Reported by Ipshita Bhwanaia
One of the oldest Parliamentary Debate tournaments in the country, NLS-Debate is a highly anticipated event in the law school calendar.
The 13th edition of the NLS Debate took place over 27-30 March 2015. The tournament kicked off with the NLS Student Bar Debate, previously known as the NLS Union Debate, taking place on the 27th of March. A panel of eminent persons-Mr. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (journalist, author, political commentator and documentary filmmaker) Prof. Ashwini Mohapatra (Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University,New Delhi), Prof. Shanta Sinha (Dept. Of Political Science, Hyderabad Central University), Dr. Rajeev Gowda (Rajya Sabha MP), Shriya Tarun Vijay (Rajya Sabha MP), and Prof. Babu Mathew (Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow and a current faculty member of NLSIU)-and two students Mr. Dibyojyoti Mainak (V Year Student of B.A. L.L.B. Hons.) and Ms. Deepa KS (I Year student of M.P.P.), debated on the contentious motion “This House regrets the Electoral Decline of the Left in Indian Politics“. It was an engaging and illuminating debate to say the least.
The tournament commenced on the following day. A strictly Asian Parliamentary format of debating has been followed at NLS-Debate. A large number of teams from various colleges debated against each other. Each three-membered teams formed either the Proposition or Opposition in a single round. The different motions were determined by a stellar Adjudication Core consisting of Varun Sen Bahl, Dibyojyoti Mainak, Sounak Sarkar, Ambar Bhushan and Jesus Falcis, all of whom are talented and experienced debaters. The rounds were adjudged by an internal pool of Adjudicators, as well as those from other colleges, who had been selected through an objective Adjudication test.
Following six rounds of debating which each participating team had to undergo, finally sixteen teams broke and went on the final rounds. The Grand Finals took place between the team from IIT Bombay (1); and NLU-Delhi (1). The motion for the final was “This House prefers a world without Facebook“. As expected, it was an intensely competitive and entertaining finals. The team from IIT Bombay were deservedly crowned the ultimate victors. Partha Sarathi Sharma of this team was adjudged the ‘Best Speaker’ of the tournament. Balaji Ramchandran was awarded the ‘Best Adjudicator’ prize while the team from Faculty of Law College was given the prize for ‘Best Novice Team’.
This brought down the curtain on the 13th Edition of NLS-Debate. It had been a thumping success of an event.
