In an atmosphere fraught with competitiveness and incisive arguments flying through the air, the National Public School from Koramangala, Bangalore, won the regional finals of Debating Matters India, organised by the British Council. They were pitted against National Public School from Indira Nagar, also in Bangalore on the topic ‘Clinical trials in developing countries are exploitative’.
Twelve schools from all over South India took part in the day-long regional finals held in the city on Monday in the Loyola College campus. Manager of projects, South India, for British Council, A J Solomon, said, “They were selected from many schools that had applied and been tested online. The winners of the regional level debates will have a chance to compete against each other at the national level. The national winners could go even further, and participate in the UK debates.”
The day started off with a knock out round on the topics of “Indians should be free to drink alcohol without legal or moral censure” and “the benefits of the new unique ID scheme outweigh any civil liberties concerns.” Those who performed best in these topics moved on to the group stage where healthy debate happened over whether foreign supermarkets will be good for India, financial incentives providing the best solution to the crisis of organ donation and about how India should probably strive for ‘soft power’ and not super power.
The final debate was moderated by Justine Brian, National coordinator of Debating Matters, and was judged by Dr George Thomas, chief orthopaedic surgeon at St Isabel’s Hospital, Renuka Rajarathinam, freelance lecturer and literary journalist and Dolan Cummings, associate fellow of Institute of Ideas.
The winners will compete in the national finals to be held on January 13, 2013 in Delhi.