Report by Debadatta Dash, Bhubaneswar: OdishaDiary (Orissadiary.com) conferred Odisha Living Legend Award 2012 on Nila Madhab Panda. He received the award for his excellent work of Social Service through his Films.  

 

Health Minister Dr. Damodar Rout, Revenue Minister Surjya Narayan Patro and Energy and IPR Minister Arun Sahoo presented the award to Nila Madhab Panda at a glittering function held at Jaydev Bhawan, Bhubaneswar on 10th November. Expressing his views on the occasion, he highly appreciated the effort of OdishaDiary for recognizing extraordinary talents across different fields in Odisha.

 

Nila Madhab Panda is an internationally award winning film maker with a social conscience. His recent movies I am Kalam and Jalpari have received global acclaim. A UN audio-visual award winner (2002), he has been honoured with Heroism in Cinematography 2003 and the UK Environment Film Fellowship 2002. He has made over 60 documentaries all with social messages. He believes in the human desire, ambition and in the inherent human capacity to realise our dreams. The characters in his films are a testimony to this fact.  His films are simple yet though provoking, his recent characters are children yet they can teach all of us about essence and beauty of human life. His has been a voice of the unheard and oppressed. This award is an acknowledgment of his fourteen years of work in film making and for choosing this medium effectively to raise issues of social relevance.

 

It should be noted that OdishaDiary (www.orissadiary.com), the No-1 web-portal on Odisha is visited by more than fifty thousand visitors daily. OD is the first complete portal on the state of Odisha. OD is designed to reflect on the contributions and concerns of the Odia people, their language, society, polity, education, health, economy, business and industry, tourism, public grievances, citizen services, inspiring success stories and anything and everything that affects them and has impacts on provincial and national public policy.

 

Through news, views, analyses and interactivity, OD provides readers a composite picture of Odisha. OD is a gate-way for anyone interested in the state of Odisha. More specifically it is useful to the policy makers, investors, researchers, media persons, students, politicians and the common men, the general public as a whole. Orissa Diary (OD) has fast entrenched itself in the lives of a young and dynamic readership on Odisha throughout the globe. Members of Parliament, Prasanna Patasani and Rabi Narayan Mohapatra, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of OdishaDiary Mr. Rashmi Ranjan Parida were also present on the occasion.