Pond’s Femina Miss India 2005 has 23 bright new faces of young Indian women this time, competing for one of the most-sought after crowns in India The Ponds Femina Miss India 2005 contest received above 9,300 entries. The shortlisted girls were brought to Mumbai for the regional rounds. The final list has 23 beauties vying for the top honour. Other prominent recent Miss Indias include Sushmita Sen, Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra. All of them have graduated from modeling to moviedom.

Pond’s Femina Miss India 2005 will also serve as a platform to create awareness about art. Mr Guru Swarup Srivastava, chairman of the Swarup Group of Industries, is one of the associate sponsors of the event. Mr Swarup had sponsored Times of India’s Filmfare Awards recently. Before that, he was in the limelight for buying several works of renowned artist MF Hussain for a whopping Rs 100 crore.

The training programme for the Ponds Femina Miss India contest is currently on at the ITC Grand Central till March 26, 2005. The winner of Miss India contest can vie for Miss World and Miss Universe titles too.

The expert panel for the Pond’s Femina Miss India 2005 are:

Dr.Malvika Kohli - Skin Consultant
Asraar Qureshi – Photographer
Mr. Kumar - Make up
Mickey Mehta - Holistic health and spiritual transformation expert and official nutritionist
Dr. Apoorva Shah - Hair Expert
Sandip Soparrkar - Dance
Sabira Merchant - Diction expert
Anu Ahuja – Choreographer
Ruksana Eisa - Grooming and Etiquette expert
Dr. Sandesh Mayekar - Cosmetic and aesthetic dentist and smile design expert
Erica D'souza - Voice Imaging expert

BY A CORRESPONDENT