Children enjoy the latest version of the Oriya magazine Sisulekha. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, July 28: Here’s some good news for students studying in Oriya medium schools.

The colourful children’s Oriya magazine Sisulekha will soon be in bookstores again.

Published by the department of school and mass education, the journal is targeted at students of Class I to Class VIII. “The popular publication, which started in 1971, stopped being published in 1990. But there was an effort to revive it during 2004-05. The 2010 edition is the second attempt to revive the popular magazine,’’ said Prafulla Kumar Rath, director of the Odia Bhasa Pratisthan.

For primary classes — Classes I to III — there are three sections: see a picture and tell a story, recite a poem and tell a story after looking at panels of drawings.

For children from Classes IV to VIII there are interesting and informative subjects such as biographies of scientists, write ups on new discoveries, plants in our neighbourhood and well-known sport personalities. The articles are written in a simple language so that students don’t require much help from their elders.

The first edition of the magazine includes photographs of Utkal Gaurab Madhusudan Das, who had a major contribution in the development of the state in the post-independence era.

“Students can cut out the pictures from the centrespread of the magazine and can fix them on the wall of their study rooms. We hope that the youngsters derive inspiration from this noble individual,” Rath said.

Sections dealing with health, food, wildlife, nature, wonders of the world, science and technology and words used by tribal people will also be included later to enhance the knowledge base of students. Stories written in tribal dialects would also be published in the magazine, Rath added.

The project director of Orissa Primary Education Programme Authority, Pramod Chandra Patnaik said that the publication would once again try to find its own identity. “We will also ensure that every primary school gets 50 copies of Sisulekha so that the schoolchildren will benefit from our effort.”

Priced at Rs 12, the new version of the magazine has four stories, six poems, four pieces on noteworthy figures of the state and 12 other articles.

Even school students can contribute articles and paintings through the office of the Odia Bhasa Pratisthan.

“Printing and supplying a colourful magazine at low cost is very difficult, but we will try to do it in the interest of our students and young readers,” Rath said.