BY: RAVINDER MAKHAIK
Shimla: Hosts Bishop Cotton School, Shimla (BCS) came out winners at the prestigious annual 18thSlater Debates, pinning down 15 other top schools of the country, with Vasant Valley School giving a tough time in the final round that ended today.
For the final topic ‘Juveniles deserve adult punishment for adult crimes’ had BCS debating it on the affirmative side and Vasant Valley School, Delhi on the opposite side.
Judged from diction, presentation, clarity of topic and other debating parameters Yash Vardhan Singh of BCS was declared the best speaker at the Slater Debates, a little while ago.
Courage in the Face of Adversity award went to Garvit Chaudhary of Pine Grove School, Dharampur and the Most Promising speaker went to Shreya Kohli of La Martiniere Girls, Lucknow.
At one of the semi-final debate rounds held today Yash Vardhan Singh of BCS was 1st, Ankita Niyogi of Sri Ram School was 2nd and Ankit Gongal of BCS was third. The topic of the debate was ‘Bribery is an accepted norm in the contemporary society’.
At the other semi-final debate between Vasant Valley School, Delhi and La Martiniere Girls, Lucknow (LMG) on the topic “Advertising creates artificial needs.” Vasant Valley School won with Namrata Narula and Anjani Gupta securing 2nd and 3rd positions Shreya Kohli of LMG, Lucknow bagging the 1stposition.
Started in 1996 by former headmaster Kabir Mustafi, the Slater Debates are held in honour of Revd. Dr. Samuel Slater was the first headmaster of BCS.
The format adopted is the Cambridge pattern with three speakers for and three speakers against; along with 1 reserve speaker each, to generate a healthy debate on current issues confronting society and the country.
Spread over four days the inter-public school debating exchange helps to facilitate friendship, exchange of views and ideas with a view to foster student inter-action, so that they can gather together and debate in a friendly and competitive spirit, said a BCS spokesman.
An erudite debate with girls in this bastion of an all boy’s school is a welcome departure from the norm of our time at BCS (1954-1963), where all we had was just one, albeit a most memorable evening of dancing with the Auckland House girls in the school’s Irwin Hall under the supervision of headmaster Goldstein in 1963. It was then that our dance partners confirmed that the awesome legendary tales we heard from our seniors of their late night panty raids at Auckland House were merely an amusing facet of their imagination.
I recall with fondness (as I am sure my classmates will too), two lovely girls, Chandra Sachdev and Kamal Khanna. Chandra has remained a close friend of BCS. I wonder where Kamal is. Here’s to the Aucky class of 1963- “Hip Hip Hooray”.