Indians rules the roost in National Geographic Bee

A 12-year-old Indian American from Plainville, Massachusetts, has emerged as the winner of this year's National Geographic Bee.

Sathwik Karnik won the 25th annual geography bee on Wednesday -correctly answering the question, "Because Earth bulges at the equator, the point that is farthest from Earth's center is the summit of a peak in Ecuador. Name this peak," as Chimborazo, People magazine reported.

Second-placed Conrad Oberhaus, 13, of Lincolnshire, Illinois, had know the answer all along but Sathwik got all his five questions right in their one-on-one duel.

Sathwik has been awarded a 25,000-dollar-scholarship, a trip to the Galapagos Islands and has been given a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society.

His parents Rathma, and her husband, Vishwanath, work in the software industry, and emigrated from near Mangalore, India, in 2002.

In the recent years, Indian-American children have been dominating both the National Geographic Bee and the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Last year Rahul Nagvekar won the National Geographic Bee while Snigdha Nandipati won the Scripps National Spelling Bee.