Jamshedpur, Feb. 22: Academics took a backseat as entertainment took centrestage at the annual fest of National Institute of Technology (NIT), Adityapur, that began from today.

Marked by fun games and a lot of entertainment, this year’s edition of the fest saw teams from NIT, Raipur, and NIT, Durgapur, along with a few other technical institutes from Calcutta, take on their Jharkhand counterparts. There was a fair share of literary events at the fun-filled fest today.

While there was a Hindi debate on the independence movement, the English one centred on a student’s take on democracy. With the stage events being held at the open grounds on the National Institute of Technology campus, the auditorium was also filled to capacity with students participating at a plethora of events including Just a Moment (JAM) and Antakshari, which were the most popular events of the day.

“This is our attempt to give students a platform to showcase their creative skills. There are many talented youngsters who just need a platform of this scale to showcase their skills,” said Nikhil, the general secretary of the Technology Students’ Gymkhana, — the organisers of the event.

Apart from the usual rounds of face and T- shirt painting that kept the techies busy all day, the highlight of the day was the fine arts exhibition, Shades, where students put up models related to the theme of forests.

A fashion show and a personality contest also brought together students from different colleges to participate at the fun-filled event.

“Particularly interesting in the fest this year were the X games where everyone had to unleash their adventurous streak. But this is really fun,” said Harish N, a member of the event management committee of the literary and debating society.

Abhishek, the radio jockey from the steel city’s lone FM station, also regaled the audience as a compere at the X games event.

The next two days of the engineering college fest promise more entertain- ment with Khayali of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge fame touching base in the steel city for an exclusive show tomorrow and a performance by Calcutta based rock band Nucleus, on the last day.

Spread over three days, Utkarsh ’08 is an annual event of the engineering college which allows participation of students from all four batches who are pursuing a degree from the college.