Patna: The National Inter-College Crossword Expedition (NICE) 2025 concluded its fourth and final online round — dubbed Round ‘E’ — on June 10 with a thrilling display of intellect and wordplay from participants across the country.
Leading the scoreboard, VKS Gayatri from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad emerged as the national champion, demonstrating remarkable skill in speed, accuracy and lateral thinking. Close behind, Vijval Ekbote from Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, secured second place after a poised and analytical performance.
In a standout showing from the ‘awaiting college admission’ category, Patna’s Adya Singh claimed the third spot nationally. Her entry into the crossword spotlight marks her as one of the brightest emerging talents in the Indian puzzle-solving community.
The competition also honoured top scorers from each of the five zones based on cumulative accuracy and response time:
• East Zone: Ayush Warsh (Government Engineering College, Vaishali)
• West Zone: Ayush Sah (ABV-IIITM, Gwalior)
• North Zone: Isha (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi)
• South Zone: Ashish CT (IIT Madras)
• North-East Zone: Om Kumar Jha (NIT, Manipur)
At the state level, the following participants took top honours:
• Delhi: Mihir Verma (JNU)
• Haryana: Aditya Shaema (ACA)
• Bihar: Musarrat Parveen (GEC, Vaishali)
• Tamil Nadu: Advaith S (NIT Tiruchirapalli)
• Goa: Samruddhi S Salgaonkar (Goa Dental College)
• Punjab: Bhargav Vinayak (ACA)
• Assam: Shria Singh (IIT Guwahati)
• Madhya Pradesh: Misu Sinha (MGM Medical College, Indore)
• Uttar Pradesh: Kushagra Chnadra (IIT Kanpur)
• Gujarat: Dhara Mittal (Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar)
• Meghalaya: Amit Kumar Jha (North Eastern Institute of Ayurveda and Homeopathy)
• Jammu and Kashmir: Sudeep Saurav (IIM Jammu)
• Andhra Pradesh: Kamparaju Moulika (Santhiram Engineering College, Kurnool)
• Odisha: Subhanshu Sekhar Pany (Dhenkanal Autonomous College)
• Tripura: Barsha Debnath (Women’s College, West Tripura)
• West Bengal: Harsh Raj (IIT Kharagpur)
• Maharashtra: Swarada S Narote (AISSMS IOIT, Pune)
• Chhattisgarh: Bhudhar Chouhan (Govt. Lat Shri Virendra Bhadur Singh College, Mahasamund)
• Karnataka: Palagiri MV Reddy (Christ University, Bangalore)
The final overall leaderboard will be based on the aggregate scores from all four online rounds. Top zonal scorers will proceed to the next phase of the competition, while the national winners of each round have earned direct entry to the Grand Finale.
Amitabh Ranjan, COO of Extra-C, extended congratulations to all the winners and participants, noting the growing enthusiasm and competitive spirit among young crossword solvers nationwide.
