The eastern Indian state of Odisha is known worldwide for seasonally hosting olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) en masse as they visit the seashore along the Bay of Bengal…
Odisha’s Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR), which spreads across an area of 2,200 square kilometres, is caught between the animals, which have earned it national fame, and the local tribal people…
Resistance among villagers that led to the South Korean steel company, POSCO, pulling out of the 12 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) integrated steel plant with captive power plant project…
Hundreds of women with painted earthen pots on their heads joined the march to a venue in the outskirts of Gambharikhol, a village in Daspalla block of Odisha’s Nayagarh district.…
With a yellow towel wrapped around his shoulders, Ganesh Majhi, 54, of Deogada village, in Belghar gram panchayat of Odisha’s Kandhamal district, is angry about the teak trees in the…
When newly-elected Member of Parliament from the east Indian state of Odisha, Pramila Bisoyi spoke in the House in her mother-tongue Odia, it was the subject of many jibes. The…
Cooking gas is an unnecessary luxury, said Simaru Kandi from Musapada village in Odisha’s Puri district. “Nature has given us all resources to lead a bountiful life,” explained Simaru. “Whenever…
Till less than a month ago, a lush forest area in Talabira village in Odisha’s Sambalpur district was standing tall, with trees several decades old. The morning of December 7,…
“Welcome to the land of cyclone Fani”. “Oh! You are in time for the cyclone season”. These are not unexpected greetings in this corner of the world. After all, the…
Bulbul, one of the most recent tropical cyclonic storms, wreaked havoc in southern West Bengal along with parts of Odisha on 8th and 9th November 2019. The storm is said to…
The salty air in Penthakatha’s slum, a speck at the edge of the Bay of Bengal, stings mildly with the stench of dried fish. Streams of dirty brown water meander…
In the latest budget session of the Odisha Legislative State Assembly, State forest and environment minister Bikram Keshari Arukha hinted at the extent of mining the northern region of the…
At 60, Bairagi Patra does not need a book or a white paper to understand the value of the environment. Patra, a marginal farmer and daily wage earner, who lives…
In a mangrove clump in Balasore in coastal Odisha, a youth gingerly snips away at the tangles of a fishing net around an upturned crab-like struggling creature, as it desperately…
Women in villages surrounding Ansupa, Odisha’s largest natural freshwater lake, are a happier lot since the work on the restoration of the wetland ecosystem began. It’s almost as if their…
As Fani-struck Odisha rebuilds itself brick by brick, affected communities in temporary shelters are trying to move on, a month after the extremely severe cyclone hit the state. But for…
The indigenous people (adivasis) living around the Kodingamali hill in Koraput district of the state of Odisha have launched a fresh agitation against the Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC). Aggrieved by…
High-speed winds had smacked into sturdy mango trees and shaken the fruits away. They were all over the ground. Extremely severe cyclonic storm Fani’s dread had barely passed. Rashmi Behera…
On May 3, the coastal state of Odisha in eastern India witnessed Fani, an ‘extremely severe cyclonic storm’ and the first major cyclone of the 2019 North Indian Ocean cyclone…
The Bonda people, scattered across 32 remote hilltop villages on the Kondakamberu mountain range of the Eastern Ghats in the Malkangiri district of Odisha, are one of the 13 particularly…