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Stats – We had a great response to the grid with 46 submissions, 1 more than last time. As noted in our prior post, our scoring and ranking are based on the total number errors, allotting 100 points to those who have submitted with no errors and reducing points based on the number of errors in the submission.

Of those who submitted, 43 had managed to complete the grid with zero errors but only 28 got the full score of 100.

Here’s the completed grid.

The solvers had to answer the following questions after solving the grid:

(1) What does the arrangement of black and white squares and the answers in the centre of the lower half of the grid depict?
(2) What connects the title to the puzzle? (4)

The correct answers are

(1) CHANDRAYAAN AT LAUNCHPAD (or something to that effect)
(2) MOON

The black and white squares depict the gantry supporting the launch vehicle of Chandrayaan moon mission, also known as BAHUBALI, along with “Booster” and “Rockets” on either side, aimed for the MOON.

You can access the Grid with solutions Here – Clicking Reveal ALL with show you the solutions and Annotations.

The first entry was submitted by Bhalchandra Pasupathy but it had no answers to the bonus questions. The first all-correct entry was received from Kumaresh Ramakrishnan while the last all-correct entry was submitted by Mona Sogal.

Congrats to all the awesome folk who managed to max the score.

Here is the scorecard (sorted by total and then in Alphabetical order)

Grid Rating: The puzzle got a  decent score of 7.8 and got 4 perfect 10s.

Top 3 Clues:  The most favorite clues were “Mascara” which got 12 votes, “Rockets” which got 10 votes and “Arroyo” which got 9 votes.

Hope you enjoyed this topical and entertaining puzzle as much as we did. While we watched with sinking hearts when we lost communication with the lander, all Indians are certainly proud of the ISRO team that has been making giant strides in Space research and travel. What “Armstrong” started is now in Bahubali’s strong hands and we wish future missions more success.

Thanks to “The Oracle” for all the fun. Did you like the puzzle? Do you have any feedback for us or for the setter. Do comment in the blog and let us know.

By Sowmya

Sowmya is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and independent financial consultant based in the Middle East (Bahrain). She is a puzzle editor at Amuselabs. She has set over 1,300 crosswords for various publications including over 1000 mini crosswords, cryptic crosswords (under the pseudonym Hypatia for The Hindu) and themed crosswords for Cat.a.lyst (part of The Hindu Businessline). Sowmya runs the Facebook group 1Across where seasoned cruciverbalists interact while setting and solving clues. She has published three compilations of crosswords viz Cryptic Crossroads Volumes 1, 2 and 3. She Tweets cryptic clues daily @somsram

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