Here’s the Solution grid..
The “notable feature” of the grid, that we were looking for was that it is a Pangram (uses all the letters of the alphabet)
The NINA is the FOUR HUNDRED (highlighted in Green) – since this grid commemorates the completion of 400 games at the FB group 1ACross.
We had also asked for the location of the NINA since we had thrown in a Red herring NINA – highlighted in Red, to “Obtrude” with the effort to get to the Real NINA.
Here are the Annotations:
Across:
1 SWAYING-W
5 EXPOUNDS-EX
10 WH+IS+LET*
11 DAZZLE+RI-A
12 ATDESK*
15 CR(OFT) S
16 E QUERY<<R
18 ORBIT-R
19 BE+DOZEN-O+I
22 Telescopic
25 CD
27 ODES<<XI
28 USART*S
31 DE+IF<<+CIT(-Y)
32 Acrostic & Lit
33 CD
34 ZE+NAN+A.
Down:
2 PI+CC+O L O
3 COOLEST*-S
4 Telescopic
5 Acrostic
6 BAHADURS*-HA
7 PISS<<CA+O
8 ERASED*
9 (SLAW<<)<< RU
13 (TROUBLE-L+D)*
14 TY+RAN+NY
15 E NCO MIA
20 PIXIE*-E+RY
23 CD
24 RESUMED*-E
29 AR<<JA
30 CUE<
And finally, Here’s the link to the Hall of Fame
A special thanks from me to all our contributors and to all those who participated. Congrats to Kishore Rao who won the contest and to Shatrujeet Nath for sponsoring the prize.
Thanks for an excellent effort by all those who compiled and made this competition to run through successfully. God job, Sowmyaji.