Riya Chaudhary, Delhi

K-Pop or Korean Pop is a music genre that originated in South Korea. It consists of a variety of popular music styles that cover mostly dance-pop, pop ballad, electronic, rock, hip-hop, R&B, etc. In India, the spread of the Korean Wave, also known as Hallyu Wave, began in the early 2000s in the North East region, and now, it is spreading rapidly all over the country. By the persistent efforts of the Korean Cultural Centre India, K-pop has marked its popularity and success in India through the K-POP INDIA CONTEST, which takes place every year since 2013.

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K-POP CONTEST 2020 ONLINE ROUND START . . . 15 MAY 11AM – 15 JUNE 11:59AM . . . Kindly check the rule and QNA post . . Looking forward to your participation! #kpopcontest2020 #koreanculturalcentreindia #kpopindia #onlineround

A post shared by Korean Cultural Centre India (@koreanculturalcentreindia) on May 14, 2020 at 10:32pm PDT

This year, the K-Pop India Contest 2020 is being held online due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The contest consists of 3 rounds—Online, Regional, and Final. In addition, only solo entries for the vocal and dance categories are allowed to ensure the safety of all participants by following social distancing during the pandemic.

Let’s see how the Online and Regional rounds take place.

Online Round

The first round is the Online round where the participants from all over India post their performances on YouTube and register their videos of their vocal or dance covers with the link on www.kpopindia.com. Any Indian citizen above the age of 14 years, who has a passion for singing or dancing, can participate in this contest. The rules and the selection criteria can be seen on the website. This year, the Online round was conducted from 11 a.m. IST on May 15, 2020 to 11:59 a.m. IST on June 15, 2020. The videos submitted for the Online round can be viewed on the website by clicking on the names of the different cities. The winners of the Online round proceed further to participate in the second round, that is, the Regional Round.

List of winners of K-Pop India Contest 2020’s Online round:

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𝐊-𝐏𝐎𝐏 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒 (𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝟐 ) The wait is over! We want to thank all of you for your patience and enthusiastic participation! We received so many entries from across the country and we appreciate all your hard work and talent. Congratulations to all of the winners! The Regional Round organizers will get in touch with all the selected participants regarding the next steps for the Regional Round. In case anyone finds that a participant mentioned above has broken a rule, we urge you to inform the Regional Organizers immediately. The Regional Organizers will thereafter deliberate with KCCI and accordingly action will be taken. We are so thankful for your support throughout the competition! Good luck for the regional round! Stay home and stay safe!

A post shared by Korean Cultural Centre India (@koreanculturalcentreindia) on Jun 30, 2020 at 12:49am PDT

Regional Round

The second round is the Regional round where the contest takes place in different regions of India. The 18 cities selected for the Regional round are Ahmedabad, Aizawl, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Guntur, Hyderabad, Imphal, Itanagar, Kohima, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, and Pune. Each city organises the Regional round through the respective regional Fanclub organizers. In this round, the top three performers from both the categories are chosen by the judges after which they proceed to participate in the Final round.

List of cities and their regional organisers:

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Greetings! The Regional Round Organizers for the K-POP INDIA CONTEST 2020 are as follows Ahmedabad – Bangtan Gujarat Aizawl – Mizoram K-POP Fanclub Bengaluru – Bengaluru Kwave Fanclub Bhopal – Madhya Pradesh Korean Fan Club Chennai – The K-Wave India Dehradun – Korean Culture Dehradun Fanclub Delhi – Korean Culture India Fanclub Guntur – AP K-Poppers Hyderabad – Hydera K-Poppers Imphal – Korean Culture and Arts Centre, Imphal Itanagar – Arunachal K-Pop Hub Kohima – Hallyuwave Nagaland Kolkata – Korean Association of Kolkata Lucknow – Korean Culture Lucknow Mumbai – India Korea Friends Mumbai Nagpur – Indo Korea Fan Club Patna – Patna Sejong Institute Pune – Indo Korean Cultural Group

A post shared by Korean Cultural Centre India (@koreanculturalcentreindia) on Jul 3, 2020 at 4:21am PDT

The Final Round is yet to take place. We look forward to your support and cheer for this year’s K-Pop India Contest. Share your experience related to the contest in the comment section.