Jogabyasa Bhoi became the first Kalahandia and third Oriya after Kalpana Das and Ganesh Jena to have set foot on the Everest

Note: Thanks to Santosh Kar for sharing this.

Everest glory for Oriya

Telegraph (Kolkata), May 22, 2011
OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bhubaneswar, May 22: Another Oriya has scaled the Mount Everest. Jogabyasa Bhoi, a primary school teacher from Kalahandi district, climbed the world’s highest peak last Thursday. With this feat, he became the third Oriya after Kalpana Das and Ganesh Jena to have set foot on the Everest.

However, due to lack of communication, this news reached the state today. Earlier on January 11, Bhoi (32) had conquered Mt Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in South Africa. “The most important task of my life has been fulfilled,” gushed Jogabyasa after his expedition.

“My aim to make it a spiritual expedition has been achieved. I wanted to spread the message of spiritual leader, Sri Aurobindo and I have done it,” he said.

He went on this expedition as part of the ‘Prayer, meditation and request for world peace on the top of the world’ team. The Vedanta Aluminium Limited had provided financial assistance to Jogabyasa to undertake this mission. Woman mountaineer Kalpana Das, who also hails from Dhenkanal, is the first Oriya and only woman from Orissa, so far, to have scaled the Everest. No male mountaineer from the state had been able to scale the 8,848 metre peak until Ganesh Jena achieved this feat on May 18.