World Universities Debating Championship in India for the first time
The World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) is a parliamentary debating event, held in the ‘British Parliamentary’ competitive debate format. Colloquially it is referred to as ‘Worlds’ and the winners are acknowledged as the ‘World Champions’.
Each year the event is hosted by a different university, selected by the World Universities Debating Council. This follows a bidding process conducted at the World Championships held up to two years prior to the tournament.
In its 33 year history, Worlds has been held across Europe, North America, Asia and Africa. So far, Worlds has never been hosted in South Asia. For the first time, the World Universities Debating Championship is coming to India. India Rajalakshmi Institutions is hosting the event in Chennai during Dec 27 to Jan 3, 2014.
This year about 70 countries are participating, and more than 1200 students from the world are joining the mega event in Chennai.
The tournament is the world's largest debating tournament, and one of the largest annual international student events in the world. The inaugural Championship was hosted by the Glasgow University Union in January 1981 with 43 teams from seven nations competing. Now the event hosts over 400 teams (each composed of two individual students) representing over 250 universities of 70 different nations. Students from world-class leading universities including like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Monash, Sydney regularly compete.
Competition Format
The competition involves nine preliminary rounds. Two teams form the government (or proposition), and two teams form the opposition, in each debate room (there are roughly 100 occurring simultaneously).
The scoring of teams is done by judges, most of whom are students or former students from the competing institutions.
The nine preliminary rounds are followed by a ‘break’, at which the teams proceeding to the elimination rounds are announced. This is traditionally done just after midnight on the cross over from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day. In the current tournament format, 32 teams have proceeded to octo-finals and from there two teams from each room proceed on to quarter-finals, semi-finals and then the Grand Final.
