Chennai Worlds 2014 (CW14) is the 34th
World Universities Debating Championship
The World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) is the world's largest debating tournament and one of the largest annual international student events in the world. WUDC is held in the British Parliamentary Debate format (involving four team ...
, hosted and conducted by
Rajalakshmi Engineering College
Rajalakshmi Engineering College is a Private engineering college located at Thandalam, Sriperumbudur near Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. The college was established in 1997 by the Rajalakshmi Educational Trust, Rajalakshmi Institutions.
Accred ...
,
Chennai
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
,
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
under the aegis of
Rajalakshmi Institutions
Rajalakshmi Institutions is a group of private educational institutes in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India founded by Mr. S. Meganathan in the year 1997. This group of institutes provide higher education and school level educations to students in and ...
on 27 December 2013 – 4 January 2014.
The World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) is the world's largest
debating
Debate is a process that involves formal discourse on a particular topic, often including a Discussion moderator, moderator and audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for often opposing viewpoints. Debates have historically occurred ...
tournament, and one of the largest annual international
student
A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution.
In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementar ...
events in the world. It is a
parliamentary debating event, held using the
British Parliamentary Debate format. Each year, the event is hosted by a university selected by the World Universities Debating Council. The tournament is colloquially referred to as "Worlds" and the winners of the open competition acknowledged as the "world champions". The event was ultimate won by a team from Harvard University (Josh Zoffer and Ben Sprung-Keyser), who competed in the Grand Final against teams from the Glasgow University Union, Cambridge University, and the University of Sydney Union. The World Champion 2014 in the category "English as a second language" is Berlin A (Dessislava Kirova and Kai Dittmann) and in the category "English as a foreign language" Bandung A (Vicario Reinaldo and Fauzan Reza Maulana).
Controversy
The event was marked by considerable controversy, including:
* Failures by the university administration to meet budgetary obligations to pay independent adjudicators in non-controlled currencies (resulting in strike threats, ultimately jeopardizing the 7th round of the tournament).
* Difficulties experienced by Pakistani participants upon arrival in the country.
* The decision to hold a motorcycle exhibition during Women's Night, an event traditionally held to support and celebrate female participants, in order to appeal to males
* Relocation of the tournament hotel from the ITC Grand Chola to several more distant and lower quality venues, without sufficient room to house all the participants.
* Efforts by those hotels to lock participants out of their rooms (as late as 2AM, on multiple occasions, to settle incidental room charges).
* The withholding of passports from participants attempting to catch flights out of the country in an effort to force them to pay funds promised by Rajalakshmi Engineering College.
Global Debate: Chennai WUDC - A Report from Afar and Inside - Alfred Snider
/ref>
See also
* Policy debate competitions
*
References
Worlds 2014 in Chennai
''The Hindu''.
Sizzling debates mark the ‘Worlds’
''The Hindu''.
Harvard University Emerges Debating World Champion
''Indian Express''.
Pakistan at Chennai Worlds
''The News International''.
Duo wins "Worlds" debate competition
''Harvard Gazette''.
External links
Official website
Achte Minute: Adjudicator Strike at Chennai Worlds
{{Chennai Topics
Rajalakshmi Institutions
Debating competitions