Thiruvananthapuram: Reigning champions Mar Ivanios College and University College fight it out for top honours as the Kerala University Union Youth Festival has entered into the concluding hours.At the time of going to press, both colleges are tied at 135 points each with Women’s College trailing on third spot with 109 points. Competition events lagged behind and the festival would conclude on the wee hours of Saturday.The host University Campus, Kariyavattom, is at fourth place with 79 points and All Saints College with 58 points is at fifth position as results of 85 events out of 100 were declared.The festival venue also witnessed a crowd-sourcing experiment by a group of National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteers who launched a drive for mobilising fund for meeting medical expenses of Library and Information Science student Sreeja V S. Sreeja requires around Rs 8 lakh for her bone marrow transplant. The NSS volunteers run a cafeteria where juice, ice creams and eggs were sold to collect funds for the operation. Proceedings from the stall will be donated to Sreeja’s family.A blood donation camp by Kerala Blood Donors Society in association with NSS unit of campus was also held Friday at the festival venue. Titled ‘Balakiran’, the event is dedicated to the memory of late musician Balabhaskar who was killed in a car accident last year. The enlisted registrations are also forwarded to RCC and Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology.To fight the soaring temperature, student volunteers under the aegis of SFI, set up a stall to provide free drinking water. The five-day festival will draw to a close on Saturday. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the valedictory meeting at 5pm and give away prizes to winners. Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran and city mayor V K Prasanth will also attend the event. Over 3,000 students from 286 colleges under the Kerala University took part in the youth festival.

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