Feature

Photo: Fariha Ishrat Khandaker

GREAT debaters across Asia showed quite an incredible sight at the 5th Asian Universities Debating Championship 2009 (AUDC), held recently in Bangladesh. Subjects like world economy, human rights issues and foreign policy created an atmosphere for the students to bring in the latest imminence of the world. Around 25 universities from 10 countries competed against each other to win the coveted prize. Finally, after heated sessions of debate, Ateneo De Manila University of the Philippines won the crown of this year's championship while Nanyang Technological University of Singapore was announced the second best team of the largest debating assembly.

AUDC, a globally recognized debating competition was organized for the first time in the country, hosted by East West University. It is held annually amongst nearly a hundred participating teams from universities around Asia. This year the tournament ended at the ground of South East Asia and by far was one of the biggest congregations of international debaters and students in the history of Bangladesh.

On 14 May, Md. Abdul Hamid, Advocate, MP Honourable Speaker, Bangladesh Parliament inaugurated AUDC. A total of 58 teams from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand and Philippines competed in the initial 7 rounds that took place in Oxford International School. 16 top teams were selected after the initial rounds for the Octo-finals and 8 teams were selected for the quarterfinals.

For the first time in history Bangladesh had participated ably in the competition. The host country had a total of 10 teams taking part in AUDC.There were 3 teams from IBA, Dhaka University, 4 teams from North South University and 1 team from each of the institutions- BUET, Chittagong University and Stamford University. The achievements were rather disappointing as only the team from Chittagong University paved their way to the semi finals of the EFL round. Among the 10 teams, IBA, Dhaka University had the highest of score.

The EFL round was a separate contest outside the core championship. The idea of this contest was to fish out the best teams who are not provided education in English language. The winners of this event were Malaysia and the runners up were Indonesia. The best debater award in this category was won by Raj Kumar Narendra from the runners up team.

The finals were held on 19 May at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, Dhaka. Chief Guest of the evening Barrister Shafique Ahmed, Honorable Minister, Ministry of Law, Justice & Parliamentary Affairs Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh presented the prizes along with Dr. Hasan Mahmud, MP Honorable State Minister for Foreign Affairs, and prominent media personalityAly Zaker who enlightened the audience with importance of debating.