Kathmandu, Auguys 15, 2018: MahaSangram 2018: International BP Championship is the fourth edition of Debate Network Nepal’s flagship debate championship that aims to provide a platform for young debaters to participate in international level debating in Nepal. The championship was co-organized by Debate Network Nepal (DNN) and Xavier Academy (XA), Lazimpat, Kathmandu from August 10 to 13, 2018. This is the second time these institutions have collaborated for the same event after MahaSangram 2017. The 4-day event consisted of intensive training and debating in British Parliamentary Format of Debating.
The main objective of the event was to empower youth and strengthen their quantitative as well qualitative presence in debate community through debate training and competition focused on different current issues and debatable topics around the world. It was yet another successful step to institutionalize debating culture in Nepal. 50 teams from all over the country had participated in the grand event in the categories of English Opens, Nepali Opens and English Novice.
Each team comprised of two members and debated in British Parliamentary format in which debate lasts for an hour where four two member teams, divided in two sides – government and opposition, defend and oppose a motion or a debate topic respectively. The teams went through 5 intensive rounds of preliminaries to break into the knockout stages. The grand finale saw Deepshika Ghimire and Anusha Nepal of Team Aayam as the winner in the Nepali category, Savishra Kandel and Aasim Ansari of Team Trustworthy Liars as the champions of Opens English category and Priyanka Acharya and Britti Paudyal of Team Milansar as the Novice Champions. Anudit Basnet, Ang Sonam Sherpa and Ashish Poudyal were declared as the best Nepali, English and Novice speakers respectively. The best adjudicator was awarded to Pradeep Ghimire.
The Chair of DNN, Raj Kharel addressed to the participants in the closing ceremony, “MahaSangram 2018 has been the most competitive tournament of the year, both in terms of the quality of motions as well as the intensity of the ideas presented.” The tournament was judged by some of the finest national and international adjudicators and was guided by a Core Adjudication Panel (CAP) consisting of Aaqib Farhan Hossain from Bangladesh, Pawan Adhikari, Poshan Khanal, Saurav Bhatta, Milan Bishwakarma and Nishma Gautam.
MahaSangram 2018 was supported by Bank of Kathmandu and Mathema Foundation. The logistics partner for the event was Noble Treks and Grace International. The event was managed and organized under the convenorship of Esha Subedi and Arima Neupane from Xavier Academy and tournament director Alisha Bade Shrestha from DNN.
, Lazimpat, Kathmandu from August 10 to 13, 2018.){kind=link}