Over the past century or so, theatre has undergone a sea change, both in terms of its presentation and the manner in which it is consumed by the audience. The art form itself has evolved and transformed to be in sync with contemporary expectations. With March 27 set to be observed as World Theatre Day, our Cover Story chronicles the history and evolution of theatre in Odisha and comes up with some fascinating insights. Eco-friendly has become quite the buzzword over the past decade or so. Odisha has been doing its bit through the Eco Retreat initiative to promote sustainable tourism while showcasing the state’s rich cultural heritage and impressive natural beauty. Read all about it in City Lights. We also feature One M Crew, an acrobatic dance group from the slums of Mancheswar in Bhubaneswar that recently won a national competition. Their rise and rise is an inspiring story of grit and determination. Humans have evolved; so has technology, particularly when it comes to leveraging it for communication. ChatGPT is the latest example, having taken the Internet by storm. City Tech breaks down the phenomenon and explains what it is all about and what this development portends for the future. The Padma awards are India’s highest civilian honour. The past few years have seen a conscious attempt to make it a ‘People’s Padma’, with a clear emphasis on the work done by individuals at the grass-roots level. The list of 106 Padma awardees announced for 2023 includes four from Odisha. In CityZen, we salute the spirit and the accomplishments of these Padma Shri awardees. While Bhubaneswar has seen a lot of development in recent years, it has continued to grapple with one of urbanisation’s toughest challenges – cleanliness and waste management. Things are, however, set to change with the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation deciding to take this challenge head-on. In City Beat, we take a look at how BMC is trying to make the state capital the cleanest city in India. The law and the legal institutions not only need to keep pace with the changing world, they also have to be accessible to all. This is particularly true when it comes to women, including those who find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide in an era where information is essential for empowerment. A special feature in City Affairs digs deep into the subject of law and gender and tries to figure out the way ahead.

Winner of the 2021 Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award Winner of the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Nonfiction Finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics John Leonard Prize for Best First Book Finalist for the 2021 New England Society Book Award Finalist for the 2021 New England Independent Booksellers Association Award A New York Times Editors’ Choice and Chicago Tribune top book for 2020 “Mill Town is the book of a lifetime; a deep-drilling, quick-moving, heartbreaking story. Scathing and tender, it lifts often into poetry, but comes down hard when it must. Through it all runs the river: sluggish, ancient, dangerous, freighted with America’s sins.” —Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland Kerri Arsenault grew up in the small, rural town of Mexico, Maine, where for over 100 years the community orbited around a paper mill that provided jobs for nearly everyone in town, including three generations of her family. Kerri had a happy childhood, but years after she moved away, she realized the price she paid for that childhood. The price everyone paid. The mill, while providing the social and economic cohesion for the community, also contributed to its demise. Mill Town is a book of narrative nonfiction, investigative memoir, and cultural criticism that illuminates the rise and collapse of the working-class, the hazards of loving and leaving home, and the ambiguous nature of toxics and disease with the central question; Who or what are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival?

Another year has come to an end, leaving behind a kaleidoscope of memories. For Odisha, 2023 was an eventful year when it came to governance, development, sports, and business. Our Cover Story for this edition brings you snapshots of the year’s significant policy decisions, major achievements in sports, landmarks from the corporate & business world, and important happenings in the Odia entertainment industry. Located in close proximity to buildings that seat the ‘who’s-who’ of Odisha’s power establishment, the Bhubaneswar Club has over the years evolved as an enduring symbol of socializing and celebration. With a history of 74 years, the club not only boasts of a rich legacy but also stands tall as a symbol of contemporary urban life. In City Tales, we walk you through all that the club stands for. Bhubaneswar was recently witness to a memorable congregation of vintage motor vehicles that reflected the glory, beauty, and craftsmanship of an era gone by. The inaugural Odisha Concours D’Elegance saw the participation of 50 eye-catching vintage cars from all over the country. Read all about this one-of-a-kind event in City Lights. A New Year brings with it new beginnings as well as new resolutions that are meant to set the tone for the next 12 months. City Lights brings to you a special feature tracing the origins of New Year resolutions and speaking to people from different walks of life to figure out the practice means to them. December 1, 2023 will be remembered for a film that not only created a storm at the box office but also sparked off an intense debate that shows no signs of dying down soon. ‘Animal’, the multi-lingual blockbuster, has received flak for normalizing misogyny and its controversial portrayal of gender dynamics. In Screen Shots, we talk to some prominent names from the Odia entertainment industry on the ongoing debate that has brought with it its own share of polarization and toxicity. Another issue that has become a matter of debate in recent days is that of paid menstrual leave for women. The issue has taken centre stage once again after Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani expressed her opposition to the concept on the grounds that it could lead to discrimination against women in the workforce. In City Beat, we reach out to people for their views on the subject

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Gabrielle Hamilton, bestselling author of Blood, Bones & Butter, comes her eagerly anticipated cookbook debut filled with signature recipes from her celebrated New York City restaurant Prune. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE SEASON BY Time • O: The Oprah Magazine • Bon Appétit • Eater A self-trained cook turned James Beard Award–winning chef, Gabrielle Hamilton opened Prune on New York’s Lower East Side fifteen years ago to great acclaim and lines down the block, both of which continue today. A deeply personal and gracious restaurant, in both menu and philosophy, Prune uses the elements of home cooking and elevates them in unexpected ways. The result is delicious food that satisfies on many levels. Highly original in concept, execution, look, and feel, the Prune cookbook is an inspired replica of the restaurant’s kitchen binders. It is written to Gabrielle’s cooks in her distinctive voice, with as much instruction, encouragement, information, and scolding as you would find if you actually came to work at Prune as a line cook. The recipes have been tried, tasted, and tested dozens if not hundreds of times. Intended for the home cook as well as the kitchen professional, the instructions offer a range of signals for cooks—a head’s up on when you have gone too far, things to watch out for that could trip you up, suggestions on how to traverse certain uncomfortable parts of the journey to ultimately help get you to the final destination, an amazing dish. Complete with more than with more than 250 recipes and 250 color photographs, home cooks will find Prune’s most requested recipes—Grilled Head-on Shrimp with Anchovy Butter, Bread Heels and Pan Drippings Salad, Tongue and Octopus with Salsa Verde and Mimosa’d Egg, Roasted Capon on Garlic Crouton, Prune’s famous Bloody Mary (and all 10 variations). Plus, among other items, a chapter entitled “Garbage”—smart ways to repurpose foods that might have hit the garbage or stockpot in other restaurant kitchens but are turned into appetizing bites and notions at Prune. Featured here are the recipes, approach, philosophy, evolution, and nuances that make them distinctively Prune’s. Unconventional and honest, in both tone and content, this book is a welcome expression of the cookbook as we know it. Praise for Prune “Fresh, fascinating . . . entirely pleasurable . . . Since 1999, when the chef Gabrielle Hamilton put Triscuits and canned sardines on the first menu of her East Village bistro, Prune, she has nonchalantly broken countless rules of the food world. The rule that a successful restaurant must breed an empire. The rule that chefs who happen to be women should unconditionally support one another. The rule that great chefs don’t make great writers (with her memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter). And now, the rule that restaurant food has to be simplified and prettied up for home cooks in order to produce a useful, irresistible cookbook. . . . [Prune] is the closest thing to the bulging loose-leaf binder, stuck in a corner of almost every restaurant kitchen, ever to be printed and bound between cloth covers. (These happen to be a beautiful deep, dark magenta.)”—The New York Times “One of the most brilliantly minimalist cookbooks in recent memory . . . at once conveys the thrill of restaurant cooking and the wisdom of the author, while making for a charged reading experience.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Business Fame's edition “Fastest Growing Commercial Real Estate Platform Providers: 2023” has featured organizations that are changing the industry by providing innovative solutions that improve efficiency, increase transparency, and streamline the commercial real estate process. Their ability to provide centralized platforms, advanced data analytics and AI capabilities, collaboration features, and customizable solutions make them an attractive option for commercial real estate professionals looking to optimize their operations and stay ahead of the competition. The cover has Emersons Commercial Real Estate (ECRC) a commercial real estate firm that offers property management, leasing, and investment services. It operates across the United States. It is a culmination of more than 100 years of commercial real estate experience. The platform employs professionals with a background that spans the real estate spectrum with expertise in banking, finance, accounting, leasing, development, construction management, property management, and tenant-in common management. That said, Emersons is dedicated to providing you with all the benefits of in-house real estate management, operating without the typical overhead, expense, and problems associated with employing your staff. In this special edition, let us share similar, interviews with many such dedicated organizations in order to raise awareness about their contributions to making the world a better place.

Trauma Informed Placemaking offers an introduction to understanding trauma and healing in place. It offers insights that researchers and practitioners can apply to their place-based practice, learning from a global cohort of place leaders and communities. The book introduces the ethos and application of the trauma-informed approach to working in place, with references to historical and contemporary trauma, including trauma caused by placemakers. It introduces the potential of place and of place practitioners to heal. Offering 20 original frameworks, toolkits and learning exercises across 33 first- and third-person chapters, multi-disciplinary insights are presented throughout. These are organised into four sections that lead the reader to an awareness of how trauma and healing operate in place. The book offers a first gathering of the current praxis in the field – how we can move from trauma in place to healing in place – and concludes with calls to action for the trauma-informed placemaking approach to be adopted. This book will be essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners interested in people and places, from artists and architects, policy makers and planners, community development workers and organisations, placemakers, to local and national governments. It will appeal to the disciplines of human geography, sociology, politics, cultural studies, psychology and to placemakers, planners and policymakers and those working in community development.

Idolatry, or its Hebrew equivalent Avodah Zarah ̧ is a fundamental feature of a Jewish view of other religions. All religions must pass the test of whether they are compliant with a Jewish view of religions as being free from the worship of another God. With the advance in interfaith relations, positions have been affirmed that clear most major contemporary religions from the charge of idolatry. What remains of “idolatry” once it no longer serves as a tool for evaluating other faiths? Does the category continue to have theological appeal? What are its internal uses? A cadre of Jewish scholars and thought leaders explore in this volume what the continuing relevance of “idolatry” is and how it might continue to inform our religious horizons, allowing us to distinguish between good and bad religion, both within Judaism and beyond.