The battle of words at Landmark

The battle of words at Landmark

People who happened to drop by to casually check out books at the Landmark book store at Citi Centre on Wednesday were in for a treat as the semi-finals of the third edition of the Landmark Debates, were held there.

Six best teams engaged in heated polemic, each determined to make to the finals.   The motion before the house was ‘Is sports a viable career option in India?’ With the Olympics just over about a month back, students found the topic apt and quoted examples of medallists.   

Each team comprised two students from the same school speaking for and against the topic.

Once both the speakers finished speaking, the judges, moderator and audience questioned them in the rebuttal round.

Most students in favour of the motion talked about the success stories of Mary Kom and Viswanathan Anand while the ones against the motion talked about corruption and how the facilities in our country were poor.

Moderated by Sanjay Pinto, the event was judged by R Mohan, cricket writer, Karthi P Chidambaram, vice president, All India and Tamil Nadu Tennis Federation, and Hemang Badani, former Indian cricket player.

Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan School, Nungambakkam shone at the event, bagging all the prizes. The best team award was bagged by Sushmitha Mohan and Ajay Sundaram while Reshma Ragupati and Amrutha Vasan came second. Ajay Sundaram was adjudged the best speaker. 

Impressed with the performance of all the participants, the judges appreciated the efforts they had put in and gave them some pointers to improve.

Karthi Chidambaram advised the students to speak slowly, pause at the right moments and use their wit and humour intelligently.

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