National Crossword Contest begins with 9,672 teams from across India – Times of India

As many as 9,672 school teams have registered from across 353 towns and cities in India for the contest.


“The second and last scoring round in Phase I will be held on August 1 (Sunday) from 2 pm,” Amitabh Ranjan, chief operating officer of the Extra-C, which conducts the contest, told TOI on Saturday.

He said, a participating team may register anytime till 2 pm on August 1. Cumulative scores of the two scoring rounds would be taken into consideration for short-listing the teams for Phase II, which will witness a face-to-face online round and an offline Grand Finale in New Delhi towards the year-end.

Earlier, a Practice Round was conducted on the website from July 25 to July 30 so that new participants could familiarize themselves with the format. Though it was a non-scoring round, a Leaderboard of top 100 participating teams was formed at the end of the round which saw Adya Singh’s team from Notre Dame Academy, Patna, at the top of the national ranking. Teams led by Hiren Bajaj of Jasudaben ML School, Mumbai, and V Krishna Sai Gayatri of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Vidyasharam, Hyderabad, were at the 2nd and 3rd spots, respectively.

Ranjan said, as many as 9,672 school teams have registered from across 353 towns and cities in India. A school team comprises two students of Standard VII to XII. The maximum number of registrations, 3200 from 38 towns, has come from Bihar. Telangana with 967 registrations from 32 towns, Assam 757 from 16 towns, Tamil Nadu 742 from 26 towns, Karnataka 675 teams from 23 towns, J&K 466 from 15 towns are the other big-number states in terms of registrations.

Registrations have also been received from states like Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dadar & Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep, Puducherry, Sikkim, Manipur, and Meghalaya among others.

Addressing young participants on the occasion, Chahal said games like crosswords helped you build mental doggedness and sustained you through turns and twists in life. “I have had the ringside view of the rampaging pandemic and I can tell you that our mental strength has been the most potent weapon to chase away the score,” he added.

Popularly known as CCCC among schoolchildren, it has been an offline event since its inception in 2013. Due to the pandemic situation, the current edition is being held in an online format. The previous edition, the CCCC 2020, too was held online amid the nationwide lockdown.