Who was the first person from Odisha to receive the Padma Vibhushan, in the year 2000?

Explanation

Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra (1926-2004), the greatest guru of Odissi dance, received the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian honour, in 2000. He was the first person from Odisha to receive this award.

Kelucharan Mohapatra was born in Raghurajpur, a heritage village near Puri, famous for its Pattachitra painting. He began his career as a gotipua dancer (a boy dancing dressed as a girl in praise of Lord Jagannath) and also learnt to play the mardala (the drum of Odissi music) and to paint Pattachitra. He worked in the theatre and later dedicated himself to reviving Odissi, which had declined in the early 20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, along with Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das and Mayadhar Raut, he played the leading role in reconstructing Odissi, giving it a clear structure, grammar and repertoire, based on the old traditions, the temple sculptures and texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika. He choreographed many of the most famous pieces of the Odissi repertoire and trained many great dancers, such as Sanjukta Panigrahi, Sonal Mansingh, Kumkum Mohanty, Madhavi Mudgal and Sujata Mohapatra. In 1993, with his wife Laxmipriya and son Ratikant, he founded Srjan, a dance institution in Bhubaneswar. He received the Padma Shri (1974), the Padma Bhushan (1988) and the Padma Vibhushan (2000), as well as the Kalidas Samman.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Guru Pankaj Charan Das was another great guru of the Odissi revival, known as its "Adi Guru".
• ✗Guru Deba Prasad Das was another of the four great gurus of the Odissi revival.

Sanjukta Panigrahi was a famous Odissi dancer and a student of Kelucharan Mohapatra. She received the Padma Shri in 1975.