 80 per cent of such pest attacks.

Addressing a shortage of workforce, the Odisha government tied up with the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology and started a programme whereby students in the final year of their Undergraduate programme in plant protection are offered a 1.5-month internship, receiving a stipend of Rs 10,000.

Prioritising these 57 blocks, the government designates two interns for each of them. These interns are tasked with visiting the fields, learn, assist the farmers and government officers in whatever capacity.

A helpline was also set up which targeted to solve the queries of farmers, interns or government officers within 10 minutes. If there is an emergence of a pest that people on the ground know nothing about. They will take a picture of it, post it on the WhatsApp group and a domain expert sitting on the other side will address this query.

Better Feedback

“The mechanism of conducting Farmer Information & Advisory Committee (FIAC) meetings at the block level in Odisha was re-invigorated to resolve and escalate issues raised by farmers locally. Officials from the Department of Agriculture and five allied departments now meet every fortnight in all 314 blocks, and the commonly identified farmer issues from the meetings are incorporated into policy design and implementation,” says Ankur Bansal.

Initially, the government had put out a notification stating that these meetings needed to happen to receive feedback from the ground and disseminate necessary information, but it remained mostly on paper. Meetings were irregular, and haphazard, while the diagnoses they came up with were patchy. Even the block officer didn’t know what to do in these meetings.

“We started tracking each of the 314 blocks, how many of them are having meetings? We realised that the meetings were taking place in only 120 blocks. Once we possess all the data, we could enable decision making at the district and state level to ensure these meetings happen. Within a month and a half, we began having regular meetings in 310 blocks. Besides agriculture department officials, we needed others from the Water, Insurance and Panchayati Raj departments as well. That’s a great point of convergence because a farmer’s life is attached to all these departments,” says Dr Muthukumar.

The agenda of the meeting is set depending on the agricultural calendar, whether it’s the time to sow the seed, apply fertiliser or obtain insurance.

“Say, the deadline for insurance registration is fast approaching, we will set that meeting accordingly. Again, the agenda depends on which block is having the meeting. Say, in your block, only 20 per cent are covered by insurance. We need to increase the number of people under insurance coverage because the deadline is fast approaching,” he adds.

What this system essentially does is establish a two-way feedback mechanism.

“We give them targets, state what needs to be done, and they tell us about their (Farmers) challenges. All inputs collated with state and district level administration will be resolved accordingly,” says Bansal, describing the objective of this exercise.

The results of this exercise are clear. The year-on-year growth rate in farmers who have obtained crop insurance is over 10 per cent, reaching 2.02 million farmers in 2018. Meanwhile, the year-on-year growth rate in non-loanee farmers who have obtained crop insurance is at a whopping 79.27 per cent, reaching 272,909 farmers, according to government data. The growth in non-loanee farmers accessing crop insurance is particularly significant.

Also Read: 1 Stop, 556 Schemes: Haryana Govt’s Unique System Can Revolutionise How India Works

“The loanee farmers are given insurance along with the loan so they don’t have much of a choice. The non-loanee farmers are those who haven’t visited the bank. We have to target them specifically for taking insurance. Also, there is not very high acceptance of insurance in this segment of the population, since they rely mostly on relief funds,” says Utkarsh.

Odisha has a long way to go in addressing all its concerns in the agricultural sector. However, what we have here is an administration that isn’t following the standard playbook of Indian agricultural policy. By consulting other domain experts and leveraging data, it is finding ways to alleviate the troubles of its long-stricken farmers.

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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In the 1990s when Debal Deb was working with India’s largest conservation NGO in Kolkata, he recalled how the country boasted of more than 1,10,000 folk or native varieties of rice until the advent of the Green Revolution in the late 1960s. In the two decades that followed, this number dropped to less than 7,000.

Why? The Green Revolution witnessed policy makers, agri-scientists and Indian farmers abandon landraces and chase high yielding varieties so much so that at some point, more than 75 per cent of India’s rice production was coming from less than 10 varieties.

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As an ecologist, Deb was rattled by this culling of rice varieties native to India.

“Every time a tiger or a rhino or any charismatic big animal was killed, millions of dollars poured in to support conservation efforts. But nobody batted an eyelash witnessing a massive genocide of our traditional rice varieties,” Deb says in an interview with The Better India (TBI).

Deb, though no agriculturist by training, was bothered with the apathy of the then agri-scientists who found it of no consequence that the native rice varieties were dying and were, in fact, actively promoting high yielding and hybrid varieties instead.

Thus, in the early 1990s, Deb set out on the field to document the varieties that were left in Bengal. Though 5,500 native varieties were officially documented from West Bengal, over his journey spanning three years, he was able to collect only 350.

Sometimes on foot and mostly on the rooftops of buses, Deb travelled to remote, unirrigated villages, untouched by the perils of the Green revolution, and populated with marginal farmers.

Most of the farmers couldn’t afford chemical fertilisers, pesticides or pump sets for irrigation. So they cultivated the native varieties of rice that required none of these ‘inputs’.

Every time he reached a village and asked for a fistful of grains, he pleaded them to never stop cultivating the indigenous rice.

Over the past 25 years, this rice warrior has collected more than 1,420 native rice varieties from 12 states across India. He also collected a few varieties from countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Thailand, Korea, the Philippines and Italy.

Apart from starting a one-of-its-kind open-access seed bank—Vrihi, for farmers, he also cultivates each of the 1,420 rice varieties on a 1.7 acre model farm, Basudha, that he set up at the foothills of Niyamgiri in Odisha.

The Beginning

When he started his conservation journey, Deb distributed these varieties at the doorsteps of Bengali farmers hit by the drought in 1998, flash floods and later cyclone Aila in 2009 which swept 20,000 hectare of land out of production in the Sunderbans.

But he was shocked at what the farmers did when farming activities resumed.

“All modern hybrid varieties had perished and these native varieties were the only ones that not only survived but also furnished substantial grain yield. But what was heartbreaking was, once the drought or cyclone had passed, the same farmers who were saved from hunger by these native varieties abandoned them to go back to modern varieties. They had no value for the native seeds, because they were getting it for free.”

When Deb travelled to the Chinsurah Rice Research Station to donate some of these varieties, they rejected his offer. He then approached the Director of Agriculture at the station who ridiculed him,

“Being a scientist yourself, why are you trying to get the old seeds back? Do you want to push our farmers to the caveman’s age?”

Despite reiterating that these traditional varieties could yield in marginal land and climatic conditions, where no modern varieties could survive, the Director told him, they would work on transgenic varieties to tackle this.

This is one of the prime reasons that, till date, Deb has never reached out to any government or private institute to fund his work.

Jaded by the lack of support, Deb quit his extremely well paying senior position in Kolkata as a Senior Project Officer in 1996 with the World Wilde Fund for Nature (WWF) Eastern Region. 

He then started Basudha, to conserve, grow, multiply and distribute these seeds himself. His work is mostly funded by good samaritans who believe in his vision.

While he initially spent almost two decades working in Bengal, he shifted base to Odisha a decade ago.

“There were only very few exceptions among farmers in Bengal who understood and accepted the intrinsic value of the native varieties. Majority of them were victims to the ‘develop-mentality’ where all they thought about was immediate gains and profits. After shifting to Odisha, we saw a good response. Apart from Odisha, farmers from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka also appreciated the intrinsic value of the native seeds and gave preference to its aroma, nutritional properties, heritage and flavour, over its yield and market price.”

Deb, who is an Indian Institute of Science alumnus and a former Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, US, adds how money was a big challenge in the beginning because he was new to the field and had no regular income flowing in. Yet he doesn’t charge the farmers a penny for the seeds.

“On principle, I do not charge anything for the seeds that I give to farmers, because those seeds are not my invention. I am only a custodian of the seeds. I share them freely because I want to reinstate the traditional system of sharing seeds as opposed to the market system of selling them at exorbitant prices.”

To ensure this, he created a living seed bank, Vrihi.

“At national and international gene banks, many varieties are dried to reduce their moisture content below 14 per cent and then stored at -20 degree Celsius, to increase their shelf life. Considering the period during which these gene banks were set up, most of these seeds have surpassed their shelf life. They are dead because they were never cultivated on a field and allowed to germinate. I have visited these gene banks and firsthand witnessed thousands of packets of these dead seeds. It is more of a gene morgue than a gene bank,” says Deb.

According to Deb, about 20 per cent of the varieties in these seed banks are still alive and even those are inaccessible to the ordinary farmers as big seed corporations have easy access to them.

Vrihi was a protest against this injustice to the ordinary farmer.

While these native varieties are distributed free of cost in half kg packets, the rules are very clear. Farmers who take these packets from Vrihi, have to cultivate them, return one kg next year as proof of cultivation, and later pass the seeds on to other farmers. The rice grown from these seeds can be a commercial product. But the seeds can never be sold. They have to be shared for free only with farmers, not with government institutions or seed corporations.

Most heirloom varieties if not cultivated, lose their germination ability after one year. So you have to plant them and ensure their growth is monitored. This not only helps keep the variety alive but also helps it evolve and develop resistance to the changing climate, strains of pests and pathogens. 

And so, Deb cultivates each of them, every year at the Basudha farm.

Purity Maintenance

After six years of field-testing he has devised a method that allows him to plant each of these varieties within the 1.7 acres of Basudha while ensuring that the genetic purity of each of these heirloom varieties is maintained and no cross-pollination occurs between two varieties, planted next to each other.

He spends 12 days and nights each year to merely design and map the manner in which the varieties would be planted. Deb published his methodology in the open-access Current Science journal in July 2006, and in his book to make the information accessible to farmers.

Basudha is the only farm in India which prides itself over the genetic purity it maintains in the seeds distributed to farmers.

We assess 56 morphological characters of the plant of each variety, from the leaf length and width, leaf colour, node colour, grain colour and weight, kernel colour and so on, to ensure it matches the original variety. We go the extra mile so that the farmer who takes these seeds from Basudha is taking home the same variety that I conserved 25 years ago. Basudha is the only place in India, that is maintaining this level of genetic purity.

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A Treasure Trove

When asked to shed light on some of the most iconic varieties he has preserved, Deb says, “To me, every single variety has a unique property. We are the last repository for many of these varieties.” For example, the Sateen that has three kernels in most of the spikelets. 

Another example is Jugal, the double-grain rice variety. Ramigali from Chhattisgarh has sterile lemmas elongated as wing-like appendages. Kharah from Odisha is another unique landrace with purple stems and leaves.

Another variety includes grains which have natural silver content. Effective in killing gut microbes, it is considered to have properties to cure gastrointestinal diseases. There are 86 varieties which are very rich in iron. A single meal of any of these can be beneficial to pregnant women and new mothers who face iron-deficiency and may suffer from anemia.

Similarly, there are varieties rich in zinc, antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids too.

Vrihi also has 16 native varieties that can out-yield modern hybrids without any agro-chemical inputs!

Hundreds of farmers visit Deb every year with the purpose of exchanging and borrowing seeds. Last year, Basudha saw more than 1,900 farmer footfalls. The year before, this number was 2,000. This year too, a group of 30 highly motivated farmers from Tamil Nadu will be visiting Deb to take 1,000 native varieties of rice.

Deb also imparts the training to grow these varieties to maintain their genetic purity. While success for the multiplication of each variety seems like an uphill task, he hopes this exchange will help carry forward the tradition of preserving at least 500 of these varieties.

Let’s hope Deb continues to create these little pockets of hope and inspire many more warriors to join in the battle to preserve our wealth of native crop varieties!

If this story inspired you, get in touch with Deb on cintdis@hotmail.com

Or visit http://cintdis.org/ to know more about his work.

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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“One of the main problems with the common development paradigm is that Adivasis are considered underdeveloped. People do not recognise that their prosperity lies in their unique lifestyle and world views. That is why the government and the NGOs tried to intervene and impose modern-day practices on them. The result was appalling,” reveals Debjeet Sarangi from Living Farms, a non-profit organisation helping Kondhs in Rayagada to uphold their unique culture since 2008.

Flaunt this beautiful bamboo necklace and earrings, handcrafted by tribal artisans of Bengal

Much like the iconic Chipko movement, despite threats of imprisonment, repeated interventions from the forest department, and the ever-present pressure to give into the so-called ‘modern’ methods of cultivation, the Kondhs stayed unflinching on their resolution – to bring back their forests and way of life.

Living Farms has helped the Kondhs in over 800 villages of Rayagada in their struggle against the invasion of modernity. Gradually, the expanse of the movement spread like wildfire all over Rayagada, bringing 1,06,000 Adivasi and Dalit households in 2000 villages under its ambit.

The Kondhs and Their Way of Life

Just like the majority of Kondhs, Landi Sikoka and Tulasa Kurangalika from Khalpadar village have little idea what ‘global warming’ means. There is perhaps no translation for the term in ‘Kui’—their native tongue. But, their plates are vibrant with rich and healthy forest harvest, their homes are abodes of peace, their air fresh with the musty petrichor after rains.

The Kondhs lead a sustainable lifestyle—in perfect harmony with nature—teaches a lot to the modern generation, bearing the brunts of its mindless consumption.

The southern hinterlands of the coastal state is lined by a thick foliage of tropical forests, inhabited by wild beasts, birds and the Kondh community. Their quaint huts of mud and thatch are never huddled together to delineate a settlement, rather they build their homes in groups of few at naturally-secured locations, like atop a hillock or beside one.

Accustomed to the traditional livelihood of hunting-gathering, the Kondhs were never rigid cultivators, but the passing years saw them practising dongar cultivation (shifting agriculture) of vegetables, fruits, grains and leaves that constitute their traditional diet.

They periodically clear patches of forests to make way for seasonal farming.

“On these plots of lands, manually-run implements are used, for multiple millets-based crops that cover millets, oilseeds and pulses needed for subsistence of the household,” social activist Kavitha Kuruganti describes about the Kondh style of agriculture.

Keeping the Traditions Alive

Among the community, the traditional practice of game hunting had faded through the ages, but forest gathering of fruits, berries, mushrooms, tubers, leafy greens, bamboo shoots etc. still continued, which actually defined their characteristic cuisine.

Living on the ideals of sundi (trust) and mitho (friendship), the minimalistic lifestyle of the Kondhs is characterised by beautiful customs that brings the Kutumb (community) together.

“When a newly married couple wants to set up a house of their own, the entire village would help them in building their house, without expecting any wages,” informs Kuruganti, for instance.

She also states how women enjoy greater autonomy among the Kondhs than any other aboriginal communities, as they remain at the forefront of their contact with the outer world. Be it trading at local haat (market) or choosing their life partners independently, Kondh women exercise ample independence.

From granary banks to village funds in kind (seeds, grains, even domestic animals) – the Kondh economy was least dependent on paper currencies. In fact, the older generation might even have never held money in their hands. They had always been content with their traditional economic structure, without any influence of the rapidly changing outer world.

When Modern Ways Intervene

However, things slowly started to change. The government intervened in their lives, so did several non-profit organisations. The flawed notion was that these Adivasis were ‘backward’, ‘poor’ and ‘illiterate’.

The community faced the infiltration of modernity in several aspects, especially agriculture. Accustomed to sourcing nearly 275 varieties of wild fruits, vegetables and herbs from the jungles, the Kondhs were suddenly instructed to practise monoculture of crops like paddy, a practice alien to them.

“A government agricultural scheme designed keeping a Punjab farmer in mind will never work for the Adivasis. The imposition of monoculture cropping by forest officials reflected badly in the health of the tribals as their dietary diversity disappeared,” shares Sarangi.

The intention was good, the execution was bad. Both the government and the non-government entities failed to understand and relate with the Kondh culture and compelled them to resort to mainstream habits. “If one crop failed, the people now had no alternatives on their plates,” says Sarangi, explaining the drawbacks of monoculture.

“The diversified food basket thereby provides a vital safety net against hunger, increasing crop failures caused by climate change, erratic rainfall, mounting ecological degradation including water scarcity, and depleted soils,” describes a Living Farms representative.

There were additional issues as well. For instance, the Kondhs had inherently been patrons of 100 per cent organic farming. But now, chemical fertilisers and pesticides were handed over to them to support the singular crops. This inevitably ruined the soil richness of the forested zones, which once used to be hotspots of flora biodiversity.

Also, they were now forced to diverge from their internally sustainable economy, as they ventured into the towns and cities to source the chemicals. The hefty investment cost was an additional woe.

The natural forests comprised a rich trove of mangoes, Jamun, jackfruit, tamarind, berries etc. But officials coerced them into replacing their orchards with cash-yielding trees like teak and eucalyptus. The forest department even cleared out parts of the natural forests to make way for these ‘profitable’ plantations.

Kondh youngsters, who ventured outside for education or employment brought back instant noodles or soya nuggets with them – foods which were gravely detested by the community leaders. They yearned for the forest to be back on their plates. And when the authorities threatened or warned them with consequences, they countered back with their silent protests.

Taking Back the Forests

Women, once again, pioneered the Kondh war against modernity by leading resistance movements in many villages. Farmers decided to refrain from chemical agriculture and monocropping. They stopped sowing hybrid ‘corporate’ seeds and reseeded their mandua (finger millets).

The farmers refused to cower down to the forest officials and stopped their natural forests from being destroyed further. They had seen in their neighbouring villages how these economic plantations destroy the forest’s sanctity and degrade soil quality. They would not let the same happen to their own zones.

The men, women and children from every family worked on a war footing to replant, restore and replenish the beauty of their aboriginal mother – the jungle.

The results have been exceedingly prominent in the past five years, with the forests once again glistening with vibrant colours and a captivating aura. Their plates are once again ‘full’ with bounty from the forest.

Living Farms continue to conduct local food festivals and workshop to showcase the beauty of the Kondh culture. They predominantly focus on a deep sense of respect for the community and keeping their dying traditions alive. Their support programmes are designed with the basic aim of retaining the communitarian fabric of Kondh society, while also introducing them with the indispensable aspect of modernity.

Even after sustained and cumulative resistance from the locals, self-appointed “saviours” still continue trying to ‘reform’ them. And thus the Kondh’s struggle to combat such imposition persists parallelly. Amid the disappearing diversity and rampant cultural appropriation in India, the unknown story of the Kondhs will remain a glorious chapter.

Also Read: Warli Art on Dried Mushrooms? Peek Inside a Unique Tribal Hamlet in Mumbai’s Aarey

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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As a college student, whenever Sita Behera returned to her home in Odisha’s Soran village during the holidays, she would be greeted with a series of taunts and jeers. Boys would gather around to mock her in public, and neighbours would ridicule her college uniform because she was wearing a shirt and pants.

Sita’s fault? She was the first woman in her village to break the glass ceiling and take admission in a college, that too in a technical course.

Today, the 24-year-old has become the first woman from her village to have become an electrician, secure a government job at Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Limited (OPTCL), and was recently felicitated by the Odisha Skill Development Authority, whose chairman Subroto Bagchi hailed her as the ‘Queen of the transmission tower.’

This portable lamp, is powered by salt water, and is ideal for camping, fishing, trekking, hiking,  emergencies, and all sorts of outdoor activities!

Unfazed with the overwhelming acclaim, Sita is just happy to be working atop thirty feet electric towers and provide a decent livelihood for her family of six.

“I think things are better now,” she smiles while recounting the struggles she faced while growing up.

A Childhood Riddled With Poverty 

Sita is the youngest of four siblings. “I have two sisters, one brother and my parents at home, and it was a challenging childhood. There wasn’t enough food to go around, and supporting our education was an additional burden for our parents,” shares Sita, who, along with her brother, are the only two among four siblings to receive a formal education.

Sita completed her schooling from the village government school, mostly learning from hand-me-down textbooks of her brother.

Her parents were unlettered and could not provide much guidance to the first-generation learners in the family. Whatever Sita learnt was with her zeal and motivation.

“We could not afford to attend tuitions, even before board exams. My brother would often help me with the studies,” she shares.

It was her brother’s friend who helped her secure admission at Industrial Training Institute (ITI), Berhampore⁠—the second-largest ITI in India.

There, for the first time in life, Sita was exposed to a learning environment sans any gender disparity⁠—where girls were not ridiculed for studying, unlike her hometown.

“A Gem of a Student”

“She came from an impoverished background. We offered her as much as we could, including additional training facilities. She was a gem of a student,” remembers Ranjan Panigrahi, the principal of ITI Berhampore who once taught Sita.

“I cannot thank my college enough for where I am today. They sponsored my entire course; even hostel fees I did not have to pay. I devoted the whole time learning and honing my skills,” asserts Sita.

Back then, when she would visit Soran donning shirts and trousers, the local urchins would catcall and shout ‘ITI,’ ‘ITI’ at her, as if it was a sin for her to study there.

Now, when they see the same Sita taking care of her family and keeping them happy, they look at her with awe.

A Role Model for Young Girls

“Sita’s achievement is remarkable, considering how she hails from a lesser privileged background. She is an exemplar for tribal women and girls. We want her success story to resonate among all our present and future students,” says Panigrahi.

In fact, the college authorities invite Sita often to share her journey and motivate more girls like her.

Being an electrician was never her aim in childhood when filling the belly for the day was the primary concern. Nevertheless, Sita persisted through thick and thin and emerged as a powerhouse in every sense of the term.

And today, she cannot get enough of wires and transmission lines, as she effortlessly climbs up towers to ensure her village stays lit.

Also Read: Irked by Sexist Joke, Mom of Two Breaks Into Male Bastion & Now Protects Thousands!

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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We all know ATMs dispense cash but, have you heard about ATMs where one gets food for free? Yes, you heard that right. Sambalpur district in Odisha is home to a philanthropic initiative helping the underprivileged people get access to food. A food ATM now stands at the District Headquarter hospital in the city from which the needy can collect food for free between 7AM and 10PM everyday.

Want some yummy and tasty biscuits with your cup of chai? Check out the range of biscuits available on Karnival

Named ‘Trupti’, the food ATM has a capacity of 700 litres and has been donated by Swaichha, a group of people residing in Sambalpur who carry out charitable work in the city. The ATM will be jointly maintained by Swaichha and the Municipal Corporation.

“The food ATM was inaugurated on 12 November this year. We are stocking it with fruits, vegetables and other small packed snacks like biscuits. We are not selling cooked food as of now,” explain Lingraj Pandu, Municipal Commissioner, Sambalpur. However, those citizens who are willing to donate cooked food can do that.

How does this Odisha ATM function?

“The whole idea is to share with the community and also prevent wastage. If there are extra fruits and vegetables that you have grown in your garden, you can come and donate it here,” says Dilip Kumar Panda, 40, the founder of Swaichha.

The food ATM is like a refrigerator set in an enclosure made with pre-fabricated aluminium sheets. It takes a day’s time to assemble a whole unit. People can stand in a queue and take out whatever they feel like consuming. Swaichha has many volunteers from colleges who take turns to supervise the daily operations.

“We are planning to employ a security guard and also install CCTV cameras for supervision,” informs Dilip.

Swaichha and the municipal corporation contribute the food to the ATM and at times, people donate food on special days like birthdays and other social gatherings.

A recent report by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) found that Odisha is among the top seven states to have the maximum disease burden attributed to malnutrition.

Such initiatives are welcome given that every little bit helps in improving the lives of the people who are mostly forgotten by the society.

SWAICCHA

Swaichha, the local initiative that donated the refrigerator comprises of about 35 to 40 people who pooled in their resources and collected about Rs. 50,000 to buy the fridge. However, this is not the first time Swaiccha has tried to fight hunger in the city.

The group of volunteers meet every Sunday and cook meals which are then served to about 2,000 people in crowded public areas like railway stations, bus stops, markets and temples. The reason why Swaichha’s founder Dilip got involved in social work is a personal one.

“My father was an orphan but he ultimately fought all odds and served as a policemen. He inspired me to carry on the legacy. This is just the beginning and there is so much to do,” he says.

Lingraj says that there are several voluntary organisations now that have gotten in touch with them and want to run a food ATM like this one in different parts of the city. He adds that this is not the first time that the state has witnessed such a food ATM.

“There is another ATM that has been installed in Kuchinda, which is a small municipality about 70 kms from Sambalpur. This one was inaugurated three days prior to the one in Sambalpur and even before that, there is another food ATM that was started in Bhubaneshwar which started a month ago,” says Lingraj.

“We introduced this to bridge the gap and the social disconnect that exists in the urban areas between the rich and the less fortunate. Hopefully, this brings about more responsibility among the people and that it is a constant reminder to share,” he says as he signs off.

Also Read: No Plastic Sachets: Odisha District Sets Up Vending Machine For Fortified Milk!

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) recently introduced innovative schemes to tackle plastic waste generation by using it as currency and implementing barter systems.

There are steps in place to ensure that the collected plastic waste will be responsibly recycled in local recycling centres.

Here’s a look at them!

‘One-stop destination for – Reducing, Recycling and Reusing’

This was the colourful banner that greeted hordes of citizens walking into the Community Hall at South Delhi’s Tagore Garden on December 13.

People donated hundreds of kilos of various plastic items like bags and bottles, and in exchange, received other items

For instance, the ones who gave wet waste got manure in return. Cloth and jute bags were given to those who donated one and three kilos of plastic, respectively.

Taking forward the fight against recyclable dry waste, the SDMC also launched a truck called ‘Eco Hub on Wheels.’ The truck will move around in all areas under the SDMC jurisdiction and collect plastic and other dry items like paper, cardboard, steel, glass, etc.

“In a bid to keep the SDMC area plastic-free, we have flagged-off this unique truck called ‘Eco Hub on Wheels….SDMC will give 20 per cent discounted food coupons or T-shirts/Sweater in exchange of 5 kg of dry waste which includes papers, cardboard, plastic items, old steel items, glass bottles, aluminium cans etc.,” said Gyanesh Bharti, Commissioner SDMC, to the Millenium Post.

The distribution of eco-friendly bags like cloth and jute in exchange for one or more kilos of plastic will also be included in the collection truck.

In addition to the plastic-free efforts, the SDMC will also allow people to donate their old clothes, which will then be distributed to the needy.

In Bhubaneswar Get Food In Exchange for Plastic

In a similar drive, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has also kickstarted its mission to protect the environment from plastic pollution.

Residents of Odisha’s capital city, will now be able to get free access to a meal at any of the eleven state-run Ahar Centres upon depositing half a kilogram of plastic waste.

The BMC has launched the ‘Meal for Plastic’ scheme in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“The scheme is an effective collection mechanism that lets the needy eat for free while ensuring a safe environment, and has been implemented on permanent basis. The scheme serves the dual purpose of food security and responsibly recycling plastic,” said Prem Chandra Chaudhary, the BMC Commissioner, to The Better India.

A majority of rag pickers in India function in the informal sector of waste management. They often go around the city collecting plastic and other dry waste with a hope to earn money. However, there is no guarantee of a decent earning from the waste.

In that backdrop, initiatives like food coupons and free meals can be a huge relief to them that promises a substantial return.

Bartering useful items for plastic is not a very new phenomenon in India. Several non-profit organisations and government departments have introduced innovative schemes to eradicate plastic systematically.

Featured Image Source: Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation/Twitter

Also Read: Here Are Five Initiatives That Show Plastic Barter Is Booming In India

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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The online registration for Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) has commenced as of 6 February 2020 and will be open for registrations until 20 March 2020. If you or someone you know wishes to apply for the same, here is everything you need to know.

What is OJEE?

This is a state-level entrance examination conducted for admission to various graduate and post-graduate courses. The test is held every year in two different modes–paper-based (PBT) and computer-based (CBT).

For the first time in 2019, the OJEE was conducted in Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode for all postgraduate courses including MCA, MBA, M.Tech, M.Pharma, M.Plan, M. Arch and lateral entry to MCA.

OJEE 2020 will be held from May 2 to May 5, comprising 60 multiple choice questions (MCQ). For every correct answer, the applicant will be rewarded four marks, while each wrong answer will cause the deduction of one mark.

Important dates

• Registrations begin from 6 February until 20 March 2020
• Payment of application form can be done until 20 March 2020
• Confirmation form must be printed by 25 March 2020
• Admit card will be released on 20 April 2020
• Exam will be held from 2-5 May 2020
• Results will be declared in the first week of June 2020

How to apply

• The application form is ONLY available on the official OJEE website, which can be accessed here.
• On this page, click on Odisha JEE NIC. You will be directed to this page.
• Click on the stream you wish to apply for.
• Remember to choose your stream carefully, as you are allowed to submit only one form.
• You will have to fill out all the required details and click on the ‘register’ button to submit your application form.

Who is eligible to apply?

The eligibility criteria for OJEE depends on which graduate or undergraduate course you opt to study. The minimum requirements are:

• You should have completed 10+2 from a recognised board for admission to undergraduate courses
• You must have a Bachelors’ degree or equivalent from a recognised university in a relevant discipline
• You must have completed a Diploma or Bachelors’ degree to apply for lateral entry courses

Also Read: Scored 39% in 12th, Didn’t Know English: How a Village Boy Turned Around His Life to Crack IIT JEE!

To get an overview of the OJEE 2020 syllabus, click here.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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With Covid 19 cases on a steady rise in India, we are consistently reading of frontline health workers struggling to keep up due to insufficient testing kits, medicines and most importantly, number of beds per patient. 

Amid these dire circumstances, social distancing is of paramount necessity. However, what of the people who need medical consultations for non-covid health problems?

Coming in with a solution, Odisha’s Ganjam district collector, Vijay Amruta Kulange is providing tele-health services so that people follow social distancing and hospital beds remain unoccupied. 

Speaking to The Better India (TBI), he says: 

“We have tied up with 50 doctors including general physicians and specialists across the district who provide free health consultations to the residents stuck at home. This way we are not only reducing the pressure on government hospitals but also reducing the risk of transmission for doctors as well as patients.”

Kulange has circulated contact details of doctors on WhatsApp and shared the same on his and district’s social media accounts. He has also mentioned timings so that doctors do not get calls 24/7. From stomach pains, headaches, fever, cold, blood pressure to allergies, the doctors cater to every non-urgent health issue on call. 

Some patients can even consult via a video call in case of any visible symptoms or allergies. The doctors, in turn, suggest the course of action and write prescriptions on WhatsApp. 

Naturally, this unique initiative has received a tremendous response and the district has recorded a drop in patients visiting hospitals for non-Covid health issues by 90 per cent, claims Kulange. 

“Social distancing is the main challenge right now and if we take proper precautionary measures there is no need for people to get scared,” adds Kulange. 

Apart from tele-health services, the district administration has also begun door-to-door deliveries of essential groceries and fresh vegetables, distribution of home-cooked food to homeless and the less privileged and constant monitoring of people showing symptoms of coronavirus. Kulange’s administration is not the only one to have resorted tele-health service

In Mumbai, for example, a group of doctors have initiated a free health service to answer all queries regarding coronavirus. Read more here  

It goes without saying that the next few weeks are very crucial for India and sitting at home is an effective way to control the spread of COVID-19. If other cities and districts emulate Kulange’s initiative, it can significantly reduce the number of people coming in contact with potential carriers of the virus. 

Get All Covid 19 updates here

Also Read: Exclusive: Delhi’s First COVID-19 Survivor Has An Important Message to Share

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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It all started over a cup of tea in 2009.

Rabindra Sahu was not surprised when his friend, Lingaraj Panda, a photographer, complained about how he was not able to capture a single sparrow in Puruna Bandha village in Odisha’s Ganjam district. This complaint soon led to a discussion on the steadfast decline in the population of house sparrows all over India.

“Since you are already working on the conservation of the Olive Ridley, why don’t you start a similar drive for endangered sparrows,” said Panda, talking about Sahu’s work as a researcher and conservationist.

It did not take Sahu long to make the decision. His mind began thinking of ways to bring the sparrows back. And the dedicated conservationist managed to do what once seemed impossible – increased the sparrow population in his village from a mere eleven in 2009 to over 300 in 2020!

Bringing Back the Sparrows – How It Began

Like most of us, feeding sparrows was an integral part of Sahu’s childhood. Likewise, he too was a sad witness to the steady decline in the number of sparrows in the mid-2000s. In Sahu’s village, this was the phase when the government began constructing concrete houses to replace juggis (huts) made from hay.

“It was almost like a ritual to keep a few rice grains in a plate for the sparrows who made their nests on the roof of juggis. But the new houses were built in a way that left no room for the sparrows,” Sahu tells The Better India (TBI).

Additionally, other problems like the indiscriminate use of pesticides in fields and tree felling also pushed the sparrows to find a place far away from the village. “Pesticides kill all the insects that newly born sparrows feed on for the first couple of weeks. The green cover also came down with house construction activity leaving no place for sparrows to build their nest. Our homes in a way destroyed their homes,” adds Sahu. The conservationist knew that he had to put in a lot of hours first to understand the tiny bird’s way of life.

Documenting Feeding Patterns and Nesting Location of Sparrows

The documentation was a slow process. But Sahu had a lot of patience. After identifying the spots, Sahu, along with his friends, would keep rice, paddy and sprouts outside three times every day. A week later, the number of sparrows increased and by the end of the year, over 50 sparrows from the neighbouring villages made Purunabandha their home.

The next and most challenging step was to build houses for sparrows.

For the same, he roped in villagers and requested them to provide space, “My idea was to build artificial nests and distribute them for free. All a family had to do was tie pitchers from their roofs and leave some grains every day in the nest. I managed to get a few families on board for this.”

As Sahu did not have enough money to purchase wooden nests from the market, he came up with a creative and low-cost idea. He purchased 10 small earthen pitchers priced at Rs 10 each and made holes on one side for the sparrow to pick grains. He then tied them on people’s roofs.

For the next entire month, he strolled in the mornings and evenings around the ten houses to observe if the experiment was working. Interestingly, by the end of the month, he not only saw sparrows getting twigs and settling in but also saw two sparrows hatch inside.

“I could not believe my eyes. Back then, I was no expert in bird conservation but I could see my mission taking a concrete shape. This little success encouraged me to continue the drive and engage more people,” says Sahu.

With time, he had more families coming forward to help. So he purchased more pitchers from his personal savings and some funds from his NGO, Rushikulya Sea Turtle Protection Committee (RSTPC) and distributed it for free to 200 families in his and neighbouring villages.

Sahu also used other materials such as plywood, bamboo and coconut to make the nest. After eleven years of relentless efforts, Sahu’s eco-initiative is now paving the way for humans and sparrows coexisting.

Naturally, his efforts caught the attention of the media and it helped him scale up the drive across eleven districts in Odisha.  So far, Sahu has distributed more than 2,000 artificial nests for free to people who are passionate about sparrow conservation.

Even though Sahu earns Rs 30,000 per month through his research stints and his NGO, he does not mind spending Rs 80-300 per nest if it means bringing back the endangered species. Where he had to plead with people to fix an artificial nest at their house, people now call him asking for his nests.

Conservation Efforts for Olive Ridley Turtles

Sahu’s love and compassion for birds and animals dates back to 1993 when he had just completed the tenth grade. That year, biologists from the Odisha Forest Department and the Wildlife Institute of India (WIF) discovered that Rushikulya beach is an arribada (mass nesting) site of olive ridley turtles. However, instead of being happy at the find, the biologists were concerned.

They discovered how locals were eating eggs of the turtles. And beside saving them from people, the turtles also needed protection from wild animals.

To spread awareness about their impending extinction, the WIF trained a few school students in the conservation programme and Sahu was one of them.

“From educating villagers about the turtles to providing protection and tagging the turtles, I worked with the WIF team for nearly a year. The kind of work I was doing gave me immense satisfaction and I knew I wanted to do this all my life,” says Sahu.

Every nesting season, Sahu and his team of RSTPC scare away jackals and eagles. They also collect the eggs and bury them in fenced hatcheries created on the beach. Furthermore, after 45-days of incubation period, they leave the turtles in the water. The NGO also regularly conducts beach cleanup drives to ensure turtles are dissuaded by any waste.

There were around 30,000 turtles when Sahu first witnessed nesting on the beach and over the years the figure has gone into lakhs. In fact, in early March this year, 3.5 lakhs turtles were spotted on the beach, claims Sahu. Along with the District Forest Department and WIF, Sahu has played an integral role in protecting the turtles through various measures.

And for everything, all his accomplishments and accolades, Sahu credits his first project.

“If it hadn’t been for this conservation project, I would not have dedicated my life to animals and birds. It taught me the importance of all living creatures. It encouraged me to educate others and create a harmonious atmosphere for all. I hope to continue my endeavours till my final breath,” Sahu concludes.

Also Read: Chirps Galore: Awesome Varanasi Family Open Their Home To 2,500+ Sparrows!

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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When the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24th, Bengaluru-based HR professional Sachin Sabyasachi became extremely worried. His parents were thousands of kilometres away, in Bhubaneswar, living alone and without any support.

The state borders were now sealed, and the septuagenarians would find it extremely difficult to get essentials like groceries, medicines etc.

The few helpline numbers he tried were also not working or unavailable. That changed, when he got in touch with Janmejay Mohapatra, the co-founder of a software startup called Ajatus.

“My parents have no one around who can help—and since I had requested them to refrain from stepping out of home, we were all worried about how they would procure groceries and medicines. But when I reached out to Janmejay, within no time, he and his team member (Sasmita) reached out to my parents and got the list of essentials they needed. Within 24 hrs the essentials were delivered and my parents thanked me for the work done. We all truly appreciate the tremendous efforts of Ajatus,” Sachin tells The Better India (TBI)

Formed in 2014, Ajatus specializes in Machine Learning, artificial intelligence and works on data analytics. During the lockdown, the company has shifted its focus to help out senior citizens and vulnerable communities by delivering essential items at their doorsteps.

Today, Ajatus has completed over 1200 delivery requests and helped at least 600 elder citizens in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Berhampur.

What keeps them going through these difficult times, is the sheer recognition that someone out there is having an even more difficult time and that a simple home delivery can make this difficult time, easier for them.

Connecting Bhubaneswar for the welfare of senior citizens:

Odisha has at least 89 confirmed cases of COVID-19. But the state has taken several measures to flatten the curve. Through governmental and individual efforts, the citizens of Odisha are trying to curb the spread of the infection.

And the initiative by Ajatus is one such example.

“We were ahead of the COVID-19 curve, right from the start, and had implemented a work-from-home policy even before the government announced it. But when the nationwide lockdown was implemented, matters became all the more serious. It was a no-brainer for us to use our expertise to help out senior citizens. The work was to be pro bono, and the first draft of the model was ready within 24 hours,” he says.

It is a well-established fact that people above the age of 60 years are at high risk of catching the COVID-19 infection. So Ajatus focused on such citizens.

“We needed to take their comfort with technology, so we designed a simple website for them. You fill a form with your name, number, address and the service you need and leave the rest on us. Or you can call our helpline number, and we’ll be there,” Janmejay tells TBI.

Here’s the link to their website: https://www.covid19help.live/ and the helpline number is: 9090890909.

Quick deliveries for an easy lockdown period:

Ajatus has teamed up with vendors and local chains to provide the essentials during the lockdown period. They provide free delivery services as a bridge between the clients and the vendors.

“Initially, only the employees of Ajatus would deliver goods, but as word got out, more and more people in Bhubaneswar started calling us, and we had to call for external volunteers. Today, we have about 30-40 volunteers undertaking last-mile deliveries,” says the 34-year-old.

Janmejay and Girish Prasad Sahu, his business partner, have ensured that every delivery is completed within 24 hours of the request except when it comes to medicines. That is done even earlier.

Sarbeswar Senapati, who availed the services of the startup, tells TBI, “During the COVID-19 lockdown, I couldn’t get groceries from the regular local stores. When one of my relatives told me about Ajatus, I went on their website and was assisted instantly as I sent them my grocery list on WhatsApp, and they delivered the items to my home within two days. The delivery boys had come wearing masks and used a sanitizer while dealing with us. I am very grateful to them for helping out during the lockdown. I hope they help more people effectively and safely.”

The next plan for Ajatus is to form similar services for migrant and daily wage labourers where you can tag their location, and other details and Ajatus will help them out.

COVID-19 has caused disastrous situations across the world, but when kind and hardworking individuals like Janmejay and Girish put their best foot forward, it is proof that all hope is not lost.

Also Read: Covid-19: Citizens-Led Group Raises Rs 32 Lakh in a Month, Helps 1400 Poor Families

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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