Odisha Rolls Out Robust Kharif 2026 Strategy to Counter Below-Normal Monsoon & El Niño Forecast

Odisha rolls out robust Kharif 2026 strategy to counter below-normal monsoon & El Niño forecast. ==================================

By

Sudhir MishraBolangir

May29,2026

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Bolangir; In response to the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) forecast of below-normal South-West monsoon rainfall and potential El Niño impacts in the state, Deputy Chief Minister, Agriculture, Farmers' Empowerment & Energy Minister Shri Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo on Wednesday chaired a high-level virtual review meeting to deploy a comprehensive Kharif 2026 crop contingency and preparedness strategy.

Addressing district administrations via video conference on Wednesday (May 27), SinghDeo issued directives for all departments, district authorities, and research institutions to work in absolute coordination to safeguard farmers' interests during the upcoming season.

 Those main four points of directive include seed management & climate-resilient agriculture, fertilizer security & anti-hoarding measures, crop insurance & Agristak, and technical support & field awareness.

  To keep adequate seeds for farmers, Singhdeo directed the managing director of Odisha State Seeds Corporation (OSSC) to ensure the timely distribution of certified seeds by the first week of June 2026,prioritizing remote and vulnerable districts. Interestingly, in those areas, there is a rainfall deficit history, or areas are vulnerable to rainfall deficit;the focus is on short-duration varieties, and authorities must ensure an adequate supply and focus on short- and medium-duration paddy, pulses, oilseeds, and millet seeds.

Moreover, as part of crop diversification & contingency, Singhdeo directed the district teams to actively promote crop diversification in upland and rainfed areas. In the event of a delayed monsoon, a community nursery approach is to be adopted. The Orissa State Seed Corporation (OSSC) must maintain an adequate reserve stock of paddy, pulses, and oilseed seeds to handle any weather-related exigencies. ,Singhdeo stressed further.

 MARKFED, PACS, and LAMPCS must ensure seamless, last-mile fertilizer delivery to farmers. An uninterrupted supply must be maintained by the fertilizer companies despite global market uncertainties.

Strict Enforcement: District collectors have been instructed to closely supervise fertilizer distribution. The state will enforce zero-tolerance measures against black marketing, hoarding, and illegal diversion of fertilizers.

 Agriculture officials must maximize farmer enrollment under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). To minimize the financial burden on cultivators, the state government of Odisha is bearing the complete premium of the farmer's share (up to 2 hectares per farmer), requiring only a token validation fee of ₹1/- per application. The district teams must accelerate and complete their farmer registry targets. Registration is mandatory for farmers to seamlessly access benefits under PM-KISAN, CM-KISAN, subsidized fertilizer/seed purchases, and government procurement, Singhdeo says further.

Singhdeo informed that Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT), through its Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), will provide real-time, location-specific, weather-based agro-advisories. OUAT will also extend technical support for pest management and stress-tolerant crop varieties. : Crop advisories must be prominently displayed on LED screens at both district and state levels to maximize reach.

The district contingency teams remain active throughout the Kharif season, and the Field officers are mandated to regularly visit villages, interact directly with farmers, and conduct extensive awareness programs regarding dry-spell preparedness as a part of technical support & field awareness and real-time agro-advisories, the agriculture minister stressed further. 

 The meeting was attended by Commissioner-cum-Secretary (Agriculture & FE) Shri Sachin Ramchandra Jadhav, Commissioner-cum-Secretary (Co-operation Department) Shri Rajesh Pravakar Patil, Vice Chancellor of OUAT Dr. Pravat Kumar Roul, Director of Agriculture & Food Production Shri Shubham Saxena, Director of Horticulture Shri Kalunge Gorakh Waman, Director of IMD, Dr. Manorama Mohapatra, Collector of Balangir Gourav Shivaji Isalwar, and other senior departmental officers.

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Kalbhairab statue located in Harishankar Temple damaged: Complaints lodged , seek action against culprits and protection of heritage structures

 

Sudhir Mishra/Bolangir.

 The Kalbhairab statue located in Harishankar Temple was damaged on May 21 by some unknown miscreants, causing concern and hurting the sentiments of local people. The statue is a historically and religiously significant antiquity, believed to have been made and installed during the 6th-7th century BC. It holds deep religious and cultural importance for the Adivasi communities of the region. The deity is revered as a goddess associated with ancient knowledge of chemistry and is linked to Buddhist traditions, where a similar form is known as Kalantak Bhairab, points out a complaint submitted to the police. The act appears to be a deliberate and malicious attempt to insult and outrage the religious sentiments of the Adivasi communities and followers of the deity. It constitutes an act of religious betrayal and vandalism of a protected cultural heritage site, it said. It is pertinent to mention that several other ancient statues and heritage structures in the surrounding areas of Harishankar Temple and Gandhamardhan hills are also vulnerable and lack proper security and safeguards. 

The incident highlights the urgent need for protection of the sites. The Gandhmardan Yuba Surakhya Parishad and the Kosal Mukti Morcha have lodged a complaint with Khaprakhol police, seeking strong action against the culprits.

Female Jumbo found dead in a nullah in Bolangir

Bolangir 

January2, 2026

Bolangir: A female subadult Jumbo was found dead in a nullah near village Limpada, in Titilagarh Forest Range, on Friday morning.

Getting information, forest officials, including Divisional Forest Officer Bolangir, AK Bisi, rushed to the spot.

 "We tracked the movement of this single elephant for the last seven days. We believe the Jumbo came from the Kalahandi (North) forest area to the Bolangir district forest, says Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Bolangir, Ajit Bisi.

  "It appears that while coming to drink water, the elephant fell down and died. Moreover, a preliminary impression of the elephant dung revealed that there were some problems in his digestive system.

However, the exact cause of death of the elephant would be known after the postmortem report is available," says Bisi, further.

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Sensory evaluation of paddy crop held in Bolangir

Bolangir: 

November 12, 2025

A cooking quality cum sensory evaluation program at the crop cafeteria was held on Tuesday at Mayabarah village, around 22 km from here. 

 The crop cafeteria is a patch of field wherein several varieties of paddy are cultivated for demonstration and evaluation.

 Organized by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment (DAF&E), members of the Shibani Self Help Group (SHG) cooked and served the samples of eight healthier rice varieties. including CR Dhan-411, CR Dhan-315, and Swarna Shakti.

  Among others, Telangana Sona, BRRI-69, DRR-67, DRR-69, DRR-63, and the aromatic Rajendra Kasturi variety of rice were evaluated for appearance, tenderness, aroma, taste, elongation, and overall acceptability. 

 

Telangana Sona, DRR-69 (BRRI-100), DRR-67 (BRRI-84), BRRI-69, and CR Dhan-411 emerged as the most preferred for their balance of taste, texture, and aroma. Farmers also shared field-level feedback, ranking BRRI-69 highest for yield and grain quality, followed by Telangana Sona and BRRI-84.

 

The initiative, managed by Shibani Self Help Group (SHG), aims to showcase diverse, healthier, and specialty rice varieties suited for local conditions and nutritional needs.

 

 KBK scientist Manoj Barik, Chief District Agriculture Officer (CDAO) Bolangir Dhirendra Singh Bariha, farmers, and other agricultural officials of the district participated in this evaluation ceremony.

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Jumbo rescued from the well in Bolangir.Injured one Forester,while fleeing into the Forest.

 13Nov,2025.

Bolangir: A juvenile Jumbo, which fell into an abandoned shallow well near Bijamal village in the Tikhari Reserve Forest in the Muribahal forest range, was rescued by forest personnel and others on Thursday morning.

 
According to reports on Thursday night, the night a Jumbo fell into an abandoned shallow well in Bijamal village and was unable to come out.

 After getting information, Muribahal Forest Range staff and others rushed to the spot and took measures, like making a passage to the well, so that Jumbo could come out. After around two hours of effort, the Jumbo could come out. While fleeing into the forest, it injured a forester, says Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Bolangir, Ajit Bisi, to this correspondent over the phone.

The forester, identified as Pradeep Nath, works with the Kenduleaf wing of the forest department.

 The Jumbo was inside the well for hours and was not able to come out. It was in a mentally stressed condition. When it came out from inside the well, rather than going into the forest in the expected way, it moved in another direction and ran fast, and while fleeing, the jumbo injured the forester. 

 
A total of 60 elephants have been staying in groups in different patches of Tikhari Reserve Forest in the Muribahal forest range for the last nine months.

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Astronomers’ &RAD@home citizen science Mumbai, discovered Odd Radio Circle (ORC).

October 19, 2025

By

Sudhir Mishra/Bolangir 

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The most distant and most powerful ‘odd radio circle’ (ORC) known so far has been discovered by astronomers and Researchers led by the University of Mumbai made their discovery with the help of RAD@home citizen science.

ORCs are enormous, faint, ring-shaped structures of radio emission surrounding galaxies that are visible only in the radio band of the electromagnetic spectrum and consist of relativistic, magnetised plasma. Previous  research has suggested they might be caused by shockwaves from merging supermassive black holes or galaxies.

Researchers led by the University of Mumbai made their discovery with the help of The RAD@home citizen science and the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope operating at low frequencies (10 to 240 megahertz).

The source, designated RAD J131346.9+500320, lies nearly at redshift ~0.94 (when the universe was half its current age), making it both the most distant and the most powerful ORC known to date. It also has not one but two intersecting rings – only the second such example with this feature – sparking more questions than answers.

 “This work shows how professional astronomers and citizen scientists together can push the boundaries of scientific discovery.

“ ORCs are among the most bizarre and beautiful cosmic structures we’ve ever seen—and they may hold vital clues about how galaxies and black holes co-evolve, hand-in-hand.” RAD J131346.9+500320 is the first ORC discovered through citizen science and the first identified with the help of LOFAR says Dr Ananda Hota, founder of the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory for citizen science research.Mumbai.

 

These curious rings are a relatively new astronomical phenomenon, having been detected for the first time just six years ago. Only a handful of confirmed examples are known so far. They typically are 10-20 times the size of our Milky Way galaxy.

 

Now, a new study published today(Wednesay) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society proposes that the rings of light may actually be linked to superwind outflows from spiral host radio galaxies.

LOFAR is a cutting-edge pan-European radio telescope, with hundreds of thousands of simple antennas spread across the Netherlands and partner stations in many European countries. Working together as one giant interferometer, it provides an exceptionally sharp and sensitive view of the sky at low radio frequencies. It enables astronomers to look back billions of years to a time before the first stars and galaxies formed and survey vast areas of the low-frequency radio sky.

Alongside this discovery, the RAD@home Collaboratory also found two other unusual cosmic giants with radio rings.

The first, RAD J122622.6+640622, is a galaxy nearly three million light-years across—more than 30 times the size of our Milky Way. One of its powerful jets suddenly bends sideways, as if forced off course, and then blows a spectacular radio ring about 300,000 light-years wide.

The second, RAD J142004.0+621715, stretches across 1.4 million light-years and shows a similar ring of radio emission at the end of one of its jets, with another narrow radio jet on the other side of the host galaxy.

Both galaxies sit in crowded regions of space called galaxy clusters, where their jets likely interact with surrounding matter, million degree hot thermal plasma, which shapes these striking cosmic structures.

All three objects are found in galaxy clusters weighing about 100 trillion Suns, suggesting that interactions of relativistic magnetized plasma jets with the surrounding hot thermal plasma may help shape these rare rings.

 “These discoveries show that ORCs and radio rings are not isolated curiosities—they are part of a broader family of exotic plasma structures shaped by black hole jets, winds, and their environments,” says Dr. Pratik Dabhade, of the Astrophysics division of the National Centre for Nuclear Research, in Warsaw, Poland.

“The fact that citizen scientists uncovered them highlights the continued importance of human pattern recognition, even in the age of machine learning.”

With upcoming facilities such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), astronomers expect many more ORCs to be uncovered.

At the same time, new optical surveys such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will provide the redshifts and environments of their host galaxies, helping to piece together how these mysterious rings form and evolve.

For now, these three new cosmic rings—discovered not by automated software but by sharp-eyed citizen scientists—represent an important step toward unlocking the secrets of these vast, puzzling structures. 

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( "Most powerful 'odd radio circle' to date is discovered".

The Press Release was issued by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS; UK) a couple of hours ago, on 2nd October,2025).
Link to the RAS Press Release:   https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/most-powerful-odd-radio-circle-date-discovered
The press release from RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India) with additional images, animation videos and educational slides can be found at the following link  
https://radathomeindia.org/press-release-2025-most-powerful-odd-radio-circle-to-date-is-discovered

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Bolangir Sarpanchs urge Government to solve their problems

October 16, 2025.

Thursday.

Bolangir: President of Sarpanch Mahasangha Bolangir, Birabar Sahu, has urged the government to take steps to solve the problems of PRI members so that they could work properly in panchayats.

 

Speaking to the media at the third annual meeting here on Wednesday, Sahu pointed out that, as per section 24 of Odisha Gram Panchayat Act 1964, a no-confidence motion can be brought against a sarpanch after two and a half years.

 

This is an old provision. A lot of administrative changes have taken place in the meanwhile thanks to technology and regular monitoring of panchayats. It has been seen that in many cases, this provision is being used to settle political scores. PRI members are affected in this process. We urge the government, either to amend or remove the provision, to ensure a stable term for sarpanch for speedy development of Panchayats in five years.

 

 

During the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan, the Central Government was giving money directly to panchayats. However, in the 15th Five-Year Plan, the percentage of sanctioned money was reduced from 100 to 60 percent. We urge the Government


to restore to its original form of providing 100% in the next five-year plan, Sahu says further

 

After the electrification in rural areas and water supply, Grampanchayat is making payments for electricity charges and water supply project expenses, which has become burdensome.

Moreover, even after submission of the action plan by the Panchayat in time, both Central and State assistance are not provided in time, affecting the development activities and creating a lot of problems for sarpanch. We urge the government to look into this matter and sort out the problem by the sarpanch to ensure speedy development in grassroot areas to make a prosperous Odisha, Sahu says further.

Earlier, Kantabanji

MLA Laxman Bag said that the government is taking steps to strengthen PRI system in the state . He assured to look into their demands.

Bolangir Zilla Parishad Chairman Devaki Sahu also supported the genuine demands of the sarpanch.