The oldest parliamentary debate in the country kick-started the debating season this weekend as St. Stephen’s College hosted the 67th edition of the Mukarji Memorial Parliamentary Debate from the 8th to the 11th January 2015. The tournament played host to over 50 teams from institutions such as Delhi University, NUJS and NLU Delhi.
Despite the fact that MukMem has been around for 67 years, the organisers have never been afraid to experiment with the format of the tournament. This edition saw a change in speaker timings from the previous edition. The tournament followed a modified- APDA format and was a closed tournament hence only institutional teams were eligible. The competition progressed through five preliminary rounds that determined the sixteen breaking teams. These sixteen teams then contested the post-break knockout rounds.
Mukarji Memorial Debate has always been incomplete without the famous break-night dinner that this year had some of the best kebabs and biryani from the city. The breaks were announced at the dinner where the team from NLU Delhi finished top of tabs.
The adjudication core comprised of Viraj Parikh (Ex-NLS), AmbarBhushan (Ex-NLUD), JagatSohail (Ex- St. Stephen’s College) and Soutik Banerjee (Ex- St. Stephen’s College). The core this year truly challenged the debating trend of having gender specific round and instead devised a novel method to address the issue of gender inequality. They took upon themselves the challenge to have a gender-based motion in each round so that debaters discussed the issue in a variety of contexts like crime, choice and imperialism.
The finals were contested between the team from the Faculty of Law and the Sri Venkateshwara College. The former team comprising of Akshay Raghupathy and Karandeep Azaan Khanna emerged victorious in a unanimous decision by the seven-member panel. Akash Pattanayak from Shri Ram College of Commerce received the award for Best Adjudicator of the tournament.
The finals motion was – This house believes that India as Mathrubhumi needs to make way for India as Pitribhumi.
]]>
Comments are closed.