Naveen skips Assembly session to attend political rally

By Ratikant Mohanty
Bhubaneswar, Nov. 27: The House is yet to return to normalcy. The Opposition says it has not yet got the right reply from the chief minister Naveen Patnaik on the land acquisition deal for the proposed Vedanta University project.
When all these developments were going on in the state capital, chief minister Naveen Patnaik along with two of his senior Cabinet colleagues on Saturday skipped the winter session of the Assembly to attend a political rally at Hinjili, his assembly constituency in Ganjam district.
This evoked sharp reactions from the from the opposition Congress leaders who alleged that the chief minister was not serious to discuss matters of urgency in the House and, instead, was interested in politicking to outdo the effects of public opinion building up against his government’s “involvement” in fraudulent land grabbing and “illegal” diversion of agriculture water for industrial use.
“This is quite unfortunate that when the Opposition is seeking explanations on the floor of the House from the chief minister for his government’s patronisation to illegal land grabbing bids, Mr Patnaik, instead of remaining present here, is addressing political rallies and laying foundation stones for various projects in his constituency. This is again complete disregard to the members of the House,” Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh told reporters after the House was adjourned as pandemonium prevailed for the fifth consecutive day over land acquisition for the proposed Vedanta University project at Puri.
The chief minister’s home district Ganjam, which is riding high in the crime graph, greeted the president with chilling crime incident. Some unidentified miscreants killed local Sergarh police inspector Manoranjan Mishra by pumping several bullets into his body a few hours before the chief minister arrived in his constituency.
“It would have been great if the chief minister had visited the bereaved family of the slain police inspector to express his sympathy. Instead, he preferred to address political rally. This is quite ridiculous,” said senior Congress leader Santosh Singh Saluja.
The BJD sought to clarify that the chief minister’s visit to his constituency was not aimed at skipping the Assembly session.
“This was a pre-scheduled meeting. There is no politics in it,” a senior BJD leader, who did not want to be quoted, said.
The two other Cabinet ministers who shared dais with the chief minister in the political rally include revenue and disaster management minister Suryanaryan Patra and rural development minister Bikram Keshari Arukh.

BJP Junior College wins All Orissa Inter-School Quiz contest

BJP Junior College wins All Orissa Inter-School Quiz contest
By Saroj Kanta Nayak
Bhubaneswar: The BJB Junior College, Bhubaneswar, represented by Nishant Nihar and Jyoti P Panda have won the All Orissa Inter-School Quiz Contest organized by Tata Steel in Bhubaneswar.
The team on November 22 came out victorious in the finals held in the IDCO Exhibition ground, Unit-III, Bhubaneswar, on the sidelines of the Enterprise Orissa, 2010.
Former Director General of CSIR and Padmashree Prof P K Jena, who was the chief guest for the occasion, gave away awards to the winning teams. While Satwik Rout and Abhisek Misra of the BJB Junior College bagged the second prize, D E Paul English Medium School represented by Abinash Panigrahi and Sumeet Kumar won the third prize.
This is for the fourth time that Tata Steel organized the competition.
The quiz was a battle of wits and knowledge between the 6 participating teams selected for the final round. The display of intelligence by the students left the audience in awe who exhibited a perfect combination of knowledge and presence of mind.

Pyari-Damodar war of wards warms BJD politics

By Our Correspondent
Bhubaneswar, Nov. 10: The internal bickering in the ruling BJD, especially between the Rajya Sabha member Pyarimohan Mohapatra and senior leader Dr Damodar Rout, has now come to the fore with both the leaders indulging in a fierce war or words. Hitting back at Dr Rout’s Tuesday’s remark there was no second person other than the chief minister Naveen Patnaik to assess his performance, Mr Mohapatra said the agriculture minister was apparently perceiving “some threat” to his position as the chief minister is set to start an evaluation exercise concerning functioning of his ministers. “You earn enemies when you work sincerely and whole heartedly for your party or for that matter any organisation. We are no exception to it,” Mr Mohapatra told in an interview with the local OTV channel. Dr Rout sought back: “There was time in the past when I used to evaluate performance of the people who are now boasting of shouldering the party responsibility and out to evaluate us.” Not to be left behind, the maverick BJD RS member, not be left behind, fought back saying “Dr Rout was a veterinary doctor when I was collector and later head of Dandakaranya project. Later, I was advisor to the then chief minister (Read Biju Patnaik) I never worked under him.” The war of words began recently after Mr Mohapatra, said to be the advisor chief minister Naveen Patnaik, indicated about a ministry reshuffle basing on the performance of the ministers.
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A REWARD OF HARD WORK

Orissa Energy Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak felicitating noted woman footballer Shradhanjali Samantaray at the 13th Kalinga Book Fair in Bhubaneswar on November 7 (Photo-Piusha Mohanty)

FELICITATION OF A TRUE FRIEND:

Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei felicitating noted social worker Manzoor Ali, secretary of Sattar Smruti Sansad, Sukinda, - with Antarang Bandhu Samman at Jajpur Road on Sunday (Photo-Akshaya Rout)