To define what is a debate, one can say it is an argument with rules! Debates can involve single-member or teams that include several students. In KURUKSHETRA we had 2 members in each team.
We had teams from various colleges such as IBS, IBMR, ISBR, JAIN COLLEGE, and ISME. Teams did not know their debate subjects ahead of time. The goal was to come up with good arguments in a short space of three minutes time and one minute for re-battle.
Two teams were presented with a topic that they will debate, and each team was given a set period of five minutes to prepare an argument.
There were two topics which were given randomly to the teams, and they were:
(i) Employability is a student’s responsibility
(ii) Job hopping: is it a fad?
Two teams were called simultaneously, one team will argue in favour (pro) and the other will argue in opposition (con).
The panel of judges included Mr.Ranjith of Cisco Systems and Ms.ShonetSaldanha from NHRD and they were assigning points based on the strength of the arguments and the professionalism of the teams. After evaluating the scores given by them, it was easy to identify the best performers of the day.
Before declaring the winners, there was a flash mob presented by the students of ISBR which kept the spirits of the show high and provided the much needed surprise entertainment required for the show. Then we had people from the industry, who sharedtheir views of the arguments and counter arguments and shared scraps of their own industry experience with the students for their enlightenment.
The winning team was from ISME. The team members were Mr. Hiral Patel and Mr. Prathemesh Deshmukh. Their topic was “ Job hopping: I it a fad?” and they were for the motion.
At the runner up position, we had a team from IBS Bangalore and its members were Mr.A.Shekhar and Mr.B.Gadia their topic was “Employability is a student’s responsibility” and they were against the motion.
The event included people from TuvRheinland and Syscon. They shared their own take of varied opinions on the topics of the day to give clear insights to the students; where they have clearly mentioned how the performance of a team was evaluated.
Tuv Rheinland mentioned that they were highly impressed with the hospitality and it was a lovely afternoon for them to attend. They also mentioned the fact that the quality of students present was competent, impressive and were interactive throughout with their own understanding of the HR policie. However they mentioned that theoretical and practical worlds vary by large.
Finally the function ended on a good note with a few takings from NHRD and a vote of thanks by Mr.Ernst ; a student from ISBR.