Articles by Basudev Mahapatra

One morning, nearly a month after Cyclone Fani struck Odisha, Ashok Baral, a citizen of Bhubaneswar, came upon a fallen trunk of a banyan tree near the Stewart School boundary wall. The tree had been uprooted by the cyclonic storm Fani, which hit the city on May 3, 2019. Recalling that particular moment, Ashok says, “Though it was my regular route home from the milk vendor, it seemed as if the helpless trunk of the tree was trying to tell me something on this particular day. I stayed there, looked at the trunk for some time, and wrote a message…

Cyclone Fani in early May was one more reminder for Bhubaneswar of its vulnerability to extreme weather events, and the massive damage to urban infrastructure that such events could bring about, even in an upcoming ‘smart’ city. Fani left Bhubaneswar in shambles  in its trail, with uprooted trees all around falling on roads and buildings, disrupting major services like supply of water and electricity as well as Internet connectivity. Life in the city remained miserable for weeks. Last year too, life in the city had been severely disrupted, as it almost went under water following unusually heavy rainfall of nearly…

Cyclone Fani blew in and out of Orissa nearly two weeks back. But relief and rehabilitation of lakhs of affected people in Puri, Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar is yet to pick up pace. Pitching in, mainly in Bhubaneshwar, with the aim of getting local communities involved in the restoration works is Civil Society Responds to Fani (CSRF), an initiative by a group of state-based not-for-profit organisations. While the state and central government’s disaster response teams are busy clearing roads and rebuilding the electricity and other infrastructure networks, CSRF volunteers are trying to mobilise residents to participate in the work being done…

Days after Cyclone Fani hit Odisha, ravaged its towns and cities and proceeded further towards the north-east, the capital city of Bhubaneswar remains in shambles. Water supply is still severely disrupted in parts of the city, and the service infrastructure is in total disarray, leaving citizens with no electricity, mobile or other forms of connectivity. While the state has been rightly praised in national and international media for its immense achievement in minimising casualties in the face of the severe storm, local patience is now running out and protests are being reported from various corners of the state, and in…

Two retired bureaucrats -- IAS and former commissioner of Bhubaneswar Municipality Corporation (BMC) Aparajita Sarangi (BJP) and retired IPS officer and former Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Mohan Patnaik (BJD) -- along with Janardan Pati, the CPI (M) candidate supported by Indian National Congress (INC) were among the 13, mostly fresh, faces in the MP elections in Bhubaneswar. The city voted on April 23rd to elect both MLAs for the Odisha Vidhan Sabha and MPs to the 17th Lok Sabha. However, the primary legislative role of an MP notwithstanding, many voters in the Odisha capital, are still looking at their elected…

At Mamata Gharana, Bhubaneswar’s first community home for members of the transgender community, Madhuri Kinnar, 38, is happy that she and her mates -- over 70 others who stay here -- now have access to clean water in their own slum for consumption. “Over the last two decades, we have faced lots of problems in getting water. We had to go to Vani Vihar or Rasulgarh, both kilometres away from the Kinnar Basti (transgender slum) to collect water for our consumption and other daily uses,” Madhuri said, “You can imagine how difficult it is to fetch the entire amount of…

After intense overnight showers, Bhubaneswar woke up on a Saturday morning in July with half the city under water. The situation at the capital of the eastern state of Odisha in many ways typifies poor urban management in India that is crumbling under adverse climatic conditions. Residents in many parts of the city were stranded in their homes and the condition was so dire in some parts that the state’s disaster response team had to start rescue operations. Roads in the state capital looked like gushing streams. Disaster response forces moved to waterlogged areas with floating pumps to drain out…