Miss India is an annual, national beauty pageant held in India and organized by Femina, a women’s magazine published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. The use of Miss India is in no way trademarked. Femina Miss India continues to be one of the highly recognized and well noted pageants to produce International Beauty Queens.
Contents
- 1 International Pageants
- 2 Record Breakers
- 3 Controversies
- 4 Tragedy
- 5 List of winners
- 6 See also
- 7 References
- 8 External links
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International Pageants
Miss India has been participating in the Miss Universe pageant since 1952, starting with Indrani Rehman; and in the Miss World pageant since 1959, starting with Fleur Ezekiel. There is no restriction that the winner of Miss India (or winner of National Title) can participate in Miss World pageant and Miss Universe pageant in the same year, however, after the Femina Miss India pageant was established, the practice was to send the winner to the Miss Universe pageant and the runner-up to the Miss World contest, however in 2007, the organization changed to send the winner to Miss World and the first runner-up to Miss Universe. Usually a second-runner up or an independent pageant winner would be sent to international pageants like Miss Asia, Miss International and Miss Asia-Pacific. Starting from 1997, the practice of choosing a single winner or “Miss India” was changed to instead elect representatives to the different international pageants, and three winners, who receive equal prizes and status but are called Miss India winners, are chosen, and designated Miss India World, Miss India Universe and Miss India Asia-Pacific. As of 2002, the third winner would no longer be sent to Miss Asia-Pacific, but to Miss Earth pageant, which is currently recognized as one of the three most prestigious beauty pageants in the world in terms of size and quality.
The awards for 1989 were given at the end of the year (December); hence there was no separate contest for 1990. No contest was held in 1989. In 1988 Eve’s Weekly winners Miss India International - Shikha Swaroop and Miss India Earth and Miss Bombay - Shabnam Patel, went on to win Miss MaxFactor in 1989 were very close and almost a tie and therefore both beauty queen’s featured for the first time on all the magazine covers together, as stated by Eve’s Weekly editor Gulshan Ewing.
The year 1994 was a landmark year for the pageant industry in India Sushmita Sen won the Miss Universe title after winning the Miss India crown. Sushmita Sen became the first Indian woman ever to win the Miss Universe crown. The same year the runner-up of Miss India, Aishwarya Rai, won the Miss World title. Both the Miss Universe and Miss World contests were won by Miss Indias Sushmita Sen (Miss India) and Aishwarya Rai (Miss India 94 runner-up) respectively. Today Rai is a global star and a leading Bollywood actress
The success of Sushmita Sen spawned a lot of coaching institutions which were set up to groom girls in pageant participation skills. The number of participants in the preliminary rounds of the pageant has increased considerably. Miss India World 1997, Diana Hayden won the title of Miss World 1997.Pageant winners are also groomed for months in preparation for the international contest. In 1999, the Miss India winner Yukta Mukhey went on to win the Miss World that year.
The year 2000 was another landmark year for Miss India. Three of the Miss India winners happened to win their respective international pageants - Lara Dutta (Miss Universe), Priyanka Chopra (Miss World) and Diya Mirza (Miss Asia-Pacific). This was a huge success. The only other country to have won all three major titles in one year was Australia in 1972.
Record Breakers
Miss India 1967, Reita Faria went on to be crowned Miss World1966, and thus became the first Miss World title holder from India.
India also holds the record for winning the Miss Universe crown, the Miss World crown, and the Miss Asia Pacific crown in the same year. In 2000, Lara Dutta was crowned Miss Universe, Priyanka Chopra was crowned Miss World, and Dia Mirza was crowned Miss Asia Pacific.
In 1994 Sushmita Sen was crowned Miss Universe and Aishwarya Rai was crowned Miss World.
In 1997 and 1999 India won Miss World title with Diana Hayden and Yukta Mookhey respectively.
India holds the highest number of Miss World winners only to be tied with Venezuela.
Miss World 1994 winner, Aishwarya Rai, was voted the most beautiful Miss World ever, in 2000.
Controversies
In 2007, there was another change where the title of Femina Miss India-Universe was brought to the 1st Runner-Up title and the title of Femina Miss India-World was the winner’s title. Femina Miss India 2006 Neha Kapur was highly offended by the fact that she would be crowning the girl who placed 2nd and not the winner and walked out of the pageant when it was time to crown the 2007 Femina Miss India.
Controversies erupted again in the year 2008 when President of Gladrags, Maureen Wadia served a legal notice to the newly crowned Pantaloons Femina Miss India Earth 2008, Harshita Saxena for violation of a two-year exclusive contract with Gladrags which had been signed by Harshita in the year 2006. To participate in any other beauty paegent, Harshita would have required a written letter of no-objection from Gladrags. Earlier in an interview with CNN-IBN Maureen Wadia said, “Harshita Saxena from Goa is a Gladrags model. She was a part of my Megamodel Contract in April 2006. Her contract has not expired and this girl has entered in some other contest before the contract has expired. The contract clearly says that they have to take my permission.” Owing to this, Harsita had to give up the title and the crown has now passed on to Tanvi Vyas who will be representing India in the Miss Earth 2008 paegent to be held in the November of 2008.
Miss India 2001 and Fourth Runner Up in the Miss Universe 2001, Celina Jaitley claimed that she was treated unfairly by media and others in Puerto Rico where the pageant was held. The Miss India contest and its succession of many International beauty Queens that had resulted in recent years led to the speculation of the Miss Universe and Miss World competitions being rigged because India had won many times in recent years.
Tragedy
A former Miss India Winner Nafisa Joseph committed suicide on July, 29 2004 hanging herself in her Mumbai flat. She had killed herself due to personal problems with her fiance, whom Nafisa’s parents also blamed for the death.
List of winners
Here is a list of women who have won the Miss India title. The names of those who have won the competition at the international level (Miss Universe, Miss World, etc.) are mentioned in bold.
Year
Miss India World
Miss India Universe
Miss India International
Miss India Asia-Pacific
Miss India Earth
Miss India Tourism International
2008
Parvathy Omanakuttan
Simran Kaur Mundi
Tanvi Vyas
2007
Sarah-Jane Dias
Puja Gupta
Esha Gupta
Pooja Chitgopekar
Priyanka Shah
2006
Natasha Suri
Neha Kapur
Sonali Sehgal
Amruta Patki
Tanya Vakil
2005
Sindhura Gadde
Amrita Thapar
Vaishali Desai
Niharika Singh
Sonal Chauhan
2004
Sayali Bhagat
Tanushree Dutta
Mihika Verma
Simran Chandok
Jyoti Brahmin
2003
Ami Vashi
Nikita Anand
Shonali Nagrani
Shonal Rawat
Swetha Vijay
2002
Shruti Sharma
Neha Dhupia
Gauhar Khan
Tina Chhatwal
Reshmi Ghosh
2001
Sara Corner
Celina Jaitley
Kanwal Toor
Maheshwari
Shamita Singha
2000
Priyanka Chopra
Lara Dutta
Gayatri Joshi
Diya Mirza
1999
Yukta Mookhey
Gul Panag
Srikrupa Murali
Shivangi Parikh
1998
Annie Thomas
Lymaraina D’Souza
Swetha Jaishankar
Vitika Aggarwal
1997
Diana Hayden
Nafisa Joseph
Dia Abraham
Divya Chauhan
1996
Rani Jeyraj
Sandhya Chib
Fleur Xavier
Mini Menon
1995
Preeti Mankotia
Manpreet Brar
Priya Gill
Ruchi Malhotra
1994
Aishwarya Rai
Sushmita Sen
Francesca Hart
Shweta Menon
1993
Karminder Kaur
Namrata Shirodkar
Pooja Batra
1992
Shyla Lopez
Madhu Sapre
Kamal Sandhu
Mehroo Jal Mistry
1991
Ritu Singh
Christablle Howie
1990
Naveeda Mehdi
Suzanne Sablok(Pillai)
1989
Naveeda Mehdi
Suzanne Sablok(Pillai)
1988
Anuradha Kottoor
Dolly Minhas
Viola Anthony
Shikha Swaroop|
1987
Kalpana Raj Pandith
Priyadarshini Pradhan
Erika Maria d’Souza
Jasleem Kaur
1986
Mehr Jessia (now Mehr Rampal)
Priyadarshini Pradhan
1985
Sonu Walia
1984
Juhi Chawla
1983
Rekha Hande
1982
Miss India -Pamela Singh
1981
Meenakshi Sheshadri
1980
Sangeeta Bijlani
1979
Swaroop Sampat
1978
Alamjeet Chauhan
1977
Nalini Vishwanathan, withdrew
1976
Miss India winner - Nafisa Ali
1975
Meenakshi Kurpad
1974
Kiran Dholakia
1973
Farzana Habib
1972
Roopa Satyan
1971
Raj Gill
1970
Veena Sajnani
1969
Kavita Bhambhani
1968
Anjum Mumtaz Baig
1967
Nayyara Mirza
1966
Yasmin Daji
1965
Persis Khambatta
1964
Meher Mistry
1963
1962
Ferial Karim
1961
Veronica Torcato
1960
Iona Pinto
1959
Fleur Ezekiel
1958
1957
1956
1955
1954
Leela Naidu
1953
Peace Kanwal
1952
Indrani Rehman
See also
- Category:Femina Miss India winners
References
- ^ “Missosology: Miss Earth 2005 Competition Format”. Retrieved on 2008-01-13.
- ^ Miss India history Indiatimes.com
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nafisa_Ali
- ^ Femina Miss India
- The Pride of India, a coffee table book on former Miss Indias, by Persis Khambatta, Miss India 1965
External links
- Femina Miss India official website
Miss Universe participant countries
Albania · Angola · Antigua and Barbuda · Argentina · Aruba · Australia · Austria · Bahamas · Barbados · Belgium · Belize · Bolivia · Botswana · Brazil · British Virgin Islands · Bulgaria · Canada · Cayman Islands · Chile · China · Colombia · Costa Rica · Croatia · Curacao · Cyprus · Czech Republic · Denmark · Dominican Republic · Ecuador · Egypt · El Salvador · Estonia · Ethiopia · Finland · France · Georgia · Germany · Ghana · Greece · Guam · Guatemala · Guyana · Honduras · Hungary · Iceland · India · Indonesia · Ireland · Israel · Italy · Jamaica · Japan · Kazakhstan · Kenya · Korea · Kosovo · Latvia · Lebanon · Malaysia · Mauritius · Mexico · Montenegro · Namibia · Netherlands · New Zealand · Nicaragua · Nigeria · Northern Marianas · Norway · Panama · Paraguay · Peru · Philippines · Poland · Portugal · Puerto Rico · Romania · Russia · Serbia · Singapore · Slovak Republic · Slovenia · South Africa · Spain · Sri Lanka · St Lucia · St Martin · St Vincent and the Grenadines · Sweden · Switzerland · Tanzania · Thailand · Trinidad and Tobago · Turkey · Turks and Caicos · Ukraine · UK · Uruguay · USA · US Virgin Islands · Venezuela · Vietnam · Zambia
Miss World participant nations 2005–2007
Albania · Angola · Argentina · Aruba · Australia · Austria · Bahamas · Barbados · Belarus · Belgium · Belize · Bolivia · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Botswana · Brazil · Bulgaria · Cambodia · Canada · Cayman Islands · Chile · People’s Republic of China · Colombia · Democratic Republic of Congo · Costa Rica · Croatia · Curaçao · Cyprus · Czech Republic · Denmark · Dominican Republic · Ecuador · El Salvador · England · Estonia · Ethiopia · Finland · France · Georgia · Germany · Ghana · Gibraltar · Greece · Guadeloupe · Guatemala · Guyana · Honduras · Hong Kong · Hungary · Iceland · India · Indonesia · Ireland · Israel · Italy · Jamaica · Japan · Kazakhstan · Kenya · Korea · Latvia · Lebanon · Liberia · Lithuania · Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia · Malawi · Malaysia · Malta · Martinique · Mauritius · Mexico · Moldova · Mongolia · Montenegro · Namibia · Nepal · Netherlands · New Zealand · Nicaragua · Nigeria · Northern Ireland · Norway · Panama · Paraguay · Peru · Philippines · Poland · Puerto Rico · Romania · Russia · Scotland · St. Lucia · Serbia · Sierra Leone · Singapore · Slovakia · Slovenia · South Africa · Spain · Sri Lanka · Suriname · Swaziland · Sweden · Switzerland · Tahiti · Chinese Taipei · Tanzania · Thailand · Trinidad and Tobago · Turkey · Uganda · Ukraine · United States · US Virgin Islands · Uruguay · Venezuela · Vietnam · Wales · Zambia · Zimbabwe
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Categories: Beauty pageants | Femina Miss India winners | Indian culture | The Times Group