Science Magazines
Newer types of magazines started appearing as Odia literature continued to develop. Some of these focused on single areas of content. Science also became an area of interest for some and attempts were made for bringing out magazines with science content only.
The first such magazine focusing on sciece was ‘Bigyana Darpana’ publishe during 1880 from Kolkata. No issues of this publication are found today. But some information on it are available from the reviews and excerpts published in ‘Utkal Dipika’. There were also some other magazines on health and medicine published during the 1890’s. Popular science writing in Odia language became a regular activity during the 1940-60 and the grew both in terms of number of articles as well as of the topics covered. These writings found place in the literary magazines of that time, e.g. Nababharat, Sahakar, Sankha, Chaturanga, Dagara.
Science writing in Odia took a formal shape in 1949 with the establishment of Bigyan Prachar Samity. This led to the launching of the first science magazine of the recent times, Bigyana Prabha, in 1973. Bigyan Prachar Samity members contributed to and edited the magazine which was published and managed by Chhatrasathi publishing house. Bigyana Prabha was soon joined by ‘Bigyana Madhupa‘ in 1977 and Bigyanaloka‘ in 1979. More science magazines appeared during 1980-2000 which were published by either activist groups working with education and science or by the Government, two major ones being Bigyan Tarang and Bigyana Diganta. However most of these magazines stopped publication by 2010. Only two remained in print – Bigyana Diganta and Bigyana Madhupa which resumed publication in 2008 after a gap of over 25 years.
Separate pages have been provided for the science magazines available in larger numbers (links given above). Other magazines are presented on this page in the table below. The table can be sorted by title/starting-year by clicking on the appropriate column heads. Specific items can be searched for through the search box above the table. Digital copies of the desired magazines can be opened/saved by clicking on the ‘Download’ links.