Indian student wins Scripps National Spelling Bee

A 13-year-old student from New York has become the latest Indian American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee - an annual spelling bee competition in the US.

After years of heartbreakingly close calls, Arvind Mahankali from Bayside Hills, conquered his nemesis, German, and correctly spelled "knaidel," a word for a small mass of leavened dough, to be adjudged the winner of the competition on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported.

Mahankali has previously finished third in both 2011 and 2012, and both times, he got eliminated on German-derived words.

This time, he was asked to spell German-derived Yiddish, which he spelled with ease.

Mahankali, whose family is originally from Hyderabad, became the sixth consecutive Indian-American winner and the 11th in the past 15 years.

Pranav Sivakumar from Tower Lakes, Illinois, finished in second position while Sriram Hathwar, 13, of Painted Post, New York, finished third this year.