Odisha’s Dilishaa crowned KIIT NanhiPari

Bhubaneswar: Dilishaa Behera from Odisha was crowned KIIT NanhiPari Little Miss India 2024 at a glittering show held on KIIT campus here on Monday evening. She was crowned in the presence of Femina Miss India World 2024 Nikita Porwal; 1st Runner-up Rekha Pandey and 2nd Runner-up Aayushi Dholakia.

The KIIT NanhiPari winner takes home the crown and prizes worth Rs 21 lakh, in-cluding cash prize of Rs 3 lakh. Besides, the winner gets 100 per cent fee waiver at KIIT if she wishes to pursue her higher studies at the University.

Style, talent, intelligence, elegance and compassion defined the teenage sensations as they took the ramp at the 24th edition of the beauty pageant. Twenty-three partici-pants between 13-15 years were shortlisted for the semi-final from regional auditions held across the country.

In the Grand Finale, Hemanya Burhagohain of Arunachal Pradesh was crowned as the 1st runner-up and Esha Dangi from Madhya Pradesh was adjudged as the 2nd runner-up. They received a cash award of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 50,000 respectively, along with other gifts and substantial fee waivers for their studies at KIIT.

Achyuta Samanta, Chief Patron of KIIT NanhiPari and Founder of KIIT and KISS; Ma-lay Mohapatra, Patron along with the other guests, crowned the winners. Samanta announced that the prize money for NanhiPari 2025 would be increased to Rs 10 lakh, Rs 7 lakh, and Rs 5 lakh respectively.

Other titles too were decided in the final round. Miss Rapunzel title was won by De-wan Khushnuma Touhid (Meghalaya), while Miss Selfie title went to Hiyashree Pali-wal (Rajasthan). Reshmi Ghosh (Tripura) was crowned as Miss Active, and Yashashree Sagarika (Odisha) bagged the Miss Urvashi title. Kasish Chandel (Hi-machal Pradesh) was the winner of the Miss Monalisa title, while Nidhi R Gowda (Karnataka) won the Miss Photogenic title. Hemanya Burhagohain (Arunachal Pra-desh) won the Miss Personality title as well. Navya Kumawat (Rajasthan) won the Miss Fashion title. The Miss Cinderella title was won by Sudeshna Gurung (Sikkim), while the Miss Whizkid title went to Dilishaa Behera (Odisha), who also took the win-ner’s crown home.