The Indian History Congress (IHC) has requested the state government to set up Odisha Council of Historical Research on the lines of the National Council and Kerala Council.
The 74th session of the IHC which concluded here on December 30 was the third session hosted by Odisha till date.
The general body of IHC passed a unanimous resolution urging Odisha government to set up the Council and assign funds for it to undertake research projects, publication, fellowships for furthering the knowledge of history.
The IHC session here for the first time had held an exclusive panel discussion for Odisha in which the state's scholars presented papers on rethinking society, state and region vis-a-vis on the past and present.
Summing up the panel discussion, historian Asha Sarangi of JNU said the scholars tried their best to illuminate the history of Odisha albeit in deep anxiety expressing their fear that much needed to be done to highlight the history of the state.
Prof Sarangi picked up at least five conceptual points from the panel discussion saying that Odisha historians were apprehensive about the ideas of democracy, history, culture, loss of language and idea of politics.
Of the 1000 research papers presented in the 74th session, over two dozens of them were exclusively on the history of Odisha.
