[4] Biju Patnaik was educated at Ravenshaw College in Odisha but, due to his interest in aviation, dropped out and trained as a pilot.

Patnaik flew with private airlines but at the start of the Second World War he joined the Royal Indian Air Force.

While in service, he developed an interest in nationalist politics and used air force transports to deliver what was seen as subversive literature to Indian troops.

Nehru asked Patnaik, who was adventurous and an expert pilot, to rescue Sjahrir and other Indonesian resistance fighters who were fighting their Dutch colonisers.

[7] Patnaik and his wife Gyanwati, flew to Java, dodging the Dutch guns, he entered Indonesian airspace and landed on an improvised airstrip near Jakarta.

She, whose full name is Diah Permata Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri, later became Indonesia's first female president, serving from 2001 to 2004.

His strong advocacy for equal resources to all Indian states who needed such, made him a champion of his Odia constituents.

Patnaik then re-established contact with his old friend Jayaprakash Narayan and plunged into the JP movement as it picked up momentum in 1974.

Later, in the same year, he was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time from Kendrapara and became Union minister for steel and mines in both the Morarji Desai and the Charan Singh governments until 1979.

He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha again in 1980 and 1984 from Kendrapara as Janata Party candidate despite the Congress wave in 1984 following Indira Gandhi's death.

However, after playing a key behind-the-scenes role in manoeuvring V. P. Singh to the Prime Minister's post, he again chose to go back to Odisha, and prepared for the assembly election.

In 1951 he established the international Kalinga Prize for popularisation of Science and Technology among the people and entrusted the responsibility to the UNESCO.

The projects which he was known to have spearheaded includes the Port of Paradip, Odisha Aviation Centre, Bhubaneswar Airport, the Cuttack-Jagatpur Mahanadi highway bridge, Regional Engineering College, Rourkela, Sainik School Bhubaneswar, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology-Bhubaneswar, NALCO (National Aluminum Company), Talcher Thermal Power Station, Balimela Hydel Project, HAL-Sunabeda and the Choudwar & Barbil industrial belts.

In the 1940s, Gyan Patnaik accompanied Biju in the freedom struggle movement and evacuation of British families from Rangoon when the Japanese laid siege on the region.

Also his son Naveen Patnaik made his birthday 5 March as the Panchayat Raj Divas, a holiday in Odisha in his memory.

The glimpse of Biju Patnaik's stature can be understood by the fact that when he died, his coffin was wrapped in the national flags of India, Russia, and Indonesia.