Word War: Bangalore school bags prize

BANGALORE: The finals of the inter-state debate competition ‘Verbattle South’ was held  in  at Bangalore Medical College  recently. Teams  from Chennai, Puducherry, Hyderabad, Kochi and Karnataka participated in the event to win the Verbattle South Champions title.It was a closely competed final between ITI Central School, Bangalore, Chettinad Vidyashram, Chennai and Harsha Vidya Mandir, Chennai. However, twin sisters Lakshmi Priya Kannan and Sneha Priya Kannan from ITI Central School bagged prizes.Shankar Bidari, Director General of Police, Karnataka,  was the chief guest for the event. Verbattle South-Junior was held for school students studying in class 7 to 10 - in the age group of 12-16 years between January 9 and  20 across Chennai, Hyderabad, Puducherry and Kochi.  Eleven teams were selected from Chennai, three teams from Puducherry and six teams each from Hyderabad and Kochi for the finals, including nine teams from Verbattle Karnataka 2011 finals. To make the final round competitive, each team was given a topic and were told to come up with a relevant statement pertaining to that topic.The topic for Harsha Vidya Mandir was society and the statement that the team came up with was ‘Society today fosters prejudices.’Topic for ITI Central School was education and the statement that they came up with was ‘Class room education was better than online education.’ Speaking about the success of Verbattle South Deepak Thimaya, founder of Verbattle said, “I feel proud today that my dream of conducting Verbattle South has been accomplished. I am thankful to all the students, the schools and the teachers who came forward to make this dream possible. Our next objective is to conduct the Verbattle competition at the national level.”Speaking at the prize awarding ceremony, the chief guest Shankar Bidari said, “India is a democracy and in democracy, healthy discussions and debates are necessary to put forward each one’s views to solve the issues. I am pleased that every team has taken the debate in the right manner.”