‘Rangabati’ music composer Prabhudatta Pradhan passes away
Following is a report from the TOI:
Music composer of popular Sambalpuri song Rangabati, Prabhudatta Pradhan, today passed away at his residence in Odisha following prolonged illness, family sources said.
Active in the field of music for 45 years, Pradhan had popularised Sambalpuri music and had bagged 14 prestigious awards for his contribution in the field of Samabalpuri music.
He had expertise in percussion instruments like ‘Dhol’ and ‘Mandal’.
The Rangabati song which earned him fame in 1975, was written by Mitrabhanu Gountia and sung by Jitendra Haripal and Krishna Patel.
Born in 1943, Prabhudatta started learning music under his father at the age of three. He was influenced by his father late Pravas Chandra Pradhan to sing bhajans or Hindu religious songs at home even though they were Christians. Pradhan learnt tabla from Pandit Jadunath Supkar at Benaras in Uttar Pradesh. He had joined the All India Radio (AIR), Sambalpur station as an instrumentalist in 1969.
Foundation stone laid for LPG bottling plant at Balangir
Following is a report from the telegraphindia.com:
Bhubaneswar: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) will set up an LPG bottling plant in Balangir. This will be the BPCL’s second LPG bottling plant in Odisha.
Union minister of petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan will lay the foundation stone for the proposed plant on May 21. Union minister of social justice and empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot will also be present on the occasion.
Regional LPG manager (east) Atul Kumar said: “We are committed to provide LPG gas to our consumers on time. We already have an LPG bottling plant at Khurda. This will be our second plant in the state that is going to be constructed in Balangir.”
The new LPG bottling plant will be constructed at Barkhani village, around 12km from Balangir railway station. The plant will come up on 23 acres and will have the capacity to produce 42 lakh cylinders per year. The plant is expected to be operational by March 2020.
Once commissioned, the plant will supply LPG cylinders to the consumers in 14 districts of Odisha – Balangir, Jharsuguda, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Bargarh, Kalahandi, Sonepur, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Boudh, Kandhamal, Raygada and Nuapada.
Odisha govt releases Rs 202 crore for proposed Kalahandi medical college and hospital
Following is a report from the TOI:
BHUBANESWAR: The state government has sanctioned and released Rs 202.39 crore for the proposed medical college and hospital in Kalahandi district.
With infusion of funds, the construction of the medical college will start soon, health minister Pratap Jena said.
The tertiary care heath institution will fulfill long-time aspirations of the people of the region. The people of the district and nearby regions will no longer have to travel to cities for advanced and specialised treatment, thereby saving on out-of-pocket expenditure on health.
It will also usher in a new era of socio-economic development in the region.
The minister said the project will be undertaken on Turnkey basis under supervision of works department. The state budget has allocated Rs 302.39 crore for the MCH and tendering process is set to begin soon. Ancilliary establishments like 300 seat men’s hostel and 150 seat women’s hostel, 100 senior resident and 60 seat hostel for nurses will also be constructed along with 86 residential quarters for faculty members and doctors. Besides, 150 seat nursing hostel, 36 quarters for paramedical staff and a 650 seat state-of-the-art auditorium will be constructed.
The construction of the hospital building will be undertaken by Vedanta Limited as per agreement with state Government. The cost of the project is estimated at Rs 100 crore to be borne by the company.
Jena said the Kalahandi Medical College is targetted to be completed and ready within two years.
The Kalahandi MCH will add 100 MBBS doctors to the strength in the state every year.
MCI team visits proposed Balangir Medical College
Following is a report from the TNIE:
BALANGIR: A three-member team from Medical Council of India (MCI) visited the proposed medical college and hospital here on Tuesday. The MCI team wanted to ascertain whether the available infrastructure in the college fulfilled the requirements for getting operational from the upcoming academic session.
The visit is significant especially when the aspirants are going to appear for NEET, the national level entrance test for admission into various medical colleges in the country, on May 7. The admission process may begin in July.The Medical Council team consisted of Nandaraja, Kamal and Gangadhar Gouda. Dean of Balangir Medical College and Hospital Lalit Kumar Meher accompanied the team during their visit. The team visited the college and hospital in two groups.
Team member Nandaraja accompanied by Medical College dean Lalit Kumar Meher visited the main hospital campus, including the medicine ward, surgery ward, TB department, casualty and the maternity and child hospital. The other team comprising Kamal and Gangadhar accompanied by Balangir chief district medical officer Sugyanendra Mishra concentrated on the outpatient department and some newly constructed structures near the main campus of the hospital.
MCI team will visit Balangir Medical College ahead of first academic session
Following is a report from the Samaja
Odisha govt signs MoU with Vedanta for medical college in Kalahandi
Following is a report from the http://odishasuntimes.com :
Kalahandi: The Odisha government today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Vedanta Group, a globally diversified natural resources company, to set up a 500-bedded medical college and hospital in Bhawanipatna in the district.
The tribal-dominated district had hit the headlines of national and international media and caused embarassement to the State government for its poor healthcare facilities after the Dana Majhi episode in August, 2016.
The MoU was signed in presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and State Health and Family Welfare Minister Pratap Jena.
Sonamali Bag, Director of Medical Education & Training (DMET) of the State government and Rahul Sharma, Director of Corporate Strategy at Vedanta, signed the agreement.
As per the agreement, total Rs 350 crore will be invested for setting up the proposed medical college, of which Vedanta will spend around Rs 100 crore.
While the State government will run the medical college and hospital, Vedanta will develop infrastructure support for it.
Official sources said as many as 100 MBBS seats will be available in the medical college.
The Chief Minister has directed the Family and Welfare Department to start the construction work of the proposed medical college soon and complete as early as possible.
Chief Secretary AP Padhi, Development Commissioner R Balkrishnan, MLAs of Kalahandi district among other officials were present.
Notably, in April last year, the CM had announced to set up new medical colleges at Koraput, Mayurbhanj, Puri, Bolangir, Balasore, Kalahandi and Keonjhar to tide over the shortage of doctors in the State.
Patnaik had laid the foundation stone of the medical college at Bhangabari in Bhawanipatna, the district headquarters town of Kalahandi, in November 2016.
Ancient sculpture of Nataraja unearthed at Durgapali, Sambalpur
Following is a report from the TNIE:
SAMBALPUR: The recovery of an ancient stone sculpture of Nataraja at Dungrapali, located on downstream of Hirakud Dam, by teams of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) is believed to throw more light on the flourishing Shaivism in the region.INTACH teams, who are documenting both tangible and intangible heritage along both sides of the Mahanadi river in the State, stumbled upon the ancient sculpture on the embankment of the Devi water body.
Lord Shiva is also known as Nataraja – the Cosmic Dancer. It is believed that the idol dates back to 7th or 8th century. The idol has been kept in the custody of the district Collector and will be put up for display in the new museum coming up at Sambalpur. Similarly, the top portion of old Gudeswar temple was also recovered and stored safely in the district collectorate. The recovery was made on the information of residents of Durgapali to the INTACH teams.
Historian and culture enthusiast Deepak Panda, who is leading the teams in Sambalpur, said it seems to be the ‘Chuda’ or ‘Amalaka’ of an ancient temple. It is four feet high, three feet wide and weighs around 200 kgs. Panda further informed that the idol reflects Lord Shiva in Tandava form and since it was protruding from earth, it is believed that there could be a temple beneath. A clear picture will emerge after excavation, he said.
He further revealed that many such ruins of temples, which have been collected by locals, are being studied. It is suspected that the temple of which the ruins belong may have been damaged by invaders, Panda said. Seven teams, which were flagged off by Chairman of INTACH LK Gupta on January 15, will document the heritage, bio-diversity and food habits of people residing along the banks of the Mahanadi. They will cover nearly 1,000 km on the both sides of the river from upper reaches of Hirakud to its merger with the Bay of Bengal near Paradip in Jagatsinghpur. The work also entails cultural mapping of Mahanadi, which has around 50 per cent of its total course flowing in Odisha. The team will cover undivided Sambalpur, Sonepur, Boudh, Angul, Nayagarh and Cuttack districts under the project.
Admission to Balangir Medical College will start from Sept 2018
Following is a report from the Telegraph:
Balangir: The state government has announced that admission to Balangir medical college would begin from the coming academic session.
The health and family welfare department’s commissioner-cum-secretary Pramod Meherda announced this on Thursday evening. Meherda, who is the nodal officer for Balangir, is on a tour of the district.
Earlier, delegates of various organisations of Balangir such as the Balangir Citizen Committee, Bhumika, Being Human and the Balangir Merchants’ Association met Meherda and raised the issue of the proposed college.
After a meeting with district collector N. Turumala Nayak, project director of the Balangir district rural development agency Maheswar Mallik and chief district medical officer Sugyanendra Mishra, Meherda told reporters that admission of the first batch of MBBS in Balangir medical college would commence from the coming session.
He said all preparations were going on to ensure that the college became functional from September. “Things are going pretty well, and we have enough time to complete the requisite works before the medical college becomes functional in September,” he said.
Meherda further said a Medical Council of India team had visited to take stock of the college infrastructure last year and would pay a visit again in April. “Last year, the council had visited the proposed college site to study its infrastructure. They would visit again in April,” Meherda said.Meherda also paid a visit to the 100-student strength medical college building and other infrastructures on the campus at Gandhrel, the site of the proposed college. He also visited the 300-bed hospital.The news has brought cheer among the aspirants, who are going to appear for the NEET, the national-level entrance test for admission into various medical colleges in the country.
Harish Rout, who would take the exam in May, said he was elated to hear that there would be admission in Balangir medical college in the coming session. “At last, the dream of the people of Balangir is going to be fulfilled,” he said. The UPA government at the Centre had in 2014 planned government medical colleges in four places in the state – Koraput, Balangir, Baripada and Balasore. Student admissions to the colleges in Koraput and Baripada had begun in the last academic session in 2017.
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