Paryabekhyak: The People's Odia Daily of Bhubaneswar and the Kalinga Chronicle Group
Paryabekhyak is an Odia-language daily newspaper published from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Standard press histories list it among the Odia dailies launched in Bhubaneswar in the late 1990s, and its founder and chief editor, Dr. Pabitra Mohan Samantaray, dates its publication as a daily to 2 February 1998, the day of Basant Panchami. Under Dr. Samantaray — who is also founder-editor of the English daily Kalinga Chronicle — the paper has built a public identity that mixes daily journalism with organised social service, most visibly in the blood-donation camp with which it marked its twenty-eighth foundation day in February 2026.
The name Paryabekhyak means "the observer" or "the supervisor" in Odia, an apt title for a paper that styles itself a people's daily watching public life on its readers' behalf. This profile draws on press histories, circulation listings, and reports of the paper's own anniversary events to record what is verifiably known about it.
Overview
Paryabekhyak is a popular Odia daily newspaper based in Bhubaneswar, as its e-paper listing describes it, covering all sections of news from around the nation and the world. It publishes daily in print and offers a daily e-paper free online through its website, paryabekhyak.com.
The paper is the Odia title of the Kalinga Chronicle Group, whose chief Dr. Pabitra Mohan Samantaray is chief editor of both Paryabekhyak and the English daily Kalinga Chronicle. Government advertising listings from Odisha have recorded the paper's circulation at 62,000 copies, placing it in the middle ranks of Odia dailies: a substantial capital-city paper below the state's biggest titles.
History and Founding
Reference works on Odisha's press list Paryabekhyak among the state's dailies with the year 1997 and place Bhubaneswar, in Odia. The founder's own account refines the date: speaking at the paper's silver jubilee, Dr. Pabitra Mohan Samantaray said the people's Odia daily Paryabekhyak has been published from Bhubaneswar as a daily newspaper since 2 February 1998, on the day of Basant Panchami — the spring festival associated with Saraswati, the goddess of learning, a fitting and deliberate launch day for a newspaper.
Because the silver jubilee fell due on 2 February 2023 but could not be celebrated then owing to unavoidable circumstances, the paper celebrated its twenty-fifth foundation day together with its twenty-sixth, on 31 January 2024 at Jayadev Bhavan in Bhubaneswar. The paper has continued to mark the 2 February foundation day each year since, observing its twenty-eighth in 2026.
Ownership and Chief Editor
Paryabekhyak is led by its founder and chief editor, Dr. Pabitra Mohan Samantaray, described in e-paper listings as the paper's chief editor and in anniversary reports as editor-in-chief of both Paryabekhyak and the Kalinga Chronicle, and founder-editor-in-chief of both titles. He presides over the paper's public functions and speaks for the Kalinga Chronicle Group.
The group's structure pairs an Odia daily with an English daily from the same Bhubaneswar base, a combination that lets the house address both the state's mass Odia readership and its English-reading administrative and professional class. Events for the two titles are held jointly under the Kalinga Chronicle Group banner, as the 2026 foundation-day programme was.
The Silver Jubilee
The paper's silver jubilee celebration, held on 31 January 2024 at Jayadev Bhavan, Bhubaneswar, shows the standing Paryabekhyak claims in Odisha's public life. The programme was inaugurated by Dr. Giridhar Gamango, former Union minister and former chief minister of Odisha, and presided over by Dr. Samantaray. Guests included the eminent sculptor and Padma Vibhushan awardee Sudarshan Sahoo, former PCC president and minister Prasad Harichandan, former Bhubaneswar MP Prasanna Patasani, filmmaker Sabyasachi Mahapatra, former AIIMS director Ashok Mahapatra, and former MLA and BJD general secretary Priyadarshi Mishra, among other dignitaries and citizens.
A guest list spanning politics, art, cinema, medicine and academia is the classic signature of an Indian regional daily's anniversary: the newspaper as a civic institution whose celebration the city's establishment attends. The vote of thanks was given by the paper's Bhubaneswar special correspondent, Sanjay Das.
Language and Editions
Paryabekhyak is published in Odia from Bhubaneswar. Its e-paper listing records a single edition, Bhubaneswar, in Odia, published daily. Press histories likewise give its place simply as Bhubaneswar, in the sequence of Odia dailies founded in the capital in the 1990s alongside titles such as The Samaya (1996) and Anupam Bharat (1996).
A capital-city Odia daily has a natural double audience: the residents of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, and, through distribution and the e-paper, Odia readers across the state who follow the politics and administration conducted in the capital. Paryabekhyak's content, described as covering all sections of news from the nation and the world, is built for that general Odia reader.
Coverage and Content
The paper reports Odisha politics, administration and social issues, as this batch listing summarises, together with national and international news across all sections, in the words of its e-paper profile. As a Bhubaneswar daily, its centre of gravity is the state capital: the secretariat and assembly, state policy, the courts, universities and civic affairs of the capital region, with district news and national reporting around it.
Its self-description as a "people's Odia daily," used by its own editor at the silver jubilee, expresses its editorial positioning: a paper of the common reader rather than of any party or house. Its twenty-eighth foundation-day coverage in the group's own media stressed "responsible journalism" as the paper's defining commitment across twenty-eight years.
Community Role and Social Service
Paryabekhyak's most distinctive documented feature is the social-service work attached to its journalism. On 2 February 2026, the paper observed its twenty-eighth foundation day by organising a voluntary blood-donation camp at the Red Cross Bhawan in Bhubaneswar, jointly with the Kalinga Chronicle Group and the Indian Red Cross Society's Odisha State Branch, under Dr. Samantaray's stewardship. The camp was inaugurated by senior doctors and Red Cross officials and drew an overwhelming response from voluntary donors, according to the group's report.
Speakers at the camp underlined why a newspaper would do this: blood is needed in emergencies, trauma care, major surgery and for patients with thalassemia and sickle-cell disorders, conditions of real concern in Odisha. The paper presents such work as a long-standing commitment to public welfare beyond journalism. A daily that donates its anniversary to a blood camp is making a deliberate statement about what a people's paper is for.
Print and Digital Presence
In print, Paryabekhyak publishes daily from Bhubaneswar, and official Odisha advertising listings have recorded its circulation at 62,000 copies in the DAVP figures — a mid-tier circulation among Odia dailies, well below Sambad or Dharitri but substantial for a single-edition capital paper.
Digitally, the paper maintains its website at paryabekhyak.com, presented as an Odia daily and e-paper site, and e-paper directories list the title free to read without registration. The Kalinga Chronicle Group also operates television and web outlets under the Kalinga Chronicle name, which carry the group's reporting, including coverage of Paryabekhyak's own events — a small multimedia group built around the two dailies.
Audience and Reach
The paper's audience is the Odia-reading public of Bhubaneswar and Odisha: readers of state politics, administration and social affairs who want a general daily in their own language. Its recorded circulation of about 62,000 copies and its capital base define a readership concentrated in the capital region and among followers of state affairs elsewhere in Odisha.
Its reach is extended by its group and its public events. The silver jubilee's guest list and the Red Cross partnership show the paper plugged into the capital's institutional networks, which in turn keeps the title visible to the administrative and political class that both reads and makes the news it reports.
Recent Developments
The paper's most recent documented milestone is its twenty-eighth foundation day on 2 February 2026, marked with the blood-donation camp at Red Cross Bhawan and reported by the group's media under the theme of celebrating responsible journalism with a mission to save lives. The event was jointly organised by Paryabekhyak, the Kalinga Chronicle Group and the Indian Red Cross Society, Odisha State Branch.
That celebration follows the pattern set by the silver jubilee in January 2024: the paper marking its anniversaries publicly, with the state's dignitaries present and a social purpose attached. For a Bhubaneswar Odia daily founded in the late 1990s, the record is of a title that has settled into the capital's civic life and intends to remain there.
