Time to get quizzed

Informative, fun, and larger than life — a look at The Hindu Young World Quiz through the years.

THE WINNERS OF THE HINDU YOUNG WORLD QUIZ 2000 IN CHENNAI ON TUESDAY. (L TO R) MR. ANOOP SHANKAR, MR. JIAN JOHNSON, MR. SIVA MOHAN REDDY, THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NUTRINE, MR. JAYENDER SRINIVASAN, AND THE CHIEF GUEST, MR. K SRIKKANTH. PHOTO: M. MOORTHY.

The year 2000 was a momentous one for Young World . But then, every year is!

It was in 2000 that Young World turned 10! To commemorate this event, in November, we began the YW Quiz in four centres — Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Delhi.

The quiz master was V.V. Ramanan and he covered a wide range of topics from math to gardening to geography and history to current events and movies.

There was a lot of fanfare, and schools vied to send in their best teams. For, it was indeed prestigious to win the title of ‘All India Winner’.

The finalists (the first two teams) from the other three centres were invited to the finale in Chennai. It was a battle of the brains, as eight teams fought for the impressive title. Finally, Loyola School from Thiruvananthapuram won. It was a proud moment for Loyola School when Anoop Shankar, Jian Johnson and Jayendran Srinivasan were crowned the All India winners of The Hindu Young World quiz. They received their trophies from the chief guest K. Srikanth, former Indian captain.

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YW Quiz of 2001 was a nail biter with Loyola School, Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi Public School, Delhi caught in a tie breaker. It was Siddharta Banerjee and Arvind Bhasker of DPS Delhi who walked away with the title. In 2002, it was Delhi to the fore again as Abhishek Bhandari and Jayant Pande of Francis de Sales were the winners. In 2003, Azmi Habib and Ramkeshav from BVM, Kochi and 2004, saw Ram Kumar and R. Vasant from Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, Chennai walk away with the first place.

Soon, by popular demand, the number of centres increased. There were now nine centres — Chennai, Delhi, Kochi, Hyderabad, Tiruchi, Coimbatore, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Visakhapatnam.

In 2010, when YW turned 20, a book titled Forever Young , containing the best of Young World, over the years, was launched. Karun Chandhok, Formula One racer, released the book at Kamaraj Arangam, Chennai. National Award winning child actors Kishore and Sreeraam, from the movie Pasanga, received the first copy. There were more celebrations. A special postal cover was released by M.S. Ramanujam, Postmaster General, Chennai city region and it was received by the then Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, Mr. N. Ram.

Since then, the YW Quiz has grown in popularity and strength. The number of centres continued to increase. Every year, in November, the YW Quiz begins its rounds, travelling across the country.

In 2014, it was decided that, for better management and efficient running, the quiz be broken up into Juniors and Seniors. As the number of centres increased, it became an almost impossible task to bring all the winners to one city, for the finals. The practical solution was to have every centre host its own finals. The quiz was conducted in the four states of south India across 14 centres.

The YW Quiz is now the longest running live quiz in the country.