Faculty Coordinator: Dr. Nitish Nawasagray
The English Debating Society (“Debating Society”) has organised and undertaken various events in the academic year 2014-2015. This academic session saw the sustained participation of students in various inter and intra college events inter alia, Parliamentary Debates (“PDs”), Conventional Debates, Model United Nations (“MUNs”) and Elocutions.
The core committee of the Debating Society comprises of Zacarias Kanjirath Joseph, Shruti Deb, Harshavardhan Ganesan (all Vth B.S.L. LL.B), Ishan Tuljapurkar (IIIrd LLB), Debopriyo Moulik, Urvashi Bandhu, Sagar Shetty (all IVth B.S.L. LL.B) and Tanya Srivastava (IIIrd B.S.L. LL.B).
The Debating Society organised the Intra College Parliamentary Debate qualifiers on the 11th, 12th and 20th August 2014. The ranks obtained by the students in these qualifiers served as a basis for selection for participation in inter college debates. This year saw the participation of 123 debaters and 15 adjudicators. Given the overwhelming response of debaters from the 1st year, the qualifiers were conducted in two independent rounds, one for Novices (those teams who have participated in less than 2 Inter-college Parliamentary Debates) and the other round for seniors. A team comprising of Namit Oberoy (IV B.S.L. LL.B), Akhila Palem and Tanisha Bhatia (both IIIrd B.S.L. LL.B) bested a team comprising of Siddharth Kale (V B.S.L. LL.B), Raghav Venkatesh (IV B.S.L. LL.B) and Saurish Shetye (III B.S.L. LL.B) in the Seniors finals. In the Novice finals, the team comprising of Aasaavari Soni, Awani Kelkar and Lavanyaa Chopra (all IInd B.S.L. LL.B) defeated a team comprising of Sharanya Sivaraman, Meghna Kumar and Ziauddin Sherkar (all IB.S.L. LL.B).
Decoding Debating-Training Sessions on Parliamentary Debating:
The Debating Society in its endeavor to better prepare our students for University level Parliamentary Debates (“PD’s”) outside college engaged the services of Mr. Yash S. Vijay, an alumnus of the National Law Institute University, Bhopal, to train students in parliamentary debating. Having graduated in 2014, he has worked with the Human Rights Law Network in Mumbai, and is currently a litigating lawyer in Delhi.
He has a stellar debating CV to his credit, having been a member of the winning team at the Indian National Debating Championship 2014, Sriram College of Commerce Debate 2013 and 2015, Punjab Engineering College Debate 2013, amongst others. He has also served on the adjudication core at the NLIU Debate 2014 and the IIT Bombay debate 2014.
Yash conducted 5 sessions, commencing in December 2014, up until March 2015. These sessions were attended by 63 students from all years of study, in the college campus. The sessions broadly focused on three facets of parliamentary debating; argumentative skills, frequently debated themes and adjudication.
PD’s, as opposed to other forms of debating places a higher value on persuasion by logical analyses, rather than the speaker’s oratory skill. The sessions aimed at strengthening the former, by explaining to students the various elements that constitute an argument and a variety of tips that should be followed in order to test the strength and completeness of arguments, from either side. Further, given that PD’s give student only 15-20 minutes to prepare for a topic, the sessions familiarized students with commonly debated themes, inter alia, Subsidies, Feminism, Religion and the tradeoff between the exercise of various freedoms and State action.
The sessions were preceded by a constant flow of reading material for the students to read and come prepared. This material assisted students in mock debates on the abovementioned themes, which was followed by an open discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments presented by the students. Lastly, students were familiarized with commonly implemented techniques followed by adjudicators, while judging debates.
It is hoped that the training in these fundamentals will come in handy for students, not merely for excelling in Parliamentary Debates, but additionally, also strengthening attributes fundamental for any student of the law.
3rd Justice V.M Tarkunde Memorial National Parliamentary Debate Competition:
The 3rd Justice V.M Tarkunde Memorial National Parliamentary Debate, was conducted through 17th-19th January 2015. The competition saw participation from 36 teams and 46 adjudicators, representing 29 institutions from all over India. The debate was won by the team comprising of Sparshith Sampath, Kiran CR and Tushar Kankagiri from Rashtriya Vidyalaya College of Engineering, Bengaluru, who beat the team comprising of Partha Sarathi Sharma, Achitha Jacob and Amrit Daswaney, a cross team from IIT Bombay and Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore. Partha Sarathi Sharma from IIT Bombay was awarded Best Speaker and Rushil Zutshi from Vellore Institute of Technology, Velore was adjudged Best Adjudicator. Harshavardhan Ganesan was awarded Best Internal Adjudicator. The event was co-sponsored by Bread n Butter cafe, Pune.
Produced below is a list of the various activities and achievements of the students in various MUNs, PDs and Conventional Debates and Elocutions.
Model United Nations:
Students represented ILS Law College in various inter-collegiate MUNs enumerated below:
Rotary India International MUN 2015- Zacarias Joseph was awarded Best Delegate in the UNHRC. Ziauddin Sherkar was awarded the Best Reporter of the International Press.
Pune Model United Nations 2015-Rudraneel Chattopadhyay served as Secretary General for the Conference, which saw participation from students from all over India. Ziauddin Sherkar was awarded the Best Delegate in the Security Council. Janani Swaminathan was awarded the Best Delegate in the General Assembly-Sixth Committee.
COEP MUN 2014-Harshavardhan Ganesan served as Secretary General for the conference. Zacarias Joseph was co-chairperson in the UNHRC. Ziauddin Sherkar was awarded Best Delegate in the DISEC.
BITS Hyderabad MUN 2014- Ziauddin Sherkar was awarded Best Delegate in the Security Council.
Parliamentary Debates:
Students have represented ILS in various inter-collegiate Parliamentary Debate Competitons namely St. Xavier’s Bombay (Solaiappan Odayappan, Zacarias Joseph, Rachit Betharia, Akshay Chitre, Ishan Tuljapurkar and Shruti Deb), Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune (Solaiappan Odayappan, Harshavardhan Ganesan, Zacarias Joseph and Debopriyo Moulik), BITS Goa (Saurav Roy, Ziauddin Sherkar, Sharanya Sivaraman and Neha Desai), Symbiosis Law School, Pune (Debopriyo Moulik, Harshavardhan Ganesan, Saurav Roy, Ziauddin Sherkar, Shreya Shukla, Stephanie Nazareth, Siddarth Kale, Raghav Venkatesh, Ishan Tuljapurkar, Tanya Srivastava, Solaiappan Odayappan, Sharanya Sivaraman, Aashna Chowdhary and Zacarias Joseph), Symbiosis School of Economics, Pune (Harshavardhan Ganesan, Debopriyo Moulik, Akhila Palem, Siddharth Kale, Sharanya Sivaraman, Shreya Shukla, Alefiyah Shipchandler, Tarun Srikanth, Aashna Chowdhary, Stephanie Nazareth, Rishab Desai, Dhruv Tank, Zacarias Joseph, Shruti Deb, Tanya Srivastava and Ishan Tuljapukar), GNLU Gandhinagar (Avni Sharma, Sangh Rakshita, Shruti Deb, Solaiappan Odayappan and Zacarias Joseph), NLIU Bhopal (Aarati Ranade, Rhea Samyal, Kaavya Bharadkar, Awani Kelkar, Sangh Rakshita and Swarnima Pandit), Stella Marys College, Chennai (Xerxes Bharucha, Aarati Ranade, Awani Kelkar and Anitha Krishnamurthy), Vellore Institute of Technology (Kaavya Bharadkar, Sruthi Darbhamulla, Sravya Darbhamulla, Akshay Chitre and Janani Swaminathan), Christ University (Debopriyo Moulik, Raghav Venkatesh, Shruti Deb, Ipshita Dey, Malavika Raghavan, Shreya Prasad, Harshavardhan Ganesan, Ishan Tuljapurkar and Tanya Srivastava) and NUALS Cochin (Ammu Sasidharan and Sruthy John). ILS students have, in the abovementioned debates, emerged as a part of the winning team in the SSE Debate, were finalists in 3 debates (SLS, SSE and SMC), Semi finalists in 4 debates (St. Xavier’s, SLS, SMC and Christ University) and were Quarter finalists in 2 debates (GNLU and BITS Goa)
Debates and Elocutions:
Shruti Deb and Debopriyo Moulik emerged winners in the Economcs debate conducted by the Fergusson College, Pune. They further, went on to bag the winners rolling trophy in the Sri Visvesvaraya Memorial Debate 2015 conducted by the COEP, Pune. Alefiyah Shipchandler and Saurav Roy placed 2nd in the Rotary Club of Pune Cantonment Debate 2014. Alefiyah was awarded the Best speaker of the competition. Akhila Palem placed 2nd in the Nani A. Palkhivala Memorial Elocution Competiton 2015, conducted by the Symbiosis Law School, Pune.
Marathi Debating Society:
The Marathi debating society conducted an intra-college elocution competition in the month of August, the ranks obtained in the same served as the basis for participation in Elocution competitions outside the college. This year saw an increased participation in various State-Level Debate and Elocution competitions, some of which have been produced below:
Elocution Competitions
- Dhanashree Kendhe (2nd LLB) and Neha Desai, (3rd B.S.L. LL.B) represented the college in the State-Level Elocution competition organized by Loksatta. Neha Desai emerged as the winner in the Zonal Final. Dhanashree Kendhe was placed second.
- Neha Desai represented Pune Zone in the Mega-Final round of the State-Level Elocution competition organized by Loksatta and won the same.
- Ramkrishna Nagime (5th BSL) was awarded a consolation prize in the Maharshi Dnyanratna Vinod State-Level Elocution Competition.
Debates Competitions
- Mahesh Gadae and Darshan Thube represented the college in the State-Level Debate competition organized by Pemraj Sarda College, Ahemadnagr. The team emerged winners in the competition, with Mahesh Gadade being awarded the second best speaker.
- Neha Desai (3rd B.S.L. LL.B) was awarded the Best Speaker in the Preliminary rounds in the Late Gopal Ganesh Agarkar State-Level Debate competition was organized by Fergusson College, Pune.
- Kiran Wadikar (3rd LLB) and Neha Desai (3rd B.S.L. LL.B) represented the college in Justice Ranade State-Level Debate Competition in which their team stood second. Neha Desai was awarded the second best speaker.
- Vishakha Gadekar (2nd B.S.L. LL.B) was awarded a Consolation prize represented the college in Manikchand Pahade State-Level Debate competition, Aurangabad.
6th State Level Marathi Elocution Completion:
The Marathi Debating Society organized the 6th edition of the ILS State-Level Elocution competition on the 4th of February 2015. 18 students all over Maharashtra participated in the competition. The participants were given 4 topics to speak in the preliminary round. The final round was extempore, where the topics were provided on the spot. The competition was judged by Shri. Sunil Kalekar, Shri. Shamsuddin Tamboli, Shri. Swapnil Bapat and Mrs.
Mukta Mane. Following are the winners of the competition:
- First position-Mrinal Kulkarni, IMDR, Pune.
- Second position- Prashant Thakre, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune.
- Third position- Mahesh Gophane- S.P. College, Pune.
- Consolation prize- Mayuresh Shendurnikar- S.P. College, Pune.
- Consolation prize- Shantanu Rithe- Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune.
The Elocution competition was organized by Sachin Bade, Vishakha Gadekar, Dipesh Banberu, Dhanashree Kendhe, Neha Desai, Krushna Karche, Dipak Chatap, Mahesh Gadade, Ram Nagime, Swapnil Salke, Rahul Gangurde, Hrishikesh Nikam, Amit Icsam, Akshay Nazirkar, Darshan Thube, Siddharth Gharat. The event was Co-Sponsored by Finite4 Consultancy.