Team Debate India comprising Elakiya Ananthakrishnan and Supriya Suresh (P.S. Senior Secondary, Mylapore, Chennai), Sampada Venkatesh, (National Public School, Indiranagar, Bangalore) and Shubhankar Kashyap, (Indirapuram Public School, Ghaziabad) were recently crowned Novice champions of the Asia World Schools Debating Championship (AWSDC) 2017 staged at the Anglo Singapore International School, Bangkok (Thailand) during July 24-28. Additionally, Sampada was adjudged among the Top 10 speakers in the novice category. 

Founded by the Debate Society of Anglo Singapore International School in 2013, AWSDC is an annual theme-based international debate competition open to school students, hitherto limited to Asia, but now open worldwide. This year’s themes included international relations, feminism, ethics, governance and policy, economics and crime and justice. 

AWSDC 2017 attracted teams from 52 countries including South Africa, Canada, China, Philippines, Japan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The tournament hosted six preliminary rounds with topics given to participants with an hour’s preparation time.

“We attribute our success to the substantial time and hard work invested in us by our mentor-coaches — Jaya Jain and Souradip Sen of Debate India — and cooperation among the members of the team,” says Sampada, of the elated Team Debate India, which bested 300 student teams in an online selection process conducted by Debate India (DI) between October-December 2016. DI partnered with the Bangalore-based Soundarya Institute of Management and Sciences which sponsored their travel and accommodation overseas.

Team Debate India is naturally in high spirits after its stellar performance in AWSDC 2017. “We have expanded our horizons substantially and managed to remain cool, composed and confident throughout the competition. Our recent achievement has strengthened our resolve to win the forthcoming and more challenging global World Schools Debating Championship,” says Sampada. 

Gift of the gab to you!

Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)