Students from 26 schools debated on various topics like war crimes and hunger strikes. I Kaur took notes
While the opposition countered the point being made, the charged up faces on the other side too fought their way through a heated debate. The final episode of the Vasant Valley Inter-School Debate for the India Today Cup was a mix of young talent, amusing confrontations, hard-hitting facts and meaningful discussions. Teenagers from 26 schools of India and two international ones left the adjudicatory board of the debate in awe of their knowledge. The two-day event of extempore was conquered by lACAS team from lahore.
While the first round of the debate was in the conventional debating format, the other three rounds were held in the three on three parliamentary formats. Romila Kumar, faculty Vasant Valley explained, “The teams were organised into eight pools by a draw of lots and a set of motions was put forth before the teams. Each team got a chance to veto a motion and finally arrived at the motion to be debated. The team with the highest points from each pool qualified for the next round, which was organised in four pools, and there were four quarter final debates. This went onto the semi finals and finals respectively.”
Since the debates were extempore, the students were given one hour to prepare. “However, during this preparation time they were not allowed to use mobile phones, Internet or visit the library. The students based their arguments on sheer knowledge of the topic,” she added.
The topic for the final round between The Doon School, Dehradun and lACAS, lahore was ‘This house believes that truth and reconciliation commission is preferable to war crimes tribunal’.
“Both the teams identified very well, the ideas related to war crimes and the move forward. They pointed out the need for closure through reconciliation while the opposing team cited examples from history where the truth and reconciliation commission did not work too well,” stated a professor from lACAS.
There were three awards for the best speaker which all went to the three lACAS speakers – Safa Dar, Ammaina Raja and Usama lali.
The other topics given in the quarter finals and semi finals were ‘This house believes that juveniles convicted for sexual crimes should be tried as adults’ and ‘This house believes that the government should be allowed to force feed people on hunger strike’.
One of the topics of a pool in the first round which used the conventional debating style (One speaker for and one against the motion accompanied by one interjector) was ‘This house would ban all advertisements of fairness products’. The teams of this pool were Modern High School, Dubai, Mayo Boys, Ajmer and Sherwood College, Nainital. Through the debate the speakers brought out various points ranging from social issues to activism theories. One of the speakers from Mayo Boys (the team that qualified the round) speaking for the motion pointed out, “Historically we have seen cases of racism leading to ugly situations. Thus branding fairness would mean revisiting problems.”
However, a student from Sherwood College speaking against the motion stated that the change was required in mindset of people not in the advertisements or the products.Every student was given adequate feedback from the adjudicators after the first round. This was also followed by a mock parliament workshop for all the participating teams.
Some of the other teams present were la Martiniere Boys, lucknow, Cathedral and John Connon, Mumbai, Aditi Mallya International School, Bangalore, Shishya School, Chennai, Scindia School, Gwalior, Vivek High, Chandigarh, The Assam Valley School, Guwahati, Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, Welham Boys School, Dehradun and Mayo College Girls School, Ajmer.