THE ROTARY YADALAM INTER-COLLEGIATE DEBATE COMPETITION-2020-21

Hearty Congratulations to IPP Rtn Elizabeth Cherian and Team of 2019- 20 for the Rotary Citation award. It is the most significant award a Rotary club can achive.
The Finals of the RCB Yadalam Nanjaiah Setty debate was conducted successfully on 28th of September 2020. It was a landmark event by itself – a feast to all debate lovers and knowledge seekers. The Prelims on 27th September, as well as the Finals were held entirely online, adding many firsts to the list. The event is being sponsored wholeheartedly by our Rtn. Ramkumar Y.G and family for the last 31 glorious years.

Traditionally this annual event was being conducted at RHF physically, with the teams split into different groups and having their own panel of judges, moderators, timekeepers and scorekeepers. This year, due to the pandemic, Vocational Service Committee
was faced with the challenge of replicating the event online, without disturbing the overall format.

Director Rtn. S Viswanathan, along with the event champion Rtn. Sanjay Jain and other senior Rotarians, conceptualized the whole event keeping the essence of the program intact. Our ever zestful Rtn. Nilesh Kapse provided the technical support by envisaging the plan on the Zoom video platform by providing different rooms to the teams and the panel. Enough preparations were done by conducting dry runs and Rotarians taking up role-play weeks before the event. The response to the competition was overwhelming this year.

There were 55 valid teams that had registered but after restricting registrations to just 2 entries per college, the final number stood at 42. This is one of the highest, both in terms of registrations and number of debates conducted. The debates in the preliminary round were interesting and stimulating. There could have been more colleges participating, but exams were round the corner. Few colleges from other cities also participated for the first time – NIE Mysore, SDM Dharwad & SDM Mangalore, and NITKarnataka.
Thanks to our fellow Rotarians from Rotary Club of Mangalore for reaching out to these colleges.

For the preliminaries, the teams were split into 3 groups of 14 teams each and each group had its own panel of 3 judges, a moderator, scorekeeper, and timekeeper.

The best three teams were shortlisted for the finals. The distinguished judges on the 28th – Ms. Gunjan Jain, Mr. Ashwin Mahesh & Mr. D.N. Prahalad added zeal to the program. Our ever-charming Rtn. SVL Narayan was the moderator.

Topics for the Finals were as follows :

1. Confidence without clarity is a disaster.

2. Boycott of China’s goods and services is an effective means to keep rogue countries in check.

3. Education and Eloquence do not necessarily indicate Intelligence.