GUWAHATI, May 2 � The American Center Spelling Bee, 2011 contest, organised by the Darwin School of Business and managed by Career CliniQ, was held today at the Vivekananda Hall here.
Deputy Director of American Center in Kolkata, Scott Hartmann conducted the contest for the school students of the city. Prof OK Medhi, the Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University, was present as the chief guest.
Inaugurating the event, Prof Medhi told the young participants how Indian kids have been winning the coveted final rounds of internationally acclaimed American Spelling Bee contest held in America every year.
On the lighter side, he amused the crowd when he said that he once wrongly wrote the word pillar with a single �L� and his English teacher corrected him by saying that if he used two �Ls� instead of one, then his pillar would get stronger.
Scott highlighted the desire of the American Government to better the Indo-US relations through more people to people contact. Organising the Spelling Bee contest is just one of the many such activities aimed to arrive at that end. Navmita Bhattacharyya of Career CliniQ, who managed the event, ensured that each and every student got their fair chance to participate and win in the event.
According to a statement, the event saw schools participating from all quarters of the region. Approximately, 300 students from different schools competed with each other. The written round was closely contested and finally 23 candidates were shortlisted for the final round. After a long final session, Raktim Dutta of Little Flower School won the coveted first prize. Abhishek Bose of Maria�s Public School and Wasim Raza of Maharshi Vidya Mandir were the 1st and 2nd runners-up respectively.
In the year 2007, the American Library, Kolkata introduced the Spelling Bee for the first time in Kolkata. In 2011, Guwahati has been added to the list with the support of the Darwin School of Business.
