Bhubaneswar: Ananya Panda from Odisha has advanced into the final round of 60th Femina Miss India beauty pageant 2024. She is among the state winners, who will compete at the grand finale scheduled to be held in Mumbai in October. The rigorous nationwide selection process, which spanned five months, included online screenings followed by a tour of each zone of the country, namely North (Delhi-NCR), East (Kolkata), North East (Guwahati), South (Bengaluru), West (Mumbai).
The Top 5 finalists from each state were shortlisted and invited to Mumbai for the mega auditions, where the state winners (30) were selected, each representing an Indian state (29 including Delhi) and a common representative for the Union Territories (1), making it to a batch of 30 contestants. This was Ananya’s second try at the pageant. Though she made it to the Top 5 list, she could not win the crown from Odisha last year.
“I was new to the industry. I had not done any photo shoot and lacked social media presence, which was equally important. I also worked on my public speaking skills and took my fitness seriously.
These along with a strong stage presence helped me to make a mark,” she told a local channel. She was selected among the best five contestants in the east zone in the first audition of the beauty pageant held in Kolkata on August 8. In Mumbai, there was a question-answer round and she was then picked among the five and crowned as Femina Miss India Odisha 2024 on August 14.
“I was every n.