BHUBANESWAR: Even as the country would go all out observing the International Literacy Day tomorrow, Orissa literally suffers from a literacy deficiency. The urban-rural divide is sharp with the latter hosting 39 percent illiterate population against 17 percent in the urban agglomerations.

The annual status of education report-2007 (ASER-07), in fact, puts it in the right perspective, against the backdrop of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in force since 2002.