Indian Beauty Pageant Winners have established a benchmark in the domain of glamour and beauty competitions. The world of fashion in India has improved with a smart outlook and lucrative career. Several fashion shows and beauty competitions have given a platform to the achievements of Indian beauty pageant winners.
Indian Beauty Pageants
Indian Beauty Pageants are beauty competitions held in different countries by some particular sponsor. The programs that promote the Indian beauty continue to be one of the highly recognized and well-noted pageant competitions.
Selection of Indian Beauty Pageant Winners
Miss India is one such competition that has been participating in the Miss Universe pageant since 1953, starting with Indrani Rehman; and in the Miss World pageant since 1959, starting with Fleur Ezekiel. However, after the Indian beauty pageant winners win Femina Miss India pageant, they can further participate in the Miss Universe pageant and the runner-up to the Miss World contest.
In 2007, the organization changed this rule to send the winner to Miss World and the first runner-up to Miss Universe. Traditionally, the second-runner up or other independent Indian beauty pageant winners are sent for the less prominent international pageants such as Miss Asia, Miss International and Miss Asia-Pacific. From 1997, the practice of choosing a single winner or "Miss India" was changed to instead elect representatives to the different positions of Indian beauty pageant winners on international platform. The three winners, who receive equal prizes and status but are called Miss India winners, and are designated "Miss India World", "Miss India Universe" and "Miss India Asia-Pacific". Since 2002, the third Indian beauty pageant winners is no longer sent to Miss Asia-Pacific, but to the Miss Earth pageant, which is currently recognized as one of the three most prestigious beauty pageant winners in the world.
List of Indian Beauty Pageant Winners
The year 1994 was a milestone year for the pageant industry in India. Sushmita Sen became the first Indian woman ever to win the "Miss Universe" crown. In the same year, the runner-up of Miss India, Aishwarya Rai also won the "Miss World" title. The success of Sushmita Sen spanned a lot of coaching institutions, which were set up to groom girls to participate in Indian beauty pageants. Hence, the number of participants in the preliminary rounds of the pageant has increased considerably.
Again, the year 2000 was another landmark year for Miss India. Three of the Miss India winners happened to reach the zenith of international platform - Lara Dutta (Miss Universe), Priyanka Chopra (Miss World) and Diya Mirza (Miss Asia-Pacific).
The list of the Indian beauty pageant winners is as follows:
Miss Universe
•Sushmita Sen (1994)
•Lara Dutta (2000)
Miss World
•Reita Faria (1966)
•Aishwarya Rai (1994)
•Diana Hayden (1997)
•Yukta Mookhey (1999)
•Priyanka Chopra (2000)
•Manushi Chhillar (2017)
Miss Asia-Pacific
•Zeenat Aman (1970)
•Tara Anne Fonseca (1973)
•Diya Mirza (2000)
Mrs World
•Aditi Gowitrikar (2000)
Miss Earth
•Nicole Faria (2010)
