Debate Competition - तर्क वितर्क

Event Coordinator – Pavani Mathur

Symagine’23 hosted a Debate competition on Wednesday, the 25th of January, from 11 am to 1 pm.
The atmosphere in the AV Hall (venue for the event) was charged right from the beginning, as all 8
participants started filing in, accompanied by their friends and other audience members. The
participants were given the topic on the spot, along with 10 minutes to prepare their arguments for the
same. The debate was allowed in three languages – English, Hindi, and Marathi, and every speaker
had a time limit of 3 minutes.
The primary motive behind the event was to provide a platform to students to boost their spontaneous
thinking and oratory skills, and to help increase their confidence in public speaking.
The topic for the debate was – “Paid paternity leaves are necessary at the workplace”. The issue was
contentious but the participants came up with logical, compelling arguments, making use of statistics,
along with references to scientific and social processes and norms. The judging was primarily based
on content, organisation of thoughts, clarity, and rebuttal questions and answers, prompting the
participants to put extra effort in listening to the others’ arguments and asking insightful questions.
We were honoured to have Tripti Sharma ma’am and Yogini Chiplunkar ma’am as our esteemed
judges for the event. Both of them provided constructive feedback to the participants, insisting that the
students must maintain their calm while answering rebuttal questions, and simultaneously work on
improving the logicality and coherence of their arguments.
Overall, the event was a major success and everyone involved had a great experience.

PARTICIPANTS
Name Class College
1 Aum Patnaik FYBCOM SCAC
2 Nongthangsana FYBA SCAC
3 Punit Ahirrao B. Tech MIT WPU
4 Sameer Chavan TYBA SCAC
5 Yuvraj Patel FYBA SCAC
6 Urvi Panjwani SYBA SCAC
7 Saloni Khandelwal FYBCOM SCAC
8 Mitali Bobdey SYBA SCAC

Winner 1st runners-up

Mitali Bobdey, SYBA, SCAC Aum Patnaik, FYBCOM, SCAC