The 13th edition of the prestigious National Inter-School Cryptic Crossword Contest (CCCC 13.0) has successfully concluded its first stage, comprising three challenging online rounds. The cumulative scores across these rounds have been used to determine the national leaderboard. From thousands of participants across the country, the Top 10 teams at the national level have emerged as front-runners:

Rank-1: Anhad Kaur and Divya Dhiman (BCM Arya Sr. Secondary School, Ludhiana)

Rank-2:Dhairya Pandey (Don Bosco Academy, Patna)

Rank-3:Shraddha Shree (St. Michael's High School, Patna)

Rank-4:Nanya Dev Singh and Tanmay Kashyap (DPS Patna)

Rank-5:Sahil Sandeep Sabne and Raaghav Kanegaonkar (SES Gurukul)

Rank-6:Saptak Gupta and Hemang Chandra (DPS Patna)

Rank-7:Arnav Gupta and Shashank Gowda (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Public School, Hyderabad)

Rank-8:Vaishnavi Nayak (Holy Cross School, Darbhanga)

Rank-9:Tanvi Uddaraju and Aanya Srivastva (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Public School, Hyderabad)

Rank-10:Sudhanshu Nayak and Shubhi Srivastava (Darbhanga Public School, Darbhanga)

Bihar Dominates with 29 Teams in Top 100, Six Teams in the Top 10

Bihar tops the leaderboard with 29 teams securing a place in the Top 100, followed by Maharashtra with 21 qualifiers and Delhi with 13 qualifiers.

At the institutional level, Delhi Public School, Pune has emerged as the leading school with 11 teams qualifying for the next stage. It is closely followed by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Public School, Hyderabad (10 teams), Adarsh Public School, New Delhi (10 teams), and Ambedkar Residential School, Bihar (10 teams).

In total, 100 teams from across the nation have made it to the second stage of CCCC 13.0. This stage will comprise an exciting face-to-face round, to be held virtually in September 2025, where young crossword enthusiasts will battle wits and words to secure their place in the grand finale.

Organizers expressed delight at the overwhelming participation and the impressive performance of schools nationwide. The National Inter-School Cryptic Crossword Contest, now in its 13th edition, continues to uphold its legacy of nurturing problem-solving, critical thinking, and linguistic skills among students while providing them with a platform for intellectual engagement.