Published on July 19, 2019
Chennai: “Mini Worlds Chennai 2019” India’s first-ever world schools style debating tournament kick started at Arsha Vidya Mandir, Velachery Chennai. The three-day first-of-its-kind tournament is organised by The Indian Schools Debating Society (ISDS), a not-for-profit organisation sponsored by the Ramco Group of Companies. This international debate competition is a precursor to the World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) to be held in Bangkok, Thailand from 24th July, 2019 to 1st August, 2019.
This three-day tournament will be conducted in Arsha Vidya Mandir, Velachery, Chennai (next to CII) from 19th & 20th July, 2019 (Friday & Saturday) and the finals will be on Sunday, 21st July, 2019 at Hotel Ramada Plaza, Guindy. The key objective of this tournament would be an attempt to give teams around the world a flavour of South Asia and a taste of debating culture in India.
15 teams will be competing at this tournament, including 12 national teams from India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Hong Kong, England, Wales, Ireland, The Netherlands, Mexico, Nigeria, Australia, and New Zealand. Apart from the Indian WSDC team,three development teams from India will also be participating, as India is the host country, making it four Indian teams at all. These teams include some of the best debating squads in the world.
The four best teams will make it to the semi-finals, the best two to the Grand Final, (scheduled to take place on July 21), with the winning team crowned as the champions of the tournament.
Commenting on the first-of-its-kind debating competition, Mrs. Nirmala Raja, Chairperson ISDS said, “We are extremely happy to welcome the debaters from across globe. It looks like a “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” which means the whole world is one family. The main aim of this unique initiative to promote competitive debating among the Indian students and bring trainers from abroad to place India on the global map on its debating journey.”
She added, “This is a proud moment for all of us ISDS as we are the FIRST Indian team and one of the first debate teams in the world to project a completely visually impaired speaker, Bhavya Shah from Mumbai, who uses an accessibility-enabled laptop to follow other speeches and gives his own eight-minute speeches perfectly from memory.”
This Mini Worlds 2019 promises to be the first high profile, quality international tournament in India conducted at this scale. Valedictory function will witness the strong presence of eminent personalities from across industries as audiences such as Padma Shri Mr. Suresh Krishna, Chairperson of Sundaram Fasteners Limited, and Shri. K. Srinivasan, Regional Officer, CBSE Chennai. Students and teachers from schools all across the country, leading educationists, philanthropists, and other industrialists etc.