THE NATIONAL FINALE OF

“CBCI EDUCATION MASTERMINDS” NATIONAL QUIZ

Delhi, 15th May 2019: “CBCI Education MasterMinds” national quiz was launched at an in-house inaugural function at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India centre in New Delhi on 22nd September 2018 and in the subsequent months it was launched at the various national and regional level meetings and meetings of educational associations affiliated to the CBCI education office, in the various regions of the country. The newly launched national quiz was well received and the initiative taken by the Catholic Bishops Conference and its Education Office, well appreciated.  The Executive partners of the quiz The Franciscan Solutions under the direct supervision of the CBCI Office for Education and Culture, started working at it - preparation of brochures and other publicity materials, launching of websites and Apps for the social media, contacting the Catholic Schools in all the 174 dioceses and looking out for sponsors and appointing and working along with the well known quiz master of professional repute and excellence namely Adittya Nath Mubayi and his company Quiz craft Global Knowledge Solutions etc. The quiz would be conducted at three levels: local level, regional level and national level.

The inaugural version of the quiz, powered also by “Extra marks” finally began with the local level competitions in the individual schools across the country only by December 2018, and subsequently moving on to the Regional rounds and completing it in all the 14 regions of the country only by the end of April 2019. The national Finale of the quiz took place on 15th May 2019 at the Sacred Heart cathedral’s Diocesan Community Centre auditorium in the heart of the capital city, New Delhi.  

At the national Finale event, after the initial formalities of welcoming the participants and the dignitaries, in the inaugural address, Fr. Joseph Manipadam, the National Secretary, CBCI Office for Education and Culture elaborated on the sum and substance of this national quiz and its purpose as follows:

“Welcome to the “National Finals” of the “CBCI Education MasterMinds” quiz, here at the Sacred Heart Cathedral campus, New Delhi. Although this version of the quiz started at the tail-end part of the scholastic year, the subsequent versions of this quiz “CBCI Education MasterMinds” will start in July and finish by November. So the next version of this quiz will start in July 2019.

This quiz has been the brain child of Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, the Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and it is being realised by the Education Office of the CBCI and executed by the Franciscan Solutions, a renowned IT company and conducted by a the well known professional quiz master, Mr. Adittya Nath Mubayi and his team and the main sponsor being “Extra marks”.

Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India is the Governing Body of all the services done in this country by the numerous Catholic Institutions be it educational, health care or in the field of Social Service. In the educational sector alone we have more than 54 thousand educational institutions of which around 30 thousand are formal schools like the ones in which you study. Other educational institutions are Technical schools, special schools, schools for street children, vocational training institutions, skill Training Centres etc. It may be good for you to know that Catholic Church is the one single organization that runs maximum institutions to empower the poor and the marginalized and differentiated section of society. In the Educational sector alone we are empowering some 5 crores of students at a time with the participation of 27 lakh teachers. The Education Office of the Bishops’ Conference is headed by Most Rev. Thomas D’Souza- Archbp of Calcutta and two other Archbishops- John Moolachira of Guwahati and Andrews Thazhath of Trissur.

This quiz is meant to give the awareness that all of you have a common identity as you are studying in Catholic schools. Whether you are studying in a St. Joseph’s school or Little Flower School or St. Mary’s school, or St. Columbas’s school or Jesus and Mary School or Don Bosco or St. Xavier’s or whatever, you are all studying in a Catholic School run according to the Catholic Education Policy.

This quiz, unique of its kind, launched to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Catholic Education Policy, apart from General Knowledge, deals also with values in life, Constitutional content, Democratic ideals, the Rich Indian Culture, true Nationalism, National integration, secular values, Social justice and qualities of the heart.

Let this CBCI Education MasterMinds Quiz as well as the event of today be a celebration of Catholic Education In India. Catholic education is nothing but bringing the love and compassion of Jesus Christ to young people. Jesus said, “let the children come to me, the kingdom of heaven belongs to them”. Catholic Education is inclusive, it empowers the poor and the marginalised; apart from its academic excellence, it is holistic, it respects the rights of children, the rights of the girl child, transforms the individual and society and it cares for the environment and answers the needs of its stakeholders.

I want to thank all the Catholic schools across the country for giving such whole hearted support to this venture of launching a National Quiz for all schools run by the Catholic Church. I extend my Special thanks to the students, along with their parents and Principals and teachers, who have participated in the quiz competition from big number of schools PAN India in spite the delayed start this year. Let me finally wish all the students who are here coming from all over the country, all the finalist, and the Franciscan Solutions and the Quiz master and his team the best of luck for the day.”

Monsignor Soosai Sebastian said the opening prayer invoking God’s blessing on the events of the day and the Chief Guest of the day Most Rev. Theodore Mascarenhas, Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference blessed the Gathering before the dignitaries lighted the ceremonial lamp to inaugurate the Finale of the first ever “CBCI Education MasterMinds” national quiz. In his message to the participating students and their parents and guests and friends gathered in the hall, Bishop Theodore encouraged the young students  recalling an episode from his own life as a student pointing out that their winning or losing really did not matter but that they were all of them champions who had succeeded much in having successfully completed the local rounds and the regional rounds and reached the national final stage. Facing the life with competence and love was of essence he said, as he further wished them well and congratulated each and every one of the participants and those involved in organizing the event.

Among the 250 strong audience consisting of Fathers, Sisters, Teachers, Parents and friends, who witnessed the event the following were the dignitaries:

Most Reverend Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, Secretary General, CBCI Centre, was the chief guest.

Special guests were: Rev. Fr. Soosai Sebastian, Vicar General, Delhi Archdiocese, Rev. Fr. Jervis D'Souza, Deputy Secretary General, CBCI, Rev. Fr. Devasagayaraj, Secretary, CBCI Office for Schedule Castes/Backward Classes, Rev. Fr. Joseph Manipadam, National Secretary, CBCI Office for Education & Culture, Dr. Bro. Thomas Thanickal, National General Secretary, All India  Association of Catholic Schools and other Fathers and Sisters from the various CBCI Offices, Mr. Ranu Francis, Managing Director, Franciscan Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Rajeev Francis, CEO, Franciscan Solutions Pvt. Ltd.,

The quiz partners present were: Mr. Adittya Nath Mubayi, Founder, Quizcraft Global Knowledge Soluions, Mrs. Mudita Mubayi, Director, Quizcraft Global Knowledge Soluions, Mr. Kamran Akram and Mr. Mahendra , Production Managers, Mr. Rishabh Arora and Mr. Kartikeya, AGMs Sales, Extramarks, Mr. Gajanan Mali, Founder & Director, Ten News, Media Partner.

Proceeding to the Finale of the national quiz, the following were the participants of the two categories who were the Regional winners:

Region School Location Category Participants

Qualified from the 14 Regions: (Category 2= Senior; Category 1 = Junior))

Bihar Carmel E.M. School Buxar Category 2 Vijay Krishan Rai, Palak Rai

Bihar St. Mary’s School Samastipur Category 1 Aditya Raj

Jharkhand Little Flower School Jamshedpur Category 2 Shounak Goswami, P.Srivastava

Jharkhand Little Flower School Jamshedpur Category 1 Anmol Singh, Rohit Verma

Northern St. Xavier’s School Delhi Category 2 Amogh K. Umesh, D. Shandilya

Northern St. Joseph’s H S School Baramulla Category 1 Solheen Seher, Irtika Akbar

Telugu Atkinson H. School Vijayawada Category 2 P. Kommu, Gowtham Potla

Telugu St. Mary’s H. School Secunderabad Category 1 Kyati S. Pillai, Y.S. Kartikeya

Tamil Nadu Petit Seminaire H.S.S Pondicherry Category 2 Bharathi B, Elankumaran R.

Tamil Nadu Petit Seminaire H S.S. Pondicherry Category 1 S. Sanjeeiv, S. Kamesh

Odisha St. Thomas C. School Balasore Category 2 R. Khandelwal, Arnab Dolui

Agra St. Mary’s School Jajpur Category 1 Aryan Pati, Adisha Deo

M.P. Campion SS School Bhopal Category 2 Vinamra Mandal, Tanmay Sinha

Agra St. Paul’s SS School Udaipur Category 1 Hardik Bagora, Garv Mogra

Western Mt. St. Ann H School Telegaon, Pune Category 2 Jaydeep Kulkarni, Om Gawade

Western St. George’s School Malad, Mumbai Category 1 Vikram Patkar, Mann Shaikh

Kerala St. Patrick’s Academy Angamali Category 2 Pranoy Giri, Noel Bovan

Kerala Carmelgiri E.M. School Malappuram, Category 1 Anjana Jose, Niranjana R.

Karnataka Bharath Matha School Koppa Category 2 Nivedita Tiwari, Albin Jose

Karnataka Shati Sadan H. School Hubli-Dharward Category 1 S. Hulimani, S. Honnagoudar

Bengal St. Xavier’s School Purulia Category 2 Anurag Singh Deo, Sourav Jyoti

Bengal Auxilium C School Bandel Category 1 Soumyosree Mal, Ishani M.

Chhatisgarh Gyanodaya H School Jagdalpur Category 2 Shubham Nahak, H. Dewangan

Chhatisgarh Carmel School Ambikapur Category 1 Sparsh Agarwal, Aditi Agarwal

North Eastern   Don Bosco H School Tezpur Category 2 Dhritiman Sawarni, Prakritish D.

North Eastern St. Francis De sales S Dhemaji Category 1 D. Konwar, Leena Upadhyay

Agra St. John’s School Jaunpur Category 2 A. Viswakarma, Aditya Soni

Agra St. Joseph’s Academy Gaziabad Category 1 U. Shukla, Sarthak Sharma

WILD CARD ENTRY ( List.1 )

Tamil Nadu Good Shepherd School Chennai Category 2 Maria Sheryl, Kavya R.

Agra St. Joseph’s Acadamy Dheradun Category 2 Sejal Gupta, Parth Semwal

Western Campion School Grtr. Mumbai Category 1 S. Srivastava, D. Bhattacharya

Bihar Montfort SS School Bgaha Category 1 Nilotpal K Gupta, J. R. Nayak

WILD CARD ENTRY ( List.2 )

Delhi Sahoday Sr S School Delhi Category 2 D. Chowdhary, D. Tharini

Delhi Sacred Heart S S School Chandigarh Category 1 Khyati Garg,  Saumya Dhote

Agra St. Joseph’s School Grtr. Noida Category 1 Aanabil Hazra, N. Maheshwari

There were four semi final rounds of on stage quizzing for both the Junior and Senior categories (8 teams each) in between which snacks were served during a break. After the semifinals there was the grand Finale of the quiz for those selected from the semi final rounds for both the Junior and Senior categories on stage. There were 8 teams for the Junior Final and 8 teams for the Senior Final of the quiz. At the end of the day the National winners from the Junior Category 1 were: Vikram Patkar and Mann Shaikh from St. George High School (Malad) Greater Mumbai. The National winners from the Senior Category 2 were: Anurag Singh Deo and Sourav Jyoti from St. Xavier’s School, Purulia.

The National Runners up from the Junior Category 1 were: Anmol Singh and Rohit Verma of Little flower School, Jamshedpur and the National Runners Up from the Senior Category 2 were: Shounak Goswami and Priyanshu Srivastava also from Little Flower School, Jamshedpur.

The winners were entitled to get two years of free education in the same school, trip to Singapore, Tablets and on line App based coaching from Extra Marks. The winners and Runners up were also handed over the Trophies and gift vouchers. So also the Regional coordinators and schools that enrolled maximum participants from each diocese/ Regions were entitled to receive awards. The award ceremony was graced by Monsignor Soosai Sebastian, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Delhi, Fr. Joseph Manipadam SDB, the National Secretary, CBCI Office for Education and Culture, the Quiz Master, Mr. Adittya Nath Mubayi and others. After the award ceremony and words of appreciation and vote of thanks, announcement was made that the second version of the quiz “CBCI Education MasterMinds” would begin by July this year. As the participants and guests dispersed lunch packets were distributed as also it was time to sign the message wall and take selfies before leaving the Sacred Heart Cathedral venue.

Reported by Fr. Joseph Manipadam SDB

National Secretary, CBCI Office for Education and Culture