SAMBAD SURGES AHEAD: LAUNCHES KANAK TV
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
The day began with Orissa’s most admired cartoonist Kishore depicting Eastern Media’s latest venture Kanak Tv with his pierian composition,
“Sambada rajata jayantire shubhe kanakasambada nada
Sambada sahita kanakasambada mage aji ashirvada
Karibapainki yuddha
matrubhumi matrubhasara suraksha durniti rakshasa badha”
meaning, “The Silver Jubilee of Sambad, at its summit, trumpets the emergence of Kanaksambad and the two together beg blessings to surge ahead in the battle to extinguish corruption, the demon, in order to protect the motherland and the Mothertongue”.
And the day ended with Governor of Orissa Muralidhar Chandrakant Bhandare formally launching Kanak Tv making Easern Media the first complete Media of Orissa, the State that is famous for having the longest coast in the eastern part of India.
Eastern media with its flagship ‘Sambad’, has, since October 4, 1984, sailed against challenges to serve every aspect of the needs of the inquisitive public. From my experience I find it to be the only newspaper that publishes reports, without hesitation, rather with zeal, if they are found fact-based, even though thereby some of the persons otherwise close to its editor may be getting bruised. Esteemed readers of my column “Sinhavalokana” (Animadversion) in Sambad till I switched over to orissamatters.com are well acquainted with this reality. No wonder, Sambad has surpassed every senior newspaper of the State in circulation within 25 years; and, more importantly, has become the trendsetter in print media.
But the corporate responsibility Sambad has taken up to itself is unique, unprecedented and incomparable in whole of India.
It has initiated and kept intact public participation in strengthening mother tongue Oriya by devoting its pages to this cause besides building up a mission like Ama Odisha addressed to the campaign.
When casualty in Orissa Hospitals for want of blood was beyond control, its editor Soumya Ranjan Pattanayak added to it a new priority to cultivate a climate for public participation in blood collection and as President, steered Ama Odisha to build up a campaign for voluntary donation of blood.
Begun with 9250 units of blood donated voluntarily by the people motivated by Ama Odisha in 2006, which included an unprecedented record of voluntary donation of 3074 units of blood in a single day on October 31, 2006, the campaign soon grew into a matchless mission and every year since then Orissa has witnessed more and more volunteers coming forward to donate blood. When in 2007 the quantity of blood collected by Ama Odisha was 15,557 units, it was 17,570 units in 2008. This year the target is set at 20,000 units, according to Ajay Mohapatra, State Coordinator, Ama Odisha’s Blood Collection Campaign.
Sambad has not rested with this achievement. It has surged ahead to be a complete media organization. Publishing periodicals as well as selected books, it has made its print editions viewable online. It has gone up to adopting Yatra (arena theatre) and Cinema as mass media ventures and Radio 
(its “Radio Choklate” has emerged popular) and 
lastly Television (Kanak Tv). Clubbed together, the aforesaid activities have made Eastern Media the complete media organization of the Indian State that has the longest spread of the east coast, catering to every intellectual need of the people of Orissa over and above performing the best to serve the mother-tongue and save lives under exemplary commitment to voluntarily adopted corporate responsibility.
No wonder, when the sun set his parting rays on the western sky, last evening, Utkal Mandap, the mega auditorium of Utkal Sangit Mahavidyalaya at Bhubaneswar opened up its chest to accommodate an audience that was much more than its capacity for witnessing the launching of the Eastern Media’s latest venture, the Kanak Tv by the Governor of the State.
Chairing the event, Sri Soumya Ranjan Patnaik shared with the audience his experience in building up the Sambad and her sister organizations and assured that the trend of standing up to the expectations of the people of Orissa shall be maintained unfailingly in days to come. While launching the venture, the Governor stressed that the news media organizations not only should inform the public of how events of the day affects them; but also should play the role of educators in order to make the people know as to how to give shape to their future so that generations to come would not experience the trauma of scarcity amidst plenty. Director of News (Kanak Tv) Gourahari Das having given the introductory address, Managing Director of Eastern Media group Ms. Sudatta Patnaik informed how Sambad has remained the first child of her husband Soumya warranting and succeeding in getting all the priority attention that the first child always bags from the parents. It has always remained a pleasure for them to share the responsibility as the Sambad, crossing 25, is not only their first child, but is also borne as sentinel of Mother Orissa. Joint MD, Eastern media proposed the vote of thanks.
The meeting over, the massive audience was treated with twists from Orissa’s modern wonder, the Prince Dance Group.
Hearty Welcome, Kanak Tv!
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