Test Chart In Stone Optics

Odia-challenged Naveen plays Odia varsity card.

- Sandeep Sahu

IT was a perfect choice of venue and timing. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik laid the foundation stone for the proposed Odia University at the exact spot in Puri district’s Satyabadi village, where Gopabandhu Das, pivot of the ‘panchasakha’ (five friends), had set up the Bakula Bana Vidyalaya in 1909 to promote education in the Odia language in the ancient gurukul mode—something similar to what Rabindranath Tagore would initiate a few years later at Santiniketan in Bengal. Being touted as an example of the government’s commitment to the preservation and promotion of the Odia language, the stone-laying ceremony for the proposed university was scheduled to coincide with Gopabandhu’s birth anniversary on October 9.