GCU debates

LAHORE

University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore and Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Monday won the 22nd GCU Parliamentary Style Debates 2017 organised by the Debating Society of Government College University, Lahore.   

According to a press release issued here on Monday, the four-day bilingual tournament, held at the university’s Bukhari Auditorium, from March 24 to 27 was the largest and most prestigious of the regular-season debates tournaments in the country where every year highly crucial and contemporary socio-political topics were debated by the shining orators of the country. 

This year, 180 speakers from 61 educational institutions, including Punjab University and King Edward Medical University (KEMU) contested for the coveted trophies at the debates contest. The GCU orators, as hosts, didn’t contest for the coveted team trophies and best speaker awards.

The main topic of the debate in this year’s final was that this House supports the right of nationality to Afghan children born in Pakistan.

In the Urdu category, the UET Lahore beat Kinnaird College (KC) Lahore in the finals and lifted the prestigious team trophy. Muhammad Afzaan Munir, a student of UET Lahore, was declared the Best Urdu Speaker of the contest.

The LUMS was declared the Best English Team of the competition and awarded the prestigious ‘Prof Khalid Aftab Trophy’.

At the individual level, the LUMS orator, Hafiz Usman Tanveer, secured the ‘Syed Muhammad Ali Abbass Shield’ for the Best English Speaker. In under-19 English debates, the team trophy was lifted by the Beaconhouse, Defence.

Addressing the prize distribution ceremony, GCUDS President Raza Aftab Gillani said the GCU Parliamentary Style Debates was first held in 1995 and since then it had been held regularly without any interval, adding “no other competition in the country boast such a record.”

Dr Ammar Ali Jan, an eminent debater, social activist and a graduate of Cambridge University, was chief guest at the debate’s prize distribution ceremony.