Odisha

Odisha lies on the eastern coast, between the Bay of Bengal and the Chhotanagpur and Eastern Ghats. The capital is Bhubaneswar. The Mahanadi delta is the agricultural core, and the state’s coastline runs some 480 km from the Subarnarekha in the north to the Rushikulya in the south.

The state sits on one of India’s richest mineral belts — iron ore, bauxite, chromite, coal and manganese — and holds a large share of the country’s reserves. Steel, aluminium and ferroalloy plants cluster in the north-western districts around Rourkela and Jharsuguda. Agriculture remains the largest employer, with rice, pulses and oilseeds; the tribal population, concentrated in the southern and western districts, is among the largest of any state.

Odisha is the most cyclone-exposed state in India. The 1999 super cyclone killed close to ten thousand people and prompted a rebuilding of the state’s disaster warning and evacuation system that is now widely cited as a model — subsequent cyclones of comparable strength have caused far lower casualties. The state also holds the Jagannath temple at Puri, the Sun temple at Konark, and Chilika, a large brackish lagoon on the coast that is a major wintering site for migratory birds.