As the competitive phase of the daily school online crossword contest, known as A-Clue-A-Day (ACAD), came to an end, the rankings for the month of October saw Samriddhi Shree of Don Bosco Academy, Patna, sitting at the apex. Dhairya Pandey from the school and Saptak Gupta of DPS, Patna, followed her on numbers 2 and 3, respectively.

Though the contest is held every day throughout the year, the scoring phase runs between January and October 31. A clue is uploaded every day on www.crypticsingh.com and participants have to submit the solution by a fixed time the following day. Marks are allotted for both speed and accuracy and regular leaderboardsare formed.

In the college category, called ACD Plus, Samriddhi Sinai Salgaonkar of Goa Dental College topped the month table. She was followed in runner-up and 2nd runner-up positions by Om Kumar Jha of the National Institute of Technology Manipur, Araria, Bihar, and Shivam Kumar Jha of S.D.D.N.G. Government High School, Forbesganj, Araria, respectively.

In ACAD Senior, meant for participants aged 60 or above, Kolluru Koteswara Rao of Hyderabad achieved the 1st rank and was followed by R Nagendra Prasad of Bengaluru and N. Rangaswamy of Chennai in 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively.

In ACAD Global, while Samit Kallianpur of Secunderabad came first, Ramakrishnan Krishnan of Chennai and Harish Kamath of Bengaluru were placed at numbers 2 and 3, respectively.

The contest across all categories has the same format. ACAD was started in the year 2014 and responding to popular demands, its college, senior and global categories were added gradually. While merit based on daily performances is acknowledged by sending certificates and prizes by post, position holders are also feted during offline crossword events and allowed entry to the finals in some of the contests.

The contests are organized by Extra-C, a Patna-based non-profit organization at the forefront of promoting knowledge-based activities across all sections of the population. It is known for holding various online and offline crossword events in India and abroad.