In an ambience full of poise, grandeur, décor and master choreography by Shiva Turlapati of Shiva dance academy Anusha Gopali was crowned IACA Miss Georgia 2013 and Pustee Jhaveri, IACAMiss Teen India Georgia 2013, at the FERST Center for the Arts, GA Tech, on July 13th, 2013.
Gargee Sathe was declared the Runner-Up. In the Miss Georgia category, Pooja Mayur won the People’s Choice Award; Rishika Laliwala won the award for best eyes, and Geetika Jape won the award for Miss Congeniality. While Anusha Gopali was crowned as Miss Georia 2013, Veena Anilkumar won the Runner-up’s crown. Anusha also won the award for best smile.



“Angels on earth” on a star and moon studded stage décor were thirteen teenaged girls who participated in “IACA Miss Teen Georgia” and fifteen young ladies took part in “IACA Miss Georgia”.

The stage was decorated with a motif accented with visual effects on the large screen in the background. The event started with an opening dance choreographed by Shiva dance academy and performed by all 28 participants in group. Two pair of Emcees – Archith Seshadri and Movina Nagarajan for The Teens and the other pair of Sumeet Goraya and Anjali Tripathi for The Miss– came on the stage and introduced the eight judges who were carefully chosen by the team.

The distinguished judges were Anupa Thakurta who is an exponent of the traditional and classical Indian dance form of Bharatnatyam; Hiromi Sato who is serving as assistant to the Japanese counsel-General in Atlanta; Nancy Dozier who is a beauty and entertainment industry leader; Robert Hope who is a 40-year veteran of public relations and event marketing industry; Ross Rossin who is a renowned artist with over 250 portraits to his credit; Shivani Gandhi who is a 2008 winner of Miss Georgia; Sniti Mishra who is a finalist of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa singing TV show; and Surinder Bedi who is CEO of Image Boutique Shop and a designer of bridal outfits.



In the next item, Gurupreet Sarin, a very talented jazz and soul singer, won the hearts and minds of many by his rendition of legendary Ray Charles immortal melodies, while the girls were getting ready for the ramp walk. Sarin sang “Georgia on my mind as well”.

After Sarin’s performance contestants came back on stage in beautifully clad Indian saris and dresses, makeup and jewelry that made them look like brides and one by one walked on the podium and on the stage while music and visual effects were creating the mood.

Hema Shilpa, a well-known Kuchipudi dancer gave a solo dance performance to the medley of Bollywood songs.

Rules for the SMS polling and People’s Choice Award were announced and the audience were encouraged to participate and vote for their best choice by texting. This award was declared at the end. Also it was explained how the scores will be tabulated.



On 9th July a talent round of all the girls was held at the IACA facility in Smyrna, and the video of their performance was screened for the audience and the judges. Top 3 of the performers from talent round on 9th, performed. Nansi Jhanji danced and ultimately won the best Talent Award. Geetika Jape danced and won Miss Congeniality award. Veena Anilkumar danced a classical dance called Mohini Attam and ended up being a runner-up.

Similarly, in IACA Miss Teen Georgia category Bhoomi Laliwala played piano and won best talent award, Aneesha Dasari sang a song and did not win any award while Pushtee Jhaveri danced and won the crown. All the girls were good showing off their talents and brought the house down with cheers and screaming by their supporters.

After the intermission, Sniti Mishra took the stage and charmed the audience with classical rendering of a dance number and “In ankhon ki masti” movie song.



Misses and Teens did ramp and stage walk in evening gowns followed by question-answer, which each of the 28 contestants took their turn and gave their precise and intelligent answers to the questions chosen by the judges. 10 finalists once again faced the judges for another round of question-answer session. Each finalist was given the choice of a judge to ask question.

Mr. Kaushal Tripathi, president of IACA applauded the community for rallying behind IACA in putting together the event. Also thanked the parents of the participants “Angels on earth” for trusting IACA with their most precious possession, their daughters. He assured the parents of IACA’s commitment to stay worthy of the trust for long time to come and work towards making the platform of beauty pageant for IACA even stronger. Mr. Tripathi mentioned that he has personally seen “angels on earth” work hard in ultimate display of poise, grandeur, ambition, self-confidence and friendship during last two months. He also added that the pageant is a fundraising event for StandUp2Cancer Foundation which is in line with IACA’s objective of giving back to the community. Virag Tripathi who was also the music coordinator and DJ of the evening had initiated the tie up with StandUp2Cancer .


Dr. Paddy Sharma, IACA’s chairperson along with Dr. Lakshmi Rao gave each contestant a trophy as well as a bag of goodies. In the end Rina Gupta’s prediction of being proud to be a part of the glorious past and equally bright future has come to realize. Every one’s faces were full of joy, smile and happiness that our community shows off during such events.