14-year-old Indian | Akashvani News

Shrey Parikh, a 14-year-old Indian-American student from California today won the Scripps National Spelling Bee after he spelt 32 of the 35 words correctly in 90 seconds. Parikh, an 8th-grade student, beat 7th grader 12-year-old Ishaan Gupta. 12-year-old Sarv Dharavane finished third. Parikh also beat the previous spell-off record set in 2024 by Bruhat Soma, who spelled 29 out of 30 words correctly in the spell-off. Parikh, who was also a finalist in the 2024 edition of the competition, takes home a slew of prizes, including 50,000 US Dollars, a commemorative medal and the Scripps Cup among others. The 3-day competition began Monday at D.A.R. Constitution Hall with 247 contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Defence Department schools in Europe and five other countries including the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. The Spelling Bee competition was first held in 1925. Balu Natarajan became the first Indian origin student to win the competition in 1985. Indian origin students have dominated the competition and won titles over the past four decades. Of the nine finalists this year, five were of Indian origin.