Senior BJP leader and former MP M A Kharabela Swain on Tuesday announced severing of ties with the party alleging undue interference and control of RSS in party affairs and said he will soon launch a new political outfit as an alternative to ruling BJD in Orissa.
Samantarai's hat-trick enabled Orissa trounce Kerala and join Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Manipur in the semi-finals of the National Games women's football tournament.
The Orissa government on Monday said it will within the next three months, remove all hurdles to South Korean steel giant Posco's Rs 52,000 crore (Rs 520 billion) plant in the state amid a possible review of investment.
Flood condition worsened in Orissa on Friday with four major rivers submerging around 600 villages in the state.
Freedom fighter and former Orissa chief minister Nilamani Routray, whose political career spanned nearly half a century, passed away in Cuttack on Monday following a prolonged illness.
Mittal and his son Aditya landed at Bhubaneswar airport around 0930 hours in a chartered aircraft and headed for the state secretariat to meet Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his cabinet colleagues.
Rains hindered air dropping of food and relief operations for the second day on Thursday, as over 1,250 villages remained marooned in the flood-affected Mahanadi delta in Orissa.
In a major blow to the National Democratic Alliance, the Biju Janata Dal announced on Saturday that it had split from the Bharatiya Janata Dal, over failure to reach a seat sharing deal for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls."The BJP-BJD will contest separately," Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told reporters, adding that 'winnability' was the reason behind the break up in the decade-old alliance.
"The way mineral and water guzzling heavy industries are being pushed, the fast pace of deforestation and mercurial behaviour of climate could cause desertification of state's land even faster."
Over four months after she was allegedly raped during communal violence in Orissa's Kandhamal district, a Catholic nun on Monday finally identified two persons for involvement in the incident during a test identification parade, which was earlier deferred thrice.The 29-year-old nun identified two persons from a line-up of 90 during the identification parade, which was held at the high-security Choudwar jail in Cuutack and not in Kandhamal, following a HC direction.
Prohibitory orders were on Sunday clamped in communally-sensitive Kandhmal district and security tightened across Orissa after the killing of a prominent Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader and his five associates sparked protests in the state with a prayer house being torched.
In another bid to mobilise funds for the cash-strapped realty major Unitech, promoter Ramesh Chandra and his family are in talks with leading Indian and global steel giants to sell their 25 per cent stake in Bhubaneswar-headquartered Orissa Sponge Iron & Steel Ltd.Investment banks said the Chandras, who bought the stake sometime in 2006 and 2007, are in talks with Korean steel giant Posco and Delhi-based Bhushan Steel, which owns 6 per cent in the firm.
Bengali-speaking settlers in Mahakalapada and Rajnagar blocks would now have to produce the proof to have settled in the areas for at least 20 years, official sources said on Tuesday. Unless they corroborate 20-years nativity status, application of these linguistic groups will not merit consideration for government aided social security schemes.
The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal demanded Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's resignation over the horrific triple train crash in neighbouring Odisha.
The Orissa state government has shifted nearly 4000 people living in coastal villages in Kendrapara district's Satabhaya gram panchayat due to their villages being engulfed by the sea.
A day after a case of sexual abuse was registered against Orissa Assembly Speaker Maheswar Mohanty, the complainant lady marshal was untraceable.Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday asserted that his government always stood for proper action as per law. Patnaik, however, skirted queries about the possibility of the Speaker's resignation. The Speaker, who has denied the charge of sexual abuse, promised to cooperate with the police in the investigation.
Two days after receiving a complaint of sexual harassment from a woman employee of Orissa Assembly, the police on Saturday registered a case against Speaker Maheswar Mohanty, charging him with intending to outrage her modesty. Earlier on March 27, the lady marshal had filed an FIR with the police alleging sexual harassment by the Speaker. The police, however, took two days to register a case as it could not contact the victim or any other person from her family.
39-year-old Majhi, a prominent tribal leader, who represented Umerkote assembly constituency, had gone to Gona village to distribute land pattas when the incident took place, Director General of Police Manmohan Praharaj said.
Politically, BJD chief Naveen Patnaik has grown so amazingly fast that today he is on steady ground to give a hard punch to the BJP.
The Tata Group has decided to defer its plan of setting up a rural business process outsourcing unit near the proposed steel plant at Kalinganagar in Orissa by two years.
Orissa could be on the cusp of a new era of industrialisation with the state government considering proposals for Rs 122,000 crore (Rs 1,220 billion) in investments, mainly in steel, alumina and power sectors, official sources said.
With five more persons succumbing to dengue, the toll in the mosquito-borne disease in Orissa rose to 14 on Monday, official sources said.
All entry points to the riot-ravaged Kandhamal district of Orissa were sealed and security tightened in view of a special prayer meeting to be held later on Friday to pay homage to slain VHP leader Laxmanananda Saraswati.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Monday visited the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel site for a review of the rescue operations being carried out there to evacuate 40 labourers trapped inside since Sunday morning following its partial collapse.
The plan includes raising the capacity of its aluminium smelter to 2 million tonne, Lanjigarh alumina refinery capacity to 5 million tonne per annum and generation of 4,000 MW power in the state. About 700 small and medium enterprises can come up in the proposed aluminium park. Vedanta will not only supply the metal required for these units, but also supply them power from its 4,000 MW power plant in the locality.
"Now it is a ground zero situation. The people of Orissa would hit back and give a befitting reply to Patnaik and his party for the betrayal. The BJP occupies the non-Congress space in Orissa," Javedekar added.
Citing lack of "credible evidence", Orissa Human Rights Commission on Thursday gave a clean chit to former assembly Speaker Maheshwar Mohanty in a case relating to sexual harassment charges levelled against him by a lady marshal of the House. "In view of lack of credible evidence and variation in statements of the victim, we are closing the case," Commission's Chairman Justice R K Patra said adding the allegations made by lady marshal Gayatri Panda could not be established"
The Orissa assembly plunged into a crisis as the Opposition Congress occupied the podium demanding immediate resignation of the Speaker for his alleged involvement in the case. Minutes before the House commenced, Opposition members rushed to the podium thus preventing Deputy Speaker Prahallada Dora to conduct the business. The Speaker had on Wednesday made a statement describing the allegation levelled against him by the woman employee as 'false and baseless'.
Virender Sehwag returned to lead the Delhi team as selectors picked up a 15-member squad for the Ranji Trophy match against Orissa, scheduled from November 29 at the capital.
With Naxalite activities continuing to spread in Orissa, the state has decided to prepare a comprehensive strategy to control violence by Maoist activists and restore law and order in trouble-torn areas.
The two-week-long search operation in the Balimela reservoir in Malkangiri district of Orissa has been completed by the search teams from the Andhra Pradesh police and Indian Navy as all the 38 bodies of Greyhound commandos and police personnel were found.
The Orissa assembly witnessed pandemonium scenes for the second day on Friday over the abduction of Malkangiri District Collector R V Krishna with the opposition and treasury bench members virtually clashing in the Speaker's podium. The uproar erupted as soon as the House assembled for the day for question hour.
A bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar directed the CBI to conduct the probe on the basis of the survey reports provided by the petitioner, CAG report and the National Institute of Rural Development.
Orissa has said that the 43 steel firms in the state plan to generate 58,510 jobs by the time the projects go on stream.
The villagers who support the Posco project had also invited Ramesh to visit the proposed plant site to assess the truth behind their rivals' claim about the Rs 52,000 crore (Rs 520 billion) mega steel plant.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal-controlled Vedanta Resources has decided not to pursue a proposal to build a Rs 20,000-crore (Rs 200 billion) five-million-tonne steel project in Orissa in view of its strategy to focus on non-ferrous and iron ore businesses, two highly-placed sources in the company said on Tuesday.
Twelve churches and prayer houses were ransacked and torched by suspected saffron activists in several areas of Kandhamal district in Orissa in the early hours of Thursday.
The Election Commission on Monday announced two-phased assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa on April 16 and 23 and a single-phased polling in Sikkim on April 30.
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