Published Primers
Each primer includes Odisha reality, interventions that work, exemplar organisations, and government scheme mapping.
Child Welfare in Odisha: What the World Has Learned, and What We Must Do Differently
There is a village in Malkangiri district — one of hundreds like it — that the nearest functional primary health centre cannot reach in under three hours by road. The Anganwadi worker assigned to it hasn't been paid in six months. The Child Welfare Committee for the block meets r...
Women Empowerment in Odisha: The Revolution That Is Already Here — And the Work That Remains
She runs the hospital canteen in a district town in Ganjam. Every morning, her SHG delivers diet-chart meals to post-surgical patients — hygienic, on time, twice a day. Before Mission Shakti, she was making between ₹500 and ₹1,000 a month from a small tiffin centre she ran out of...
Social Justice & Tribal Welfare in Odisha: The Rights That Exist on Paper and the Distance to the Ground
In Kodalpalli village in Nayagarh district, women have been taking turns patrolling the forest since before their grandmothers were born. The system is called thengapalli — thenga means stick, palli means rotation. Every day, a different group of women walks the perimeter. Illega...
Education in Odisha: The School Is Full — Now Make It Work
In a primary school in a tribal block in Koraput, a Class 4 student cannot read the words on the page in front of her. She has attended school regularly for four years. She has not been failed — India's education system promotes students automatically regardless of whether they h...
Environment & Climate in Odisha: Living on the Front Line
In Kodalpalli village in Nayagarh district, women have patrolled their forest every day for forty years. In Kalahandi's Jamguda, 75 households have been collecting mahua, siali leaves, mushrooms, tubers, and bamboo from the same forest for generations — maintaining it, in the pro...
Health & Nutrition in Odisha: Distance Is a Diagnosis
She walked four hours to reach the Primary Health Centre. When she arrived, the doctor was absent. The auxiliary nurse midwife who was supposed to cover was managing three other emergencies in a building without running water. The woman had walked four hours while in early labour...
Agriculture, Handicrafts & Market Connectivity in Odisha: From Subsistence to Sovereignty
A Dongria Kondh weaver in Rayagada sits with her handloom and produces fabric that, in any urban market in India or Europe, would command a price that would transform her household economy. It takes her three days to produce one piece. The trader who comes to her village pays her...
Culture & Heritage in Odisha: Living Traditions in a Changing World
In Raghurajpur, a village ten kilometres from Puri on the banks of the Bhargabi river, every household is an artist's studio. The Chitrakaras — the painter-caste families who have lived here for generations — wake before dawn to prepare their natural pigments: the red from hingul...
Skill Development in Odisha: Training Is Not Employment
She trained for six months under a PMKVY programme in Bhubaneswar. The course was in retail management. At the end she received a certificate. The placement officer told her that her starting salary would be ₹8,500 per month — in a shopping mall in Hyderabad. She had never lived....