Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Monday stepped up air-dropping of food packets as flood situation continued to be grim with Mahanadi river flowing above the danger mark in delta region, affecting 14 lakh people and snapping road links with about 1,000 villages.

Flood in Mahanadi, Subarnarekha, Budhabalanga and Baitarani rivers affected 14 lakh people in 19 of the 30 districts of the state where 17 people were killed and 11 others are missing, officials said.

BHUBANESWAR: Exhibiting dry paddy saplings in the Assembly, Opposition Congress and BJP members on Thursday demanded declaration of drought in the State without waiting for eye estimation report on kharif crop status.
Participating in the adjournment motion on drought situation, Congress member from Kantabanji Santosh Singh Saluja showed a bundle of dry paddy saplings to the members. He said the crop situation is very bad in his district due to scanty rainfall and kharif operation has come to a halt.

Bolangir district in Orissa, facing drought conditions since 1965, sees an annual mass migration of farmers to other States in search of work.

SURESH GOHIR of Bhotapada village in the backward Bolangir district of Orissa consumed pesticide two years ago after his paddy crop failed. He survived the suicide attempt but found life doubly difficult as debt had mounted.

Dilip Bisoi
Bhubaneswar,

THE GOVT MAY THINK OF LINKING SASUBAHUMALI MINES WITH THE VEDANTA PROJECT.
SASUBAHUMALI IS ALSO EMBROILED IN LITIGATION
With the Niyamgiri mines out of reach, the Orissa government may think of allotting an alternative bauxite mines to Vedanta Resources in order to save at leastthe1-million-tonnerefinery at Lanjigarh.

Unimpressed by the progress made under the well-known KBK assistance plan, where over Rs 1,600 crore has been spent over the last decade, a concerned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Planning Commission to immediately carry out a fresh time-bound re-evaluation of the programme with special focus on the state of poverty and hunger.

The Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) here, in association with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai, and other organisations, have launched an initiative to end chronic hunger in the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) regions of Orissa by 2015.

Akshaya Kumar Sahoo

Jhintu Bariha and his family members were victims of chronic hunger. A migrant labourer, illiterate Jhintu never availed of the social security measures -- either job at the door step or government supplied food -- until he lost two of his three children.