Organising like a boss

Students at Nalsar University of Law had a busy weekend with the 6th edition of the Nalsar Intervarsity Debating Championship.

This year they had 68 teams taking part, making it the largest edition of the tournament. With earlier editions having students from Cambridge and Yale participating, one would think that the pressure of organising such events would be immense, but the organising committee begs to differ. “In May, we had to send in applications about what we intended to do with the event and also write about any prior experiences that we had. By early June, the committee was selected,” says  Balaji Subramanian.

Balaji, along with the other members of the committee, Ribhu Mukherjee, Chandrasekar Sriram, Rakshanda Deka, Aarant Sarangi, Amritha Kumar and TPS Harsha, took to the job with ease, thanks to some great organisational skills.

“There was little discussion involved. It was just a group of friends organising an event together. We would meet outside the mess or the library and divide the work. Everyone knew exactly what they had to do,” says Balaji.

The event consisted of five preliminary rounds that took place at different rooms simultaneously. In each room they had two teams on the government’s side and two teams as the opposition. And the motion for each debate was released 15 minutes prior to the debate. “The winners were the ones who put forth the best research on the topic,” says Balaji.

From teams coming down from different parts of the country, comprising not just law students but engineering and humanities students as well, to flying down world-renowned adjudicators from London and Bangladesh, the students did their best. And the team admits that it was because of the good sponsors they had this time that things were easier for them.

“We had Saad Ashraf (Champion, Dhaka University IV), and Natasha Rachman (finalist at the World Universities Debating Championship 2015, chief adjudicator at Oxford IV),” says Balaji, adding, “Nalsar has the reputation of organising the best British Parliamentary debates in the country, so we had to ensure that we got the best in the world.”