Mumbai students win national Abacus competition

Nine-year-old Prathamesh Shirodkar and Disha Mahale, aged 8 from Mumbai won the 'Champion' trophy along with cash and other rewards in the 15th National UCMAS Abacus and Mental Arithmetic Competition.
"Abacus has proved to be excellent sport for brain, and the winners have brought lot of pride to their respective cities and training centres by demonstrating highest level of mathematic skills with the help of hand and eye calculation," Chandrakant Mishra, Director of CBS Education said in a statement issued here today.
Over 5,000 exams were conducted on that single day with students from 25 states participating and over 1,600 trophies were distributed on that day besides all the participants also receiving a participation trophy, he said.

He said at the competition, which tested speed and accuracy in arithmetic, the UCMAS students had eight minutes to solve as many as 200 maths questions depending on the students' level, using only an abacus or mental arithmetic.
Also honoured were Parth Poddar, Sanskar Gupta, and Syam Sundar who had become World Champions at the recently concluded 6th Global Abacus and Mental Arithmetic Competition of WAAMA (World Association of Abacus and Mental Arithmetic) held at Hong Kong, said the statement.
The event was hosted by UCMAS India at Jaipur, Rajasthan on August 27, followed by an awards ceremony on August 28.