Top honour at inter school Debate

The Indian Schools debate team participated in the annual literary event at Modern School, Barakhamba Road on 13 July, 2018. The event commenced with a lamp lighting ceremony and was followed by the Principal, Dr. Vijay Dattas address. He welcomed all the participating schools and stated the importance of communication in todays world. He laid emphasis on the fact that debating is indeed a better way of resolving an issue than fighting over it. There were 17 schools from Delhi- NCR that took part in the event.

Mr. Parnab Mukherjee chaired the proceedings which comprised two debates namely the Raghubir Singh English Multi-Format Senior Debates and the Pratap Singh Junior English Debates. The topic for the junior debate was This house believes that dependence on technology makes people lazy. The junior debate followed the conventional debating format wherein schools were given the topic in advance and had to send two participants to speak for and against the motion. The participants from our School for this category were: Ananya Gupta (8-C) and Samarbir Singh (8-B). Ananya expressed her views in favour of the motion whereas Samarbir vehemently opposed the motion. Both the participants exhibited great confidence even though it was the first time they were participating in an inter-school event.

The senior debating team comprised Aatif Husain(12-B), Avantika Chodha(12-D) and Shrey Gogia(11-A). The first speaker from all the teams present there spoke on the motion that was given to them. The first round lasted for an hour where six teams made it to the semi finals. The teams that emerged in the first semi-final were: Step by Step (Noida), Vasant Valley and Modern School, Barakhamba Road. The motion given to them was This house believes that UK as an institution is a symbol of colonial belief system. The teams that qualified for the second semi final were: Springdales School (Pusa Road), DPS (RK Puram) and The Indian School. The motion given to them was This house believes that India should choose China over the Dalai Lama.

The teams battled it out on the stage. It was a treat to watch them outdo each other in every successive round. The joyous moment came when the results for the final round were announced and our team was pitted against the host team!

The motion on the floor stated This house believes that as a subcontinent weve forgotten to see. All the speakers voiced their opinions on the subject and tackled the interjections with ease. The much-awaited Block and Tackle round was heartily applauded by the audience They seemed to love the twists and the turns as the speakers outdid each other!

The proud moment came when our team was declared the Overall Second-Best Delegation and the Best Delegation Motion Framing. The host school stood first and took the Rolling Trophy.

Ms. Suhina Roshangar.