Curtains down on rose fest

CHANDIGARH: Curtains were drawn on thethree-day Chandigarh Rose Festival with great fervour on Sunday. The day wasmarked by slew of prize distribution ceremonies for various competitions thattook place during the cultural-cum-nature extravaganza.The UTadviser Pradip Mehra gave away the prizes to various participants of culturalevents, winners of different competitions, band parties as well as gardeners onthe occasion. Events like on-the-spot painting were a hit among the youth. Highpoint of the contest being that special children participated in the contest forthe first time ever. UT finance secretary Sanjay Kumar was chief guest on theoccasion.In group C (11-14 age group), Manisha stood first, KishanMittal received second position and Simarpreet Singh got the third prize. Ingroup D (14-17), Sahil Aggarwal bagged the first prize, while Sooraj Malik andAkansha Sharma came second and third.In special children juniorgroup category, first prize was given to Amit Ratan, second to Samta and thirdto Aashima. Bhavna Rani bagged the first position, Kalla Singh got second prizeand Rohit Kumar came third in senior category.Meanwhile, anantakshri competition evoked high spirits among people. MC commissioner RoshanSankaria was chief guest on the occasion, where theGovernment College for Girls,Sector-42, team bagged first prize and another team from the College of Nursing,Mohali, stood second, while Government College for Education, Sector 20, waspresented with the third prize.Besides this, a photographycompetition was also organized in association with the Photography Society ofChandigarh, wherein the event was divided in to amateur and professionalcategories. As many as 52 photographers participated in thecompetition.In the amateur category, first prize was given to DineshVerma, second to Sanjay Kaushal and third to J S Paul, besides, threeconsolation prizes were also give to Deep Ram Bhatia, Choginder Gupta and P KGautam in the same category.Among professional photographers, SunilSharma got first position, while Kapil Sethi and Harvinder Singh were the firstand second runners-up. Two consolations prizes were given to Pardeep Singh andDeepak Arora.The winners of first, second and third prizes will beawarded a cash prize of Rs 5,100, Rs 3,100, Rs 2,100.