Oopali Operajita Biography 
Oopali Operajita is an Odissi and Bharatanatyam dancer and also a Senior Advisor to India's Parliamentary leaders. Both her parents - Bidhu Bhusan Das and Prabhat Nalini Das remained senior academicians and professors of the state of Odisha. She belonged to a distinguished and famous political family from Orissa. The famous feminist and freedom activist Sarala Devi was her great- aunt, and Nityanand Kanungo – the famous politician and union minister of Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet was her great-uncle. She has 4 siblings, and all of them have excelled in different fields – from administration to arts and literature. She is the granddaughter of Rai Bahadur Durga Charan Das of the Indian Administrative Service, IAS, and famous poet, Nirmala Devi.
Oopali Operajita was born into a family of intellectuals. Yet she chose art and dance as main stream. She studied in Rishi Valley School, where she stayed in hostel. She has been a brilliant student during her academic years at Rishi Valley School. She is a trained dancer of Bharatanatyam of the rigorous Pandanallur style, who received training from S Meenakshi and B. Ram Gopal. She also received extensive training in traditional Odissi dance form from the legend, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra in Odissi. She is the first classical Indian artist to have performed at the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh.
Her higher education was completed at Delhi, Canada and USA. She has been a Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University since 1990. Oopali is the founder chairman of The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition, founded in 2006. Following her father’s legacy, she also serves as Senior Adviser on International Affairs, Public Policy and Communication to several of political leaders in the Lok Sabha.
Published: July 28, 2018
Updated: July 28, 2018
