Flashing a wide grin and giving a thumbs up as he realized his correct answer to the final question was his ticket to the Galapagos Islands, 12-year old Sathwik Karnik of Norfolk, Massachusetts, nailed his victory at the National Geographic Bee May 22, answering all 5 final questions correctly. He also won a $25,000 college scholarship and a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society.

In these days of spiraling costs of higher education, 5 Indian-Americans and 1 Bangladeshi American can heave a sigh of relief having won a $90,000 Soros Fellowship. The 5 Indian- Americans who won included Amar Bakshi and Sejal Hathi of Yale University Nishant Batsha of Columbia University, New York and Amrapali Maitra and Vivek Viswanathan of Stanford University. Ryaan Ahmed, whose parents were from Bangladesh, is studying at Harvard.

Indian-American students are making their mark in this year’s National Geographic Bee scheduled for May 20-23 in Washington D.C. They are going to represent 15 of the country’s 50 states and four territories. The top 10 winners will compete for $50,000 in scholarships. This year marks the Bee’s 25th anniversary and the last year that "Jeopardy!" show host Alex Trebek will host it at the historic National Theatre in downtown Washington, DC.

A Sterling man has been arrested by the FBI and charged with the federal felony of abusive sexual contact for allegedly fondling a fellow passenger on a flight last month into Reagan National Airport. Now, this was not a passing touch, as alleged in a federal affidavit by FBI Special Agent David Wiegand, and unwanted sexual contact is a serious matter.

Ritankar Das, 18, a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology at the University of California at Berkeley has become the youngest student to receive the University Medal in more than a century. The medal is given to the year’s top graduating senior. Das, who began his freshman term when he was 15, will be graduating with more than 200 credits and a GPA of 3.99 in three years, according to information on the university website.

Two Indian-American students have won the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship which gives full support for graduate study at the University of Cambridge, U.K. They are among the 90 students worldwide to get the scholarship. Amrita Dani of Newtown, PA and Tara Suri of Scarsdale, N.Y., are among the 40 from the U.S. to get the scholarship. Dani was brought up in Newtown, Penn.

Two Indian-Americans from New York State are among 40 students named last month as Watson Fellows. Shilpa Darivemula of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and Srikar Gullapalli of Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y., will each receive a stipend of $25,000 for the fellowship year. The Thomas J.