India Wins Gold, 3 Bronze At International Linguistics Olympiad 2026; IIIT-H Mentors Team

HYDERABAD: IIIT Hyderabad’s Language Technologies Research Centre mentored the eight-member Indian contingent that returned from the International Linguistics Olympiad 2026 in Romania with a gold, three bronze medals and an honourable mention.

The students were chosen through the Panini Linguistics Olympiad after a national qualifier and a 10-day residential camp at IIIT-H, which has mentored the programme since 2015.

Shrilakshmi Venkatraman won the gold medal, while Aarav Anil Rao, Nishanth Shankar Lakshmanan and Advay Misra secured bronze. Soham Amit Pednekar received an honourable mention. The other members of the two Indian teams were Fiza Faisal, Meenakshi Hariharan and Sudarshan Manikantan.

Prof. Parameswari Krishnamurthy of IIIT-H led the Indian delegation along with Faraz Siddiqui, an IIT Kanpur Physics student and a 2025 IOL award winner.

PLO is the Indian channel for selecting and mentoring school students for international linguistics competitions. Students do not need prior knowledge of linguistics and solve problems through pattern recognition and reasoning. India first participated in the IOL in 2009 and, according to IIIT-H, has since won 37 individual medals, including six gold, nine silver and 22 bronze, apart from other honours.

PLO 2026 registrations opened on November 13, 2025, followed by the Open National Qualifying contest on February 15, where out of 525 entries, 338 students appeared in the first round. Among them, 34 qualifiers later took part in the residential camp at the IIIT-H campus from May 31 to June 10, where students attended lectures, problem-solving sessions, mock Olympiads and evaluations. Selection of the final teams was based on their Round Two scores.

The selected students attended another intensive boot camp before travelling to Romania.