The North East India Inter College Debating organised by Sonapur College and powered by the national daily “The Telegraph” was held on August24, 2017. Altogether 48 young debaters of the region have put forwarded their arguments in the in the competition which was represented by 24 colleges of the region including 2 from each of Meghalaya and Nagaland and one from Arunachal Pradesh. The participants had debated on the topic, in the opinion of the house- “View that North East India is being exploited by the Central Government is factuallyincorrect”. Monalisa Chankija the renowned columnist, poet and Editor of Nagaland Page took the chair of the speaker.
The jury of the debate competition comprised of Suresh Ranjan Goduka, a free lens journalist and the editor of Assamese periodical ‘Jeevan’, Associate Professor of Arya Vidyapeeth College of Guwahati Sangeeta Kakoty and the Chief Public Relation Officer of IIT, Guwahati, Labanu Knowar.
In the debate competition Anwesha Saha and Shabnam Firdausi of Guwahati Medical College jointly became the best debaters while Abhishek Kabra of J. B. College, Jorhat and Bwenye Kemp of Tetso College, Dimapur were adjudged the Second and the third best debater respectively. They received the Sinam Uriba Singh Memorial Prizes along with the cash prizes of Rs. 10,000/-, Rs.7,000/- and Rs. 5,000/- respectively. The Guwahati Medical College and the North Lakhimpur College had won the Best and the Second best teams respectively and lifted the Sinam Uriba Singh Memorial Prizes besides cash awards.
A special prize, namely ‘The Telegraph Unputdownable Debater of North East India Inter College Debating Competition-2017’, sponsored by ‘The Telegraph’, was received by Anwesha Mahanta of Cotton University, Guwahati.