The famous competition for spelling words correctly, commonly known as Spell Bee has its new winners for the new year. “HDFC Life Spell Bee 2011” finished its city final round at St Xavier's Loyola Hall School, Mumbai, with Varsha Iyer, a student of Udgam School for Children, emerging as the city level contest winner. No less than 7,500 students from 60 schools of the city took part in the battle. Iyer will now take part in the grand finale in Mumbai in May this year. “I was confident of winning as my scores were high throughout the contest. But, I got scared when a couple of words went wrong in the rapid-fire round. For almost an year, I dedicated two to three hours daily in learning new words and updating myself,” said Iyer. Speaking about HDFC Life Spell Bee, Executive Director and CEO, Entertainment Network India Limited Prashant Panday said, “English language has over the years been woven with much prominence into India's lingual fabric. HDFC Life Spell Bee aims at strengthening the basics of the language amongst Indian students to give a fillip to their proficiency in English. HDFC Life has partnered the event for the third consecutive year which stands testimony to its phenomenal success last year.” Various winners from different cities that are taking part in the competition will compete against each other in Mumbai in the final round. HDFC Life Spell Bee 2011 is a unique and scholarly education series in a fun-filled quiz format under the patronage of Spelling Bee USA which is a prestigious 85-year-old annual event in America. In India, the first season of the competition was held in 2009. The third season of the competition held this year is being conducted in 25 cities across the country, including Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara in Gujarat. More than 1,300 schools across the country are participating in the competition this year. The Times of India will send the winner of the grand finale to experience the Scripps National Spelling Bee at Washington DC in the US.
