nagpur keeping up with the trend of promoting art culture and literature hislop college in association with the times of india is all set to host its annual intercollegiate event athena fest from january 10 to 15the cultural and literary extravaganza by one of the oldest colleges in city which has been accorded heritage status witnesses participation from more than 80 institutions from across nagpurin a bid to test the capabilities of students provide them a platform to get noticed and nurture their skills the college will have a wide range of interesting competitions broadly covering everything under the sun a few competitions offer entries for high school students tooroshan gede president of athena said this year the fest is bigger and better with three new contests involving fine arts and increased number of days performing in front of experienced panel of judges and intellectual audience will help the participants explore their abilities and grow they will indeed shed a layerthe core committee of 15 students coordinators and volunteers is working hard to take athena to new heights wordbusters and litmasters contests conceptualized and held exclusively at the college have now become their trademark the former revolves around scrutinizing language skills and vocabulary whereas the latter allows the participants to walk in the shoes of their favourite literary characters or authorsin order to resemble the famous personality they can sport their look and deliver their monologues their knowledge about the writers work would be judged along with other aspectsevery year senior english professor and theatre artist supantha bhattarcharya multiplies the enthusiasm quotient among the attendees when he becomes the quiz master for quizzistan the large number of entries in this segment indicates the popularity among the students the debate competition will encourage informative discussions over cooking topics the college is also offering budding artistes a chance to prove their mettle and showcase their talent in solo dance and solo singing contests also standup comedians can utilize the stage to tickle the funny bone of audience in hislop hahastudents with an imaginative mind and flair for creativity can sign up for on spot painting and sketching contest students who wish to influence the way people think through their captured images can opt for the on spot photography section