Football fever

While the entire nation seemed to be bitten by the cricket bug courtesy IPL 5, young football fans in the capital were busy bending it like Beckham in the second Mother's Premier League held from May 20 to 28.

Defying the sweltering weather, around 72 budding footballers selected from amongst 180 students from different schools and colleges in the city participated in the football tournament, which was organised by the Mother's Public School. They were divided into four teams of 18 players each. The teams were called Titans, Assassins, Vulcans and Phoenix.

The matches were played early in the morning and late evening with adequate time for rest in between. Qualified national-level referees conducted the games. The format was similar to the English Premier League. There was no final match and each team played each other twice. Three points were awarded for a win, one for draw and zero for a loss. As per the norm, thirty minutes halves and rolling substitutions (unlimited) were used instead of three substitutions per match. Thus, a player could retire from the ground and join again after five or 10 minutes, which enabled fast-paced gameplay and ensured everyone got a chance to play.

Titans led by Abhijit Panda beat defending champions Vulcans 1-0 in the finale, the lone goal being scored by Bidur Ravi. The man of the tournament award went to Biswajit Barik (Vulcans) while Sunil (Titans) and Badriswaroop Tripathy (Assassins) were adjudged best goalkeeper and best defender, respectively. Ujjal Patel (Vulcans) won the most promising player honour while Satyajeev Patnaik (Assassins) bagged the trophy for best mid-fielder. The Fair Play award went to team Phoenix.

The guests for the closing day were secretary of Bhubaneswar Athletics Association S.R. Parija, ex-principal of Fire Training Institute Aurobinda Mitra, football coach Raj Kumar Mandal, vice-president of Odisha Cricket Association Nabaranjan Patnaik.

Brilliant results

Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (Kiss) has recorded brilliant results in science, commerce and arts streams in the Plus Two exams conducted by the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE). As per results declared yesterday, over 95 per cent students passed in science, while in arts and commerce, they achieved 100 per cent pass rate, mostly securing first division and second division marks.

Nearly 15 students from primitive tribal groups like Kharia, Saura, Juang, Kutia Kondh, Jhuria Paraja passed the exams. Even those students of this tribal institute, who had not performed well in matric exams, secured first class marks.

High fliers

Schools in Bhubaneswar shone in the CBSE Class XII exam results, which were declared on May 28. While Anshuman Mohapatra of Mother's Public School aced the Bhubaneswar region (includes Odisha, Bengal and Chhattisgarh) in the science stream with 98.8 per cent marks, Risha Bagchi of Sai International School bagged the top rank in commerce with an aggregate of 95.6 per cent.

Among schools in the city, DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur fared the best, with an overall pass average of 84.5 per cent, followed by DAV Unit-VIII (83.75 per cent), DAV Pokhariput (81.01 per cent), Sai International (79.81 per cent) and BJEM School (79.07 per cent).

Sai International School had extra reasons to cheer as two of its students - Pallavi Panigrahi and Sonali Sharma - secured second and 59th all-India ranks in the Common Law Admission Test (Clat). In the Class XII exams, Sonali secured 94.4 per cent while Pallavi got 93.4 per cent marks.