Kolkata: The team comprising Samanway and Piyush on Sunday won the Open Category General Quiz, a fiercely contested event, on the last day of the two-day Patna Mind Fest (PMF) 2025. Incidentally, both belong to Kolkata, considered as India’s quizzing capital. While the team of Calvin, Baibaswata and Anand stood second, Jayakanthan, Sangeeth and Zaman, comprising another team, won the third position. In the College Category, the IGIMS team of Sohamm, Aman and Utpal clinched the top spot. The team of Prateek and Swetank and that of Kumar Vivek and Shashank Kumar stood second and third, respectively.
In the School Category, the team comprising Ishan Bhushan, Utkarsh Singh and Aayush Mishra won the first position. They were followed by the teams of Nand Kishore, Samantak, Sanskar and Yuvraj, Adhrit and Prateek in second and third positions, respectively.
The Cryptic Crossword, the first event of day two contested by individual participants, saw Saksham Singh topping the rank in the School Category. He was followed by Shubhi Srivastava and Nanya Dev Singh on second and third positions, respectively. While Adya Singh topped the College Category, Shashwat Sanjeev and Vandita Vidisha were at second and third positions, respectively. In the Open Category, Shraddha Suree clinched the first spot leaving behind Dhairya Pandey and Calvin on second and third positions, respectively. There were 220 participants who sat to solve the crossword puzzles across the three categories.
The results of the Creative Writing contests in Hindi and English, which took place on day one, were declared on Sunday. Samrat Sameer, Muskan Kumari and Anushka Vidyarthi won top positions in Hindi Creative Writing in Open, College and School categories, respectively. Bhavya Nathani, Ankita Singh and Devyangana Kishore won first positions in English Creative Writing in Open, College and School categories, respectively.
The inauguration on Saturday of this annual Fest had witnessed India Quiz and Word Bee contests. All events have three categories – Open, College and School. Participants may participate solo or as teams of maximum of three members in India Quiz, Word Bee and General Quiz. Creative Writing and Crossword are solo contests.
Winners and participants received trophies and certificates from a galaxy of dignitaries present on the occasion. Mr R.U. Singh (retd) IAS, was the Chief Guest. Other distinguished guests included Mr Vivek Kumar Singh, RERA chairman; Mr Divesh Sehra, IAS, Secretary, SC&ST Welfare Department; Mr Pranav Kumar, IAS, Secretary, Home Department; Ms Rachana Patil, IAS, Secretary, GAD, and Convenor of PMF 2025; Mr Sanjay Kumar, IAS; Mr Abhay Jha, IAS; Mr Ashutosh Dwivedy, IAS; Mr Shekhar Anand, IAS; Mr Nitin Kumar Singh, IAS; Ms Anupama Singh, IAS; Mr Rajiv Ranjan Sinha, GM, Central Bank of India; and Mr L.C. Meena, RH Patna, Central Bank of India.
Held every year to showcase state’s learning legacy and a spirt of exploration among its youth and adults alike, PMF 2025 is the 7th edition that began in 2018. The 2020 edition could not be held due to the pandemic lockdown. It is organised jointly by the IAS Officers’ Association, Bihar Branch, and Extra-C, a Patna-based civil society initiative at the forefront of promoting knowledge-based co-curricular activities.
