Joyal Biju of the Government Engineering College, Thrissur, on Sunday topped the overall Leaderboard at the end of the fourth online round in Stage I of the inaugural National Inter-college Cryptic Crossword (NICE) 2022, organised by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC).
He is followed by Arpita Goel of the School of Open Learning, Delhi University, and Kirti Tyagi of Maitreyi College, Delhi University, in second and third spots, respectively.
The overall ranking takes into account the combined scores of the four online Sunday rounds held on April 3, 10, 17 and 24. The contest was conducted by the Patna-based Extra-C, a civil society initiative for promoting knowledge-based co-curricular activities. With the completion of the online Stage I of the three stage contest, it is time for the offline Stage II which will be followed by a Grand Finale in Stage III.
On the basis of the fourth-round scores, Shashwat Sanjeev of Hansraj College, Delhi University, is at No. 1 at the national level. The second and third positions have been claimed by Harshul Sagar of IIT Delhi and Salman Khan of IIT Kharagpur, respectively.
While Prateek and Nikhesh have broken into the top ranks for the first time, the rest have been performing consistently well since the contest began on April 3.
Stage II will witness five Zonal Rounds for North, South, West, East and Northeast. Top rankers on the fourth and the overall Leaderboards will now form two-member teams for their respective institutes for the rounds.
Six top teams after Stage II will play the Grand Finale in the national capital.
