The Xavier's British Parliamentary Debate - Invite

Dear  All,

The Political Science Association (XPSA) of St. Xavier’s College, Bombay (or Mumbai, if you think the Thackerays have a point), with a proud tradition of encouraging progressive thinking, takes great pleasure in inviting you to the Xavier’s British Parliamentary Debate, to be held from the 25th to 27th of November, 2011. This year, we are very proud to bring a new debating format - the British Parliamentary format. Here’s why you should be there:

1) BP Format - this is the format the World Championships, Oxford, Cambridge IVs and many others are debated in. A refreshing change from the predominant Asians 3-on-3 style, the BP format rewards innovative debating and ideas. St. Xavier’s offers this rare opportunity to experience BP debating in India.

2) The Asian BP Championship are less than a fortnight after Xaviers BP - the tournament will be ideal for  preparation.

3) India’s top teams - as of now, we have tentative registrations from some pretty awesome debaters - this will be a very competitive tournament, and certainly one high in quality.

4) Quality Adjudication - We are bringing in India’s top adjudicators, and judges with extensive BP experience. Teams and adjs will find a lot to gain from the training and feedback provided by them.

5) South Bombay aka SoBo - The debate venues and acco will be walking distance from the really cool parts of the city, and the schedule promises enough time to explore it. Good food, great adda joints, party places - we have them all at a walking distance.

FORMAT: British Parliamentary (BP) Debate Format. 5 prelim rounds, break to Semis (ie 8 teams).

TEAM CAP: 24 teams, but based on response and logistics, we MIGHT accommodate a few more teams.

REGISTRATION: Open tournament- cross teams are allowed. Teams participating at Dhaka Asians BP will be prioritized for registration.

ADJUDICATION RULE: N1 rule applies. Each team must bring an adjudicator.

PRIZE MONEY: The total prize money is approximately INR 50,000. We are trying to make it even more lucrative, by continuing to look for further funding to increase that amount.

ACCOMMODATION

Accommodation is available for outstation teams for the duration of the tournament. The acco will be incredibly close to St. Xaviers. We mean it - jump out of bed, fall out the door, and you’re in the venue.

And all of these are at a walking distance from Marine Drive, Leopolds, Gaylord, Pizza by the Bay, Gateway of India, Colaba Causeway, Gokuls, Bade Miyan and the other awesome parts of SoBo. The schedule too has been tailored to ensure that it doesn’t spoil partying opportunities, especially for the many debaters who love late nights and even later mornings.

Registrations have been opened (registration form:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dF9VaURfZ2lhSXdVLXhLUkhldWJ1Vmc6MQ). As of now, we have over 30 teams already. Thus, in case you have not already registered, we suggest that you do so immediately. We shall be confirming and releasing the registration list shortly.

ADJUDICATION CORE

Helping to make the tournament happen will be our Adjudication Core, consisting of Skanda Prasad, Aashay Sahay and Shobhit Singhal.

Skanda Prasad - Skanda has been an active debater for over 3 years now, and has been active both nationally and internationally. He was a DCA at the 2nd Asian Schools Debating Championship (ASDC), the 3rd Malaysia Debate Open (MDO), and broke to the quarterfinals as an adjudicator at UADC-2010. He has BP experience both as a debater and as a judge, having broken as a judge at the Luzon IV in Philippines, and spoke at the Chula Asian BP. He will also be judging at Dhaka ABP as a subsidized adjudicator. Apart from debating, Skanda also has a penchant for preserving his adjudication sheets, which why he has them all stacked up, categorized and in order.

Aashay Sahay (RVCE): There isn’t a tournament that Aashay hasn’t broken at. Aashay has continued an unprecedented streak of breaking at all 4 asian championships - UADC-2010 and 2011 and Asian BP-2009 and 2010. And he’s going to do it again at this year’s Asian BP. He started this streak by breaking at his very first international tournament - the inaugural Asian BP. In the process, he destroyed claims that Indians couldn’t do BP. His national debating profile is too long to print here, but suffice it to say, that as of now, we know of 9 finals that he’s been in a row. He’s no lag at judging either, having judged the finals of RVDT-2010, Mukmem-2011, topped the adj tab at Nalsar BP-2011 and Premchand Debate - 2011 and was CA at RVDT-2011.  He too will be a subsidized judge at Dhaka Asians BP this year.

Shobhit Singhal  (IITB): Back on our adj core this year is Shobhit Singhal, who raised quite a storm (especially among the girls) last year. Last year alone, he was among the top 10 Asian speakers at Botswana Worlds, was finalist at the Bar Council Human Rights Debate (BP) in Malaysia, was a semifinalist at the Asians BP-2010 and the Malaysian Debate Open-2010, and broke at UADC - 2010. His credentials include winning the NLS Debate - 2010, and making it to the finals of the IIT-Delhi PD-2010 among many others. He has also proven his mettle as an adjudicator at the IIT Bombay Debate-2010 and AIL Mohali 2011, where he was adjudged the best adj. ‘Sobbit’ was also adj core at NLU Delhi, IIT Delhi and LSR this year. And lest we forget, all of Asia, and half the world remember his Party Boy avatar from Botswana Worlds.

ADJUDICATION SUBSIDY

With a new format, we understand the challenges involved, and are committed to providing every single team with the best adjudication pool possible. To ensure this, we have allocated funds for providing adjudicator subsidies. We are looking for experienced and committed adjudicators who would be able to demonstrate capability of judging and chairing rounds past the preliminary rounds, as well as being conscientious in providing feedback to teams in helping them learn and gain experience. Experience in the BP format is preferred. We'd like to invite applications for adjudicator subsidy. Please mail your applications with a debating profile to xpsa.pd@gmail.com before 3rd November 2011.

To help with understanding the format, the adj core will be helping by providing training documents and other material online, and will do all they can to help teams and institutions along with the format.

We believe this tournament will provide an ideal platform for teams competing at Asian BP to get some high quality BP practice in a competitive setting, and for other debaters to compete against the best Indian debaters and gain experience in the format that the world debates in. We’re most excited to welcome you all to Bombay.

For any and all clarifications, please feel free to contact us for any help, debating or otherwise. Send in your queries to: xpsa.pd@gmail.com.

Please do also join our Facebook group: The St Xavier's British Parliamentary Debate

Nikita Sonavane

Co-Convener

0091-9969585208

nikathon@gmail.com

Mahtab Irani

Co-Convener

0091-9920985557

mahtabb@gmail.com

Day 1:

25^th November: Friday

Time	Schedule
13:00 – 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 14:00	Roll Call and Registration
14:00 – 16:00	BP Format Briefing and Workshop
16:00 – 18:30	Demo Debate and Adjudication Test
18:30 – 19:00	Break
19:00 – 21:00	Round 1

Day 2:

26^th November:  Saturday

Time	Schedule
13:00 – 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 14:00	Roll Call and Registration
14:00 – 16:00	Round 2
16:00 – 16:30	Break
16:30 – 18:30	Round 3
18:30 – 19:00	Break
19:00 – 21:00	Round 4

Day 3:

27^th November :  Sunday

Time	Schedule
9:00	Roll Call
9:30 – 11:30	Round 5
11:30 – 12:30	Lunch
12:30	Announcement of Breaks
13:30 – 15:30	Semi Finals
15:30 – 16:00	Break and announcement of Finals Teams
16:00 – 18:00	Grand Finals
18:30	Closing Ceremony