MANASVI Noel of Mississauga, Ontario, was crowned Miss India-Canada 2015 this past weekend at the 25^th annual Miss India-Canada event.

The 16 delegates began the evening with a high-energy dance sequence with Bollywood hit songs from the last two decades.

Notable attendees were MPP Dipika Damerla who brought greetings on behalf of the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, Michael Couteau; Patrick Brown, Leader of the PC Party of Ontario; Rear Admiral Rajinder Singh from the Indian Navy; and various dignitaries from Ontario’s judicial system.

Organizers Sanjay Agnihotri and Gautam Sharma spoke about the journey of the Miss India-Canada event for the last quarter century. Agnihotri said that the credit for the show’s success goes to the founder, his late father, Kush Agnihotri, who started this prestigious event back in 1991.

Aashish Rajhans introduced the emcees for the evening— TV personalities Karen Johnson from Chch Tv, and Francis D’Souza, anchor / reporter for City News.  They introduced the panel of judges: Vijay Bathija, Vice President Commercial, Air Canada Leisure Group; Rahul Bhardwaj, President, Om Financial;

Shivani Gupta, Director, Crown Group of Hotels; Shiv Patel, Advanced Active Safety Engineer, Chevrolet Canada; Anuj Kapoor, model and financial advisor; Jordan Korenzvit, owner of Bang & Olufsen, Yorkville; Sudevi Mukherjee-Gothi, partner at Torkin Manes LLP; and Meher Pavri, Miss India-Canada 2007.

After each delegated completed the Evening Gown and Talent segments of the competition, the following awards were announced:

* Kajill Aujla of Calgary won the Chevrolet Spark Award for Best Performance

* Tanpreet Parmar of Delta won the Miss Photogenic Award

* Priya Sharma of Winnipeg won the Miss Congeniality Award

* Megha Patel of Mississauga won the Air Canada People’s Choice Award.

Sanjay Agnihotri and Gautam Sharma then presented the Special Achievement Award to Bollywood superstar Preity Zinta for her contribution to Indian and international cinema.

Then the Top 5 finalists were announced in random order: Sharon Philipose of Ottawa / Gatineau; Manasvi Noel of Toronto; Kajill Aujila, Tanpreet Parmar, and Priya Sharma.

The final segment of Question & Answer involved asking each contestant a different question by the panel of judges.

The audience were treated to a sensational fusion performance of bhangra-and-ballet dancers as the judges decided who the winners would be.

Francis and Karen announced the results from the accounting firm of Kunjar Sharma and Associates:

* Second Runner-up was Kajill Aujla

* First Runner-up was Sharon Philipose

* Miss India-Canada 2015 was Manasvi Noel

DUBAI-BORN Manasvi Noel graduated from Etobicoke School of the Arts in drama and CIMT College, Toronto, in acting. Currently, she is studying media communications at Humber College. She was inspired to pursue belly dancing when in Dubai she first

experienced an emotional belly dance performance with Arabic music. She temporarily moved to Mumbai to cultivate her passion for belly dancing. She met Veronica Simas DeSouza of ‘Veve Dance’ (Bollywood choreographer of ‘Sheila ki Jawani’ of Tees Maar Khan fame) who pushed her to excel and eventually begin her own dance classes there. She plans to have her own start-up academy for freestyle dancing through which students can learn different Indian traditional dance forms, merging them. She has a dream to work with Canadian police. Manasvi believes life is too short to be doing just one thing; we are given many skills and talents that have be explored and nurtured. Miss India Canada has accelerated the process of achieving her goals.