Quickly, where is Axum on the map?

Indian youths test their skills in geography bee

Samir Grover, of Cypress, Calif., and his daughter, Stuti, 9, did some last-minute studying at the geography bee yesterday at MIT. (JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE)

The hardest question on Nitin Krishna's written geography bee test? It would have to be the one that asked him to name the third largest city in Denmark, the 11-year-old said.

That left him stumped. (The answer: Odense.)

As for the easiest question - well, he said, there were lots of easy ones. How about what's the largest country in Africa? Don't worry, he'll tell you the answer if you ask: Sudan.

The Corbin, Ky., seventh-grader flexed his geography muscle yesterday at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he and nearly 1,000 other Indian-American students, from ages 7 through 18, faced off in various academic contests ranging from geography and vocabulary to mathematics and public speaking.

The students had come from cities across the country to compete yesterday and today in the National Finals for the Indian-American educational contests sponsored by the North South Foundation, an organization dedicated to eliminating fiscal barriers to education in India.

The foundation has been holding the contests for 16 years in different US cities, said founder Ratnam Chitturi, of Chicago. North South, was formed in 1989, to generate scholarship money for students in India who couldn't afford to go to school. Chitturi said the organization created the contests as a way to encourage academic excellence among Indian American children, as well as raise the scholarship money.

"Indian-Americans recognize the value of education," Chitturi said. "They are here primarily because of their education."

That was true for 40-year-old Madavi Oliver of Boston.

"I feel I came to this country only because of my education," Oliver said. Growing up in India, she said, her family struggled to put her through school.

She volunteered to put this year's contests together because she knows the money will go to help people in her homeland, where $250 will pay for one year of undergraduate education, Madavi said. "I want to help those other people who wouldn't have that opportunity."

Her two children competed in the vocabulary and geography bees, and her husband has set up a North South chapter in his hometown of Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu to administer the scholarships.

During the lunch break, Samir Grover and his 9-year-old daughter, Stuti, sat in the shade of a tree near the cafeteria and did some last-minute studying. He had a map of India and they were going over capital cities.

She knows US cities, he said, and was trying to get the same hold on the Indian capitals.

"It's a great program," Grover said. "It gets them going."

Grover had not been sure he wanted to fly to Boston from southern California for the competition, but Stuti, who had been once before, was sure she could place this time around.

"I think I could get a prize," she said.

In the afternoon's oral contests, Nitin Krishna posed like The Thinker as he waited for his question, his hand against his cheek, his elbow on the desk. Soon, the microphone was pointing at his face.

Axum, the judges wanted to know, is a city in which country?

"Libya," Nitin ventured.

No, the judges said. The correct answer was Ethiopia.

Nitin had answered his first question correctly - and was one for one.

The next one was a complicated query about what kind of clouds cause thunderstorms under certain conditions. "Cumulnimbus," Nitin said.

He was right.

"Some questions were a bit harder than the test," he said afterward.

Did he think he would be one of the 10 students to make it to the final round? "Yeah," came the confident reply.

He made the finals and placed second.