Jagannath Panda is an internationally exhibited contemporary artist whose career runs from a BFA in 1991 through an MFA at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, a further MFA in sculpture at London's Royal College of Art in 2002, and a body of work shown across galleries and institutions worldwide. In conversation with Shweta's Talkies, Panda traces that career back to its material roots: Odisha's khondalite stone-carving tradition, exemplified by the 11th-century Rajarani Temple, which he treats not as decorative reference but as a living technique he continues to extend in his own contemporary sculptural practice. The conversation's most concrete thread is institutional rather than personal — Panda's founding of the Utsha Foundation in Bhubaneswar in 2011, a functioning piece of arts infrastructure for Odisha rather than a one-off philanthropic gesture, offering residencies and support to emerging artists in a state with comparatively little contemporary-art institutional support. It is a rare case of an artist building, in parallel with an international exhibition career, the kind of civic infrastructure that usually arrives only after an artist's reputation is already made elsewhere. Panda also discusses his participation in "Jana Shakti: A Collective Power," the 2023 National Gallery of Modern Art exhibition marking the 100th episode of Mann Ki Baat and visited by the Prime Minister, alongside artists including Manu Parekh, Atul Dodiya, Paresh Maity, and G.R. Iranna — a documented instance of contemporary Indian fine art folded directly into official cultural messaging. Recorded as part of Shweta's Talkies' expanding coverage of contemporary Indian art, this episode follows a temple priest's son who built an international practice and a piece of public arts infrastructure for his home state, each reinforcing the other.