Mumbai, Maharashtra, Anand Sundaram from Thakur Public School battled it out with students from 74 schools to be crowned as the winner of Mumbai round of the much talked about "HDFC Standard Life Spell Bee - India Spells 2010," the Indian counterpart of the highly acclaimed Spell Bee, USA. Anand will now participate in the "Grand Finale" of the famed competition to be held on 9th January 2010.

The Mumbai final was held today RBK International School. 10 Finalists battled it out at the final city round. The Chief Guest of the final round awarded the certificate to Anand Sundaram. Apart from the certificate, Anand also receives a cash benefit of Rs. 20,000 from HDFC Standard Life.

Speaking about Spell Bee Mr. Rajeev Banerjee, Vice-President, Alternate Brand Solutions India Limited said, "The entries that we got for the competition has been phenomenal. Clearly, there is immense interest in the minds of the students and parents for such an initiative. The English language has over the years been woven with much prominence into India lingual fabric. Spell Bee aims at strengthening the basics of the language amongst Indian students and give a fillip to their proficiency in English. The contest brings back the spelling mania for young Indians that swept the nation previous year. The success and participation of Spell Bee can be gauged from the fact that an Indian student won the international competition in 2009. This year the competition gets bigger and better. We have included Cochin to the list of participating cities and look forward to garner maximum contribution from students and parents in continuing the legacy of Spell Bee all over the country. HDFC Standard Life has partnered with the event for the second consecutive year which stands testimony to its phenomenal success last year"

Mr. Sanjay Tripathy, Executive Vice President and Head, Marketing, HDFC Standard Life said ""I am extremely satisfied with the overwhelming response received in Mumbai, for Spell Bee - India Spells 2010. This enthusiasm clearly signifies the craving among young minds for improving their English spellings skills, vocabulary, and pronunciations. I am confident that Spell Bee - India Spells 2010 would achieve its objective of helping our students in building sound verbal and written communications, giving confidence, improving opportunities and leaving a lasting good impression thereby giving them an edge over others. I congratulate the city winners and wish them luck for the grand finale."

Students can experience the elation and excitement of the competition and hone their spelling skills by watching the excerpts of the event on National Geographic Channel. Commenting on the association with the "HDFC Standard Life Spell Bee-India Spells 2010"," Mr. Jay Kumar, National Sales Head, NGC said, "We are extremely happy to be a part of the second edition of Spell Bee."

All winners of each of the participating cities will participate in the Grand Finale in Mumbai. The winner of the Grand Finale along with his/her parent will be sent by The Times Group to experience the Scripps National Spelling Bee at Washington DC in May 2010.

Notes to Editor

About Spell Bee:

Spell Bee 2010 is a unique and scholarly education series in a fun-filled quiz format under the patronage of Spelling Bee USA, a prestigious annual event in the US with a lineage of 85 years. The last season of Spell Bee -India Spells 2009 received an overwhelming response from parents, teachers from over 650 schools across 11 cities. The second season is being conducted on a bigger platform, inviting participants from around 2000 schools across 12 cities (Delhi, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kochi, Hyderabad, and Chennai) and students of 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grades to participate

About Alternate Brand Solutions India Limited

The Intellectual Property Rights team at ABSIL - 360 Degrees has continuously managed to create smart properties with meaningful content, always in tune with present day thoughts. Few of the properties like Teen Diva have showcased the impactful and talented Indian youth leading them to an international platform. Similarly, the Spell Bee property classified in Education helped to engage Indian students to improve their spellings and increase their vocabulary skills, TechLife Awards within the Lifestyle Technology Space category was the country\'s first ever Gadget Awards that was a celebration of the hottest gadgets and the coolest technologies that changed lives. The team also handles Film fare Awards popularly known as the Oscars of India that highlight the Bollywood Industry and the ever-popular Femina Miss India in the Beauty Pageant segment with phenomenal response year after year. Various properties have been created over the last couple of years, and we continue to provide customized, impactful solutions for new concepts across an assorted range of segments.

About HDFC Standard Life

HDFC Standard Life, one of India leading private life insurance companies, offers a range of individual and group insurance solutions. It is a joint venture between Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited (HDFC), India leading housing finance institution and Standard Life plc, the leading provider of financial services in the United Kingdom. HDFC Standard Life Product portfolio comprises solutions, which meet various customer needs such as Protection, Pension, Savings, Investment, and Health. Customers have the added advantage of customizing the Plans, by adding optional benefits called riders, at a nominal price. The company currently has 25 retail and 6 group products in its portfolio, along with five optional rider benefits catering to the savings, investment, protection and retirement needs of customers.