The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has set in motion the process of conducting the second edition of National Inter-college Crossword Expedition (NICE). The three-stage online-offline contest will be organised between March and August this year. The free-of-cost registration for the same has already begun on www.crypticsingh.com. Students of all recognized colleges and universities of India are eligible to participate in NICE 23.
The current edition is being held in association with the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), New Delhi, and Extra-C, a civil society initiative for the promotion of a holistic educational environment. This year also crossword contest will take place in hybrid (offline-online) format. This year the scope has widened to greater extents including a mock round to prepare the participants mentally for the contest.
“We had undertaken this initiative last year in compliance with and in the spirit of the National Education policy (NEP) 2020. After the last segment gained recognition and garnered positive outlook, AICTE has now come up with the NICE’23 for the students to explore their intellectual capacity and possibilities in an innovative way, yet again to bring out the best in them,” said Prof. TG Sitharam, Chairman, AICTE, in a statement.
Stage I- There is facilitation of an online combat rehearsal for the convenience of students. “A mock practice test will take place on April 2, 2023 to acquaint the students with the pattern of the contest. This is to draw substantial participation and mitigate fear of competition among the students,” said AICTE’s Vice Chairman, Shri Abhay Jere.
Following this, there will be four competitive online rounds – namely N, I, C and E — on four successive Sundays on 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th April in which individual participants will be required to solve five crossword clues with supplementary hints.
The clues will be posted at 1030 Hours IST on every Sunday on nice.crypticsingh.com and on application “NICE-22” for android users. The solutions will have to be submitted by 1700 Hours IST on the same day. The student with the fastest plus correct solutions will be awarded 1000 points. The scores will move in a descending order based on the time taken and correctness of the solutions.
Stage II- This is the offline round of the contest. The top two performers from participating institutions will constitute two-member teams that will represent the institutions in the Zonal Rounds. There will be two rounds for each zone. In the preliminary written round, a maximum of 50 teams from the participating institutions belonging to the zone will compete at a designated host institution. Top six performing teams will be shortlisted for the on-stage Zonal Finals.
Stage III- There will be five zones, viz., North, South, West, East and Northeast. The top three teams will qualify from each Zone for the National Finals in Stage III, to be held in Delhi in July-August.
The National Finals will entail two series – Written Prelims and an Onstage G-20 Round, where all qualifying teams will participate. The quarter-finalists will be selected on the basis of the scores of the written round and the G-20 Round. This will be followed by semi-finals and a final.
The schedule for Stage II and III will be announced in due course.
NICE was inaugurated last year as part of the effort “to meet the objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which envisages nurturing a vibrant campus life and focussing at Educational Development for cerebral betterment of students as well as making a mark in global engagement,” said Prof. Rajive Kumar, Member Secretary, AICTE.
IIT Delhi won the inaugural NICE edition in 2022. It was followed by IIM Kozhikode in 2nd spot and Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Institute, Bengaluru, in 3rd.
