The two-year old debating society of Rajalakshmi Engineering College will be organising the 34th World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) from December 27, 2013 to January 3, 2014 in the Chennai. The preparations for the grand event are in full throttle as the organising committee will have to submit a progress report to the council on January 1, 2013.
After out-bidding Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University by 19 votes, REC in collaboration with R.V. College of Engineering and National Law School of India University in Bangalore won the online bidding and the opportunity of hosting the debating event. They will be entertaining thousands of foreign delegates along with the members of the independent Indian debating circuit.
The registration for the grand event called ‘Chennai Worlds’ will begin on April 1 which will be done on first-come-first-served basis. RCE is expecting a total of 1200-1300 delegates which will include an approximate figure of 800 speakers along with 300 adjudicators from 130 countries and at least 500 people from within the country including independent adjudicators. Arindham Ghosh, the convenor of the organising committee and a former student of RCE said, “We have set the registration fee as 350 euros for the debaters to make it affordable which is the lowest since 2005.”
After nine preliminary rounds, a total of four tournaments will be conducted for the 400-odd teams arriving from different countries at the event. “The main event is called Open Break. Apart from that there is the Masters’ tournament, the ESL (English as a Second Language) tournament and the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) tournament,” said Arindham. The debating event will have two chief adjudicators, five deputy chief adjudicators and two assistant chief adjudicators.
The members of the organising committee began with location hunting. While they are still looking to fix venues for the debating tournaments to be held over eight days, they have partnered with two ITC hotels, namely ITC Grand Chola and Sheraton Park, to accommodate the foreign delegates. Along with the debating events, RCE is also planning six to seven parties for the delegates in venues across the city. With the aim of projecting Chennai as a host rather than RCE alone, the organising committee is trying to plan the debating sessions at venues in different parts of the city.
