New Delhi: The Bihar Foundation National Inter-College Crossword Expedition (NICE) 2026 concluded its final Round E on August 16, with Adya Singh of St Stephen’s College, New Delhi, and V Krishna Sai Gayatri of BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus taking the top two positions.
The overall competition brought together young crossword enthusiasts from universities, engineering institutions, colleges and professional institutes across India.
Adya Singh Wins NICE 2026 Overall Title
Singh topped the overall NICE 2026 standings, followed by Arnav V Raju of IIT Delhi in second place and Shrawon Dey of IIT Guwahati in third.
The zonal winners were Aman Kumar of Government Engineering College, Vaishali (East), Divyam Jain of IIT Delhi (North), Shivam Kumar Jha of IIIT Senapati (North-East), Ashish C T of IIT Madras (South), and Anju Sengar of Government College, Joura, Morena (West).
The overall Bihar winner was Sohamm Sarthak Sinha of IGIMS, Patna.
State-level winners were also declared across 16 states and regions, including Assam, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Telangana, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Odisha and Tripura.
Round E Results
Round E, held on August 16, saw Adya Singh finish first nationally, followed by V Krishna Sai Gayatri and Ashish C T of IIT Madras.
The zonal winners in Round E were Gowtham Krishna Katakam of IIT Guwahati (North-East), Tisha Taneja of IIT Madras (South), Divyam Jain of IIT Delhi (North), Kashish Kamaal of Lakshmi Narain College of Technology (West), and Sohamm Sarthak Sinha of IGIMS, Patna (East).
The Round E state winners included Shivangi Singh of Saharsa College of Engineering, who topped Bihar.
Other state winners included Youkta Mandavkar of IIT Guwahati (Assam), Vaibhav Shekhar of National Law School of India University, Bengaluru (Karnataka), Magizhan Natarajan of IIT Madras (Tamil Nadu), Sidharth Valsan of IIT Delhi (Delhi), Meet Nareshbhai Makvana of Government Engineering College, Surat (Gujarat), and Aditya Sharma of Krea University (Haryana).
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Focus On Critical Thinking And Problem-Solving
The organisers, Extra C, congratulated the winners and participants for their performances and participation.
They said NICE 2026 was aimed at encouraging critical thinking, vocabulary, problem-solving, lateral thinking and intellectual engagement through crossword solving.
The organisers also placed on record their gratitude to the Bihar Foundation, Central Bank of India and Crossword Federation of India for their support and encouragement.
They said they looked forward to further contests in the upcoming offline stages of the expedition.
