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Kolkata team wins debate contest on security
Students dwell at length on terrorism and security concerns
CHENNAI : It was a contest to find out how much students knew about India's security concerns and the geopolitics.
The finalists at the all-India inter-collegiate debate on `Terrorism and National Security Issues' proved they could be on different sides of an argument and yet win.
India was not `soft' on Pakistan, argued the team from Vellore Institute of Technology, at the contest held at Loyola College on Tuesday. ``We are scoring over Pakistan's terror tactics by garnering world support through sensible and astute diplomatic manoeuvres'', they said, playing their opposition party role close to perfection.
The `Government' side, consisting of Anisha Ghosh and Rahul Vohra from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, passionately argued about how India needed to go ahead and destroy terrorist bases operating out of Pakistan. Israel and South Africa benefited from pro-active measures and direct attacks on terrorist outfits based in other countries, they said.
"This is costing us lives of people. Kashmir problem has to solved. We have to resort to short and tactical attacks," said an impassioned Rahul.
The argument helped the Kolkata team win the contest and impressed the jury which consisted of professors Bernard D'Sami from Loyola College, Lawrence Prabhakar from Madras Christian College and V. R. Raghavan, president of Centre for Security Analysis
Mr. Raghavan said, "We wanted students to think about India's security concerns. I think we have achieved our aim," he added.
CSA organised the contest in association with Loyola Society of Debaters. Other participants included teams from Indian Law Society in Pune, St. Stephen's in New Delhi, Christ College in Bangalore, JIPMER, Ethiraj College, and Madras Christian College.
The Hindu, 14 February 2007