India
MP and historian from Harvard University Sugata Bose on Thursday urged every individual to be “politically aware and respect each other’s points of views”.
Bose was speaking at the inaugural ceremony at the second edition of Dr Rajendra Prasad Memorial Parliamentary Debate 2018 conducted by the Department of Law at Calcutta University in association with Times of India.
As many as 90 students from 24 colleges and universities, including St Xavier’s University, Jadavpur University, KIIT University (Bhubaneshwar), NALSAR (Hyderabad), NLU (Jodhpur), IIT Bombay and Delhi University, participated in the debate.
Bose, chief guest at the event, was joined on the dais by dean of the university JK Das and chief public prosecutor Tamal Kanti Mukherjee.Bose said the youngsters’ youthful enthusiasm was “infectious” and it reminded him of his student days at Presidency University. He regaled the young debaters with some anecdotes and details of his important debates. He opined that the idea of India is not so brittle as to crumble at the echo of a few slogans.This debate comprising four rounds began around 3.30pm and followed the Asian parliamentary format, where the participants are to evaluate each other.
The motions for Thursday were “the rise of deeply flawed characters as protagonists of modern television”, “regretting the Bollywood hero”, “the matrimonial and dating genre of reality television like The Bachelor and Splitzvilla”.
