surat it was an evening with a difference for the 22 shortlisted contestants to be at their intelligent best to express their views at the surat round of the times public speaking contest2003 held at the holiday inn on tuesday the participants spoke on a variety of topics including the age of heroes is over war is a necessary evil what some invent rest enlarge truth is a changeable commodity and love why men fall in and women fall out among othersof the over 90 applications received from citybased colleges 22 were selected after a series of group discussions to take part in the final event of the regional round all the topics were chosen through draw those dealing with war being a necessary evil and american imperialism reflected on the changing scenario at the international level though most of the participants were new to the contest there were some who had taken part on previous occasions toojiju cherian of sardar vallabh national institute of technology svnit who spoke on the age of heroes is over came first in the contest cherian said that it is heroism within oneself that needs to be pursued vigorously charu mathur of sarvajanik college of engineering who spoke on war being a necessary evil was the first runnerupthe second runnerup was sophiya jaychandran of mtb arts college she spoke on bollywood is about business not art her speech dwelt on the commercialisation of hindi films while third runnerup vinay tiwari of svnit also spoke on the age of heroes is over fourth runnerup grishma desai of sarvajanik college of engineering spoke on what some invent rest enlargeall the winners of this round of the contest will now take part in the final round to be held in ahmedabad on march 5the judges for this regional round were mahvaira cardiac hospital ceo dr ram narain surat municipal corporations cultural head and archaeologist bhamini mahidi prof satyakam joshi of centre for social studies the times of india resident editor kingshuk nag and the times of india group associate general manager r h dhanani