The 10th Hugh Catchpole Memorial English Debates competition concluded at the Rashtriya Indian Military College with St Joseph’s Academy lifting the coveted trophy. The three-day long debate competition was conducted at RIMC between April 23-25 in which a total of 18 teams participated. The debate was conducted in three phases - the preliminary, the semifinal and the final round. The top eight scoring teams made their way to the semifinals out of which only four qualified for the finals of the 10th Hugh Catchpole Inter-School English Debate. The top four teams to qualify were St Joseph’s Academy, Dehradun, la Martinere College for Girls, lucknow, la Martinere College for Boys, lucknow and The Doon School, Dehradun.
The final round of the debate was conducted in the Thimayya Auditorium and the Chief Guest for the occasion was Major General Shammi Sabarwal who is an alumnus of RIMC. The debate was conducted in the modified Cambridge pattern. The judges for the debate were Sudhir Arora, Sunita Vijay and lt Col MK lenka. The final result of the debate was announced and St Joseph’s Academy Dehradun comprising Kanishk Kakar, Ksitij Bisht and Dhananjay Khanna was declared as the overall winner of the debate followed by The Doon School, Dehradun consisting of Arth Gupta, Devansh Agarwal and Krishna lohiya who were declared the runner’s up for the debate.
The best speaker for the preliminary round was Kshitij Bisht of the St Joseph’s Academy. The best speaker for the semi final round was Aarnav Sharma of St George’s College, Mussoorie. Devansh Agarwal of The Doon School was adjudged the 2nd best speaker of the Final Round whereas Kanishk Kakar of St Joseph’s Academy was awarded with the best speaker award. The Commandant Special Prize was won by Aishwarya of la Martinere College for Girls, Dehradun.
The Debate ended by the words of Major General Shammi Sabarwal, GOC Uttarakhand Sub Area who motivated the students to continue and further enhance their debating skills and also congratulated the winning team.