The seventh edition of the National Inter-School Crossword contest was launched on Friday.
Addressing a large number of students at Kendriya Vidyalaya-2 in Delhi Cantonment, senior bureaucrats, who launched this edition of the contest, highlighted the importance of crosswords in improving cognitive abilities among students.
The contest that is open for students of Classes XI and XII, was launched by senior bureaucrat Ravikant who is the Secretary, Food and Consumer Affairs with the Government of India.
Vivek Kumar Singh, chief mentor of the CCCC Cryptic Crossword contest, said: “Crossword is a challenge but promoting it is a bigger challenge. Schools are caged by the number of IITians they produce and unfortunately crossword becomes an extra burden to them. However, crossword helps in building a mental thesaurus which ultimately results in helping students be articulate.”
Stating that crosswords are a precursor to improving vocabulary and writing skills, Amarendra Behera, Joint Director, NCERT, said: “Even UNESCO talks about solving problems and critical thinking and through crosswords we promote critical thinking.”
The finale of the competition will be held in Delhi.