IIT Delhi & 5 other colleges win coveted spots for national crossword contest finale

A cryptic crossword is a game where each clue is a word puzzle which must be deciphered to find an answer. This then goes into a crossword grid. It can be challenging, but Ramki Krishnan, a six-time crossword champ who has been coaching NICE’s contestants, says that students have quickly understood the pattern. 

“One can see that many of them were completely new to this game till a few weeks ago, but they have picked it up very quickly and are confident solvers now”, he shared.

Also Read | How to do a crossword: 5 tips for beginners

NICE 2022 has been split across three stages — online qualifiers, zonal rounds and a grand finale — and the zonals, which ended on June 27, saw a close battle among skilled college teams. 

In the North zonals, IIT Delhi’s Harshul Sagar and Arush Utkarsh bagged the gold on June 20. In the East zonals, Rajnish Kumar and Ashutosh Kumar from Government Engineering College (GEC), Vaishali, rose to the top. In the Northeast zonals, the highest-scoring team comprised Murchana Barman and Amarendra Kumar from Scholar’s Institute of Technology & Management (SITM), Kamrup.

(From left) West zonal winners from Allana College of Pharmacy, Pune; South zonal winners from Atal Bihari Medical College, Bengaluru. Image source: Extra-C

The South zonals were won by Aedha Nimisha and Prathama Priyadarshini from Atal Bihari Medical College, Bengaluru. The last round, the West zonals, were won by Afreen Nasir Chougle and Maryam Sadik Mulla representing M.C.E. Society’s Allana College of Pharmacy, Pune. 

A wildcard entry has also been granted to a team from the University of Delhi, making it six total teams who will compete at the finals in Delhi this August.

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This was NICE’s inaugural edition, jointly organised by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) with Extra-C. The contest was also shaped by IAS officer Vivek Kumar Singh, who is Bihar’s Development Commissioner and an avid cryptic crossword player.

According to Singh, who is also Chief Mentor at the event, young players often miss the excitement of crossword contests after leaving school. NICE was created to fill this void, with the aim of “providing an intellectual pastime, and keep(ing) the campuses abuzz with a sense of exploration”.