Indian-American student wins spelling contest similar to Spelling Bee

A 14-year-old Indian-American student has won the first edition of a new spelling contest which is reminiscent of the US' prestigious Scripps Spelling Bee competition. Navneeth Murali, an eighth grader from Edison, New Jersey, won the SpellPundit contest by correctly spelling "Karoshthi", an ancient cursive script used in Central Asia, the New York Daily News reported.

Second placed Nidhi Achanta, an Indian-origin girl, is also an eighth grader while the third placed Harini Logan is a sixth grader. SpellPundit co-founder Shourav Dasari announced Murali as the winner.

The prestigious Scripps Spelling Bee tournament, which has been dominated by Indian-Americans over the years, has been cancelled for 2020 in view of the coronavirus pandemic, for the first time since World War-II. The competition, which is broadcast nationally on ESPN and gives USD 50,000 prize money, will return on June 1, 2021. The organisers of the Scripps National Spelling Bee cancelled the event citing "no clear path to safely set a new date in 2020".

Murali, who finished in the fifth place as a sixth-grader and 11th place as a seventh-grader at the earlier editions of the Spelling Bee, will now take home USD 3,000 as the winner of the SpellPundit. "I knew all the words in the bee. I just didn't want to be overconfident, because you never know what can happen in a spelling bee because no one knows the dictionary completely," he said.

The SpellPundit test consisted of a written spelling and vocabulary test, then oral spelling, just like Scripps. The only other time the spelling bee, an annual event since 1925, was cancelled was from 1943 to 1945 because of World War II.

Last year, after running out of words that were challenging enough for the contestants, the Spelling Bee ended in a eight-way tie resulting in an unprecedented octo-champs. Six of the champions were Indian-Americans.