Leading a movement towards a stronger and more vibrant media landscape
Business woman, mother, wife, coffee addict and nature lover, Adyasha Satpathy wears many hats. She, glides through all her roles comfortably. As the head of a media house, she hails from the family of emancipated women. She is the daughter in law of Late Nandini Sathpathy, first lady CM of Odisha.
The Oriya daily, Dharitri, was started by the Samajwadi Society on November 24, 1974 from Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Orissa. During 1986, Dharitri started web offset printing to increase press production and reach out to a larger reader base. The real growth story of Dharitri started during late eighties and early nineties with increased distribution. It became the only newspaper in the state to cater to both urban and rural, young and upwardly mobile readers and also to the cream population of Orissa. Dharitri catapulted to a whooping rise, both quantitatively and qualitatively, emerging as the No.1 newspaper not only in the capital city of Bhubaneswar but also in a majority of the districts and towns of the state., Today, Dharitri’s circulation is the largest in Cuttack. Adyasha’s husband, Tathagata Satpathy helms the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper.
The couple is sensitive to environmental issues, underprovided strata of the society and lack of education. Inspired by their mother, late Nandini Satpathy whose progressive work with specific purpose to help the downtrodden proceed towards prosperity and land-ceiling reforms, are legendry, Adyasha and Tathagata strongly advocate for those values. They have used their publication to address various societal problems and raise awareness among the people, focusing on the youth who represent the future of the country.
From the banner of Dharitri, Adyasha conducts various events and conferences to bring together people of excellence on a common platform. Several correspondents and journalists from different media houses were felicitated for their exemplary works in the field of investigative journalism, at the glorious event of the golden anniversary celebration of Odisha’s leading daily. Addressing journalists at the special function, Tathagata Satpathy, a seasoned editor, spoke of the downside of dependence on secondary sources in journalism, which is creating a vacuum in the domain of ground reporting, resulting in misinterpretations and lack of depth in news reports.
Dhariti, being the most popular Odia daily, the publication follows strict adherence to immaculate Odia vocabulary, resulting in a strong reader base for the newspaper across Odisha. Hrushikesh Mallick, president of Odisha Sahitya Akademi endorsed that journalism at Dharitri continues to maintain the philosophy with which it was created and, therefore, has been able to uphold its critical editorial policy.
Climate issues being foremost on her mind, Adyasha is an advocate of environment conservation. She started the ‘Dharitri Climate Fund’, which will be given to young climate warriors at the grassroots for helping them in their endeavours in addressing climate change.
An initiative towards awareness drive is the creation of ‘Dharitri Youth Conclave’. Tathagata feels that such conclaves bring together people, youth in particular, under one platform and provide them an opportunity to talk, discuss and thus, be aware and educate.
“In today’s busy life, reporters tend to miss out vital aspects of a news story in search of a bigger lead. Later, these smaller developments become an important news story,” Adyasha, in the capacity of the leading lady of the organisation said, ”The observational skills of a reporter must be concerned with every arc of the story.”