Utkal Dipika
Utkal Dipika first appeared in 1866 during a critical time of the Odia Nation. This first newspaper from Odisha and in Odia language strived hard to present the grievous situation faced by the Odias because of the divastating famine – the Na’anka Durbhiksha – and the views of the Odia people to the Government. Gourishankar Ray, the founder and the editor of Utkal Dipika, was a wellknown writer and opinion-maker of the then Odisha and developed Utkal Dipika as a rallying point for the people concerned about Odia and Odisha. The newspaper and the people associated with it also played an important role in countering the attack faced by the Odia language at the time.
And it continued to fulfil its committment to the Odia Nation till the formation of a separate state in 1936. During this long life span it served as a vehicle for all discussions relating to the problems and development of Odia language and culture. In addition to news and views it carried some long essays on important topics, poetry and books reviews etc. The advertisements/announcements on its pages of other publications still serves as an important reference source.
Utkal Dipika Index
The table below gives links for downloading the available issues of the newspaper. Click on the links to download the files. Large files have been devided into parts of 25mb or smaller to facilitate downloading. Still it may take some time to download depending on the quality of internet connection.
Sample pages have been provided below to give an idea about the content and the quality of the digital version before downloading the larger files. These can be viewed in a new browser tab by clicking on the links.