<p>Rajat G Bhushan, a second year engineering student from Amrita Institute of Engineering and Management Systems, Bangalore, walked away with a laptop on Thursday, after being adjudged the winner of the contest, where the participants had to develop their own blogs on ‘US-India Partnership: It Matters’.<br /><br />While N Krishna Kumar of Madurai got the second prize, a Hubli lad, 19-year-old Sujay Babruwad, a first-year engineering student, came third. They were given a desktop and an iPod, respectively. <br /><br />There were consolation prizes (an iPod shuffler), too, bagged by Tom Killo and V P Aneesudheen, both from Kerala, and K Shameer from Puducherry. <br /><br />The prizes were given away by Acting Consul General Bryan Dalton. For Rajat, the contest might have been quite a cakewalk after five or six years of blogging. “I have been blogging from my 10th Class and this is one competition I really looked forward to,” he told Deccan Herald. However, for Sujay, the contest was his first attempt at blogging that “straight gave him a ticket to the US Embassy”. <br /><br />“I developed this blog on the insight that if India and the US, being two great democracies and powers, can partner, then we can solve any problem, be it economic, energy development or countering terrorism,” Sujay said. The contest was part of an effort by the United States Embassy in India to connect to people in innovative ways through modern media such as the Internet.<br /><br />The US Consulate General in Chennai was on the popular social networking site, Facebook, and was just an SMS away, Robert Kerr, acting public affairs officer at the Consulate, said. <br /><br />Through events such as the blogging contest, it aimed at encouraging youth to highlight the “vibrancy of United States-India relations”, he added.</p>
<p>Rajat G Bhushan, a second year engineering student from Amrita Institute of Engineering and Management Systems, Bangalore, walked away with a laptop on Thursday, after being adjudged the winner of the contest, where the participants had to develop their own blogs on ‘US-India Partnership: It Matters’.<br /><br />While N Krishna Kumar of Madurai got the second prize, a Hubli lad, 19-year-old Sujay Babruwad, a first-year engineering student, came third. They were given a desktop and an iPod, respectively. <br /><br />There were consolation prizes (an iPod shuffler), too, bagged by Tom Killo and V P Aneesudheen, both from Kerala, and K Shameer from Puducherry. <br /><br />The prizes were given away by Acting Consul General Bryan Dalton. For Rajat, the contest might have been quite a cakewalk after five or six years of blogging. “I have been blogging from my 10th Class and this is one competition I really looked forward to,” he told Deccan Herald. However, for Sujay, the contest was his first attempt at blogging that “straight gave him a ticket to the US Embassy”. <br /><br />“I developed this blog on the insight that if India and the US, being two great democracies and powers, can partner, then we can solve any problem, be it economic, energy development or countering terrorism,” Sujay said. The contest was part of an effort by the United States Embassy in India to connect to people in innovative ways through modern media such as the Internet.<br /><br />The US Consulate General in Chennai was on the popular social networking site, Facebook, and was just an SMS away, Robert Kerr, acting public affairs officer at the Consulate, said. <br /><br />Through events such as the blogging contest, it aimed at encouraging youth to highlight the “vibrancy of United States-India relations”, he added.</p>
