About Us

Ideas and their real time manifestation shape human destinies. Ideas propel both traditional and innovative efforts toward achieving greater good for humanity. Ideas are either an individual or a collective effort. Ideas emanate from deep knowledge on any particular field of activity. Knowledge institutions around the world consistently strive for ideas through accumulation of facts on issues that require policy intervention by entities and organizations from individual or community level to global regimes. States that create, nurture and support such knowledge institutions are invariably more advanced than others. India as an aspiring global power must encourage individuals, communities, organizations and institutions to consistently strive for excellence in generating ideas. Such efforts will invariably lead India to be counted as a frontline Knowledge State. Gonasika Research Foundation will engage in cutting-edge multidisciplinary research on ideas and issues, emanating both from natural and social sciences, affecting humanity at both micro and macro levels. Its primary focus will be on research induced ideas and their deeper examination. Through different publications in written and audio-visual mediums, it will disseminate these curated knowledge for wider benefits to human society. It will start with the target district of Kendujhar. It will then take up issues at the state level in Odisha. Furthermore, it will take up national issues that have either been pressing yet neglected or received inadequate attention. Finally, it will take up important global issues for deeper research and dissemination. In its institutional evolution, it will work on such issues simultaneously. Gonasika Resrarch Foundation aspires to achieve the status of a globally recognised frontline knowledge centre in human affairs.

States are oftentimes and consistently confronted with challenges spanning from individual wellbeing to national security, growth and prosperity within defined states’ territorial boundaries. Enormity of such challenges can be gauged from the fact that they start from agriculture to atomic energy and beyond; and myriad of challenges in between. As the world gets more inter-connected and esoterically embedded, quite a few national challenges tend to cross national boundaries like diaspora matters, cross-border trade, migration to name a few. Beyond states are several traditional and emerging issues like international trade, global security, technology cross-flow, uses of space, maritime affairs and others. If such challenges are not enough, emerging as well as unknown challenges also raise their heads from time to time that require both state efforts at unitary levels as well as regional and global efforts beyond state levels. Non-state violence, climate change, disruptive technological advancements are some examples, whose magnitude of impacts have yet to be assessed and addressed adequately. While states and international regimes keep grappling with all these issues individually or collectively, emerging and yet to emerge challenges definitely add to their scope of work. India as a formidably aspiring global power has enormous domestic and external responsibilities. If challenges are assessed and addressed rationally and reasonably, they can also turn into opportunities for greater welfare, nation building and global prosperity. This is where ideating individuals and institutions come into play. States create and nurture institutions for knowledge that they require for addressing issues and challenges of all kinds. Individual and collective efforts at private levels also complement state efforts in this direction. The central idea of knowledge institutions – whether state-led or privately initiated – thus remains same: feeding ideas to states for addressing issues through effective policies; sensitizing citizenry within states and beyond of issues that confront humanity; and nurturing generations of scholars to take the efforts forward. Gonasika Research Foundation has been created as a non-profit research centre with a clearly stated set of objectives to address some of the above-mentioned local, national and global challenges. As complementing to its slogan of ‘Ideation, Research, Dialogue and Dissemination’, it lays out its key endeavors as the following: • Ideation: Its all about ideas. As a start, the institution has taken up a set of key ideas that will shape its evolution as an ideating institution. One of these ideas is to examine and locate revolutionary Dharanidhara Nayak, a local tribal leader of Keonjhar in the history of freedom movement in India. Research findings on Dharanidhara could bring in new lights beyond what contemporary and revisionist historians have found thus far on tribal resistance against royalty and British rule in pre-Independent India. Many other ideas are placed at “Forthcoming Knowledge Initiatives”. • Research: Ideation necessitates in-depth research for validation. One of the ideas that require deeper research is to examine evolution, spread and gradual demise of religious traditions like Buddhism and Jainism in Kendujhar. This study, which will culminate into a series of commentaries, occasional papers and a book, will employ descriptive research methods and rely on primary sources like archieval material. Many such ideas will come up as we evolve further. • Dialogue: Research-led ideas would not achieve their objectives, if they are not debated and deliberated preferably in public forums. The institution will, on its selected areas of ideas and research, will continuously engage scholars and practitioners and engaged citizenry for validation of ideas. Dialogues would preferably be held not only in writing but also in different forums like workshops, seminars, conferences and related other mediums like audio-visual and digital products. • Dissemination: All the above efforts will be finally disseminated for better understanding by not only scholars, practitioners and states but more importantly help public gain awareness on pressing issues that affect humanity. Mediums for such dissemination efforts would invariably include different publications, debates in colloquia and wider publicity through audio-visual media.

The name Gonasika owes its origin to a sacred place in the Gonasika rocks in Kendujhar district of Odisha, from where a river named Baitarani flows, crosses several districts and eventually merges into the Bay of Bengal. The exact point, from which the water starts flowing, resembles the nose of a cow, considered a pious animal. Water flows from two nostrils of the cow shaped structure, hence the name Gonasika (‘Go’ means cow and ‘Nasika’ means nose). Gonasika symbolizes emergence of knowledge in the form of water. Water is essential for survival. So is knowledge for prosperity, peace and development. This flows and crosses into different places, that denotes evolving and enriching scholarships at different times and locations. This ultimately flows into the Bangop Sagar (Bay of Bengal), considered an important part of Hind Mahasagar (Indian Ocean), which connotes oceanic reservoir of knowledge. GRF aspires to commence and continue its perpetual quest for knowledge from Gonasika and eventually accumulate and disseminate knowledge on a range of subjects affecting humanity and planet at large. GRF’s prime focus will be to address both knowledge enrichment and, in the process, reduce knowledge gaps in human affairs. It believes that knowledge and scholarships are dynamic, hence subject to constant scrutiny and newer findings.

We are statically located at Vidya Bhawan campus that houses a small primary school for tribal children in Manpur village of Keonjhar district of Odisha. It is approximately 23 kilometers from the district headquarters and is surrounded by natural forest beauty, including its inhabitants like elephants, bears, wild animals and birds, in addition to simple and innocent villagers.