Date:27/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/27/stories/2006082717960200.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Kothagiri students steal thunder at TCS quiz

Staff Reporter

St. Jude's team will compete in the national finals at Mumbai

WHIZ-KIDS RECOGNISED: The U.S. Consul-General David T. Hopper (right) presents awards to A.K. Somaiah (2nd from left) and Nikita L. Mehta (left) in Chennai on Thursday. - Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI : Kothagiri is one of the many hill stations of the Nilgiris and it would be asking too much to expect anyone, especially schoolchildren, to know anything more about the place.

But students from some of the leading schools of the city who participated in the inter-school "I.T. Quiz Wiz" competition conducted by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) at Music Academy here on Thursday will surely remember Kothagiri and especially the team from St. Jude's Public and Junior College that took the regional winner's trophy.

Nikita Mehta and A.K. Somaiah, class XII students from the international residential school, overcame some jittery moments in the first rounds at the regional finals of the annual quiz to come up trumps convincingly.

Quiz master Giri Balasubramaniam, and his team of researchers packed in enough trivia in the five-round finals. Somaiah and Nikita later explained that quizzing was quite a rage in their school and they were in fact quizmasters for the intra-school competitions.

The St. Jude's School team will go to Mumbai for the national finals scheduled for December 16. The team from D.A.V. Boy's High School in Gopalapuram, comprising Gaurav Rajasekar and T.P. Viswanath, bagged the second prize. Consul-General of the United States of America in Chennai, David T. Hopper, was the guest of honour at the awards ceremony.