Miss India Is Miss Universe
A 21-year-old model from India has been named Miss Universe 2000.
Lara Dutta succeeded Mpule Kwelagobe of Botswana to become the 49th winner of the pageant and the first Miss Universe of the new millennium.
"It is something I really, really want," she had said earlier. "It will be great for my country." Lara Dutta has a master's degree in communications and wants to be a documentary film director.
The first and second runners up were Claudia Morena of Venezuela and Helen Lindes of Spain.
Dutta, who holds a master's degree in communications, bested 78 other contestants at the pageant held on the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. According to Greek mythology, that's where the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite, was born.
The government of Cyprus has promoted the event, hoping it will help the country's tourism. Cyprus already is a favorite beach holiday destination for Europeans, mostly Britons.
But the Cypriot Church has condemned the pageant as unchristian and an affront to feminism. It plans to hold an all-night protest vigil in a church near the Eleftheria stadium.
"Such contests where emphasis is given to the curves of young girls parading seminude in the atmosphere of a slave bazaar humiliate womanhood," said Nicos Nicolaides, a spokesman of the Cyprus Orthodox Church.
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