Craiova: Four students from Aliah University in Kolkata have bagged the second position in an International ‘Creative Writing competition.’

The contest was organized by the department of British, American and German Studies, University of Craiova, Romania in association with Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University, Lucknow, India.

Students from various universities all over the world participated in the competition.

Flavia Teodora Pintea from National University of Arts, Iasi, won the first prize and Adriana Alina Pastaca from University of Craiova secured the third prize.

The deadline for the submission was May 10 and the results were published nine days later

The Indians belong to the Department of English of Aliah University.

Sanghamitra Ghatak, a fourth year student, and Rifat Ara Khatun, a 2nd year student of the same university, secured 2nd position in overall competition. Tohidur Rahaman, and Samima Khatun got special mention for literature for their essay and visual arts.

Commenting on the achievement of the students, the registrar of the university said, “We would like to encourage our students to participate in such competitions and would arrange everything needed to enhance the glory of the university.”

The theme of the contest was “Text and Image.”

Rahaman said, “We were told to write an essay from any novel and make some visual arts based on the theme of that essay. And we chose George Orwell’s ‘1984’ as suggested by one of our faculties.” He also said, “I wrote the essay entitled ‘Orwell’s Futuristic Vision of Hyper-real world’ and Samima did the visual arts on this topic”.

In the same way, Ghatak also wrote an essay from Orwell’s ‘1984’ entitled “Surveillance in the contemporary governance: revisiting Orwell’s 1984” and Rifat did the visual arts, twocircles.net reported.

“I am extremely happy that they have been able to carry Aliah to Europe now at their student level. I hope there will be more interaction with them in other competitions and student exchange program or faculty”, said Sharmistha Chateerjee Srivastav, associate Professor of the English Department and also the mediator between the program convener and her students.

Samima Khatun, one of the winners, said, “Although we feared for the first time because of the International tagline, there was enough confidence within our hearts that we will be bestowed with success”. Rifat said that this result was unexpected and thanked God the Almighty for this success.

Earlier in 2012, two students from Engineering department, Mijanur Rahaman and Kamal Hasan, saw one of their articles published by NASA and last year Zeeshan Feiz Siddique from Department of English was admitted for the PHD program at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA. But it is the first time that the University has achieved an International prize in a competition.

Alia, set up in 2008, is autonomous university under the Department of Minority Affairs and Madrasa Education of the West Bengal state.