
Patna: The two-day Patna Mind Fest (PMF) 2025 concluded on Sunday with Kolkata’s quizzers emerging as the champions in the fiercely contested Open Category General Quiz. The team of Samanway and Piyush clinched the first position, cementing Kolkata’s reputation as India’s quizzing capital. Calvin, Baibaswata and Anand finished second, while the team of Jayakanthan, Sangeeth and Zaman stood third.
In the College Category, the IGIMS team comprising Sohamm, Aman and Utpal secured the top spot. Prateek and Swetank were placed second, followed by Kumar Vivek and Shashank Kumar in third. Among schools, the team of Ishan Bhushan, Utkarsh Singh and Aayush Mishra won first position. The teams of Nand Kishore, Samantak, Sanskar and Yuvraj, Adhrit and Prateek stood second and third, respectively.
The Cryptic Crossword contest, held earlier in the day, saw Saksham Singh top the School Category, with Shubhi Srivastava and Nanya Dev Singh securing second and third positions. Adya Singh won the College Category, while Shashwat Sanjeev and Vandita Vidisha came second and third. In the Open Category, Shraddha Suree emerged victorious, with Dhairya Pandey and Calvin finishing behind her. The crossword event drew 220 participants across categories.
Results for the Hindi and English Creative Writing contests, held on Saturday, were announced on Sunday. In Hindi, Samrat Sameer, Muskan Kumari and Anushka Vidyarthi topped the Open, College and School categories, respectively. In English, Bhavya Nathani won the Open Category, Ankita Singh topped the College Category, and Devyangana Kishore secured first place in the School Category.
The two-day fest was inaugurated on Saturday with India Quiz and Word Bee contests. Events were held under Open, College and School categories, with participants competing solo or in teams of up to three members in India Quiz, Word Bee and General Quiz. Crossword and Creative Writing were individual contests.
Winners received trophies and certificates from dignitaries including Chief Guest R U Singh (retd) and other senior bureaucrats and officials present at the event.
The seventh edition of PMF, jointly organised by the IAS Officers’ Association Bihar Branch and Extra-C, celebrated the state’s learning legacy and spirit of exploration among youth and adults. The fest, launched in 2018, could not be held in 2020 due to the pandemic lockdown.