LDS

About the Literary and Debate Society

The Literary and Debate Society is established to provide students the opportunity to liberate their thoughts, and act as a platform to voice their opinions and sharpen their oratory skills. Literature is necessary to keep culture, art, heritage, tradition, and most importantly imagination, alive. This Society aspires to create an environment to celebrate, discuss and promote literature.

It is actively engaged in providing a substantial and unrestricted foundation for students to explore the world beyond textbooks where the freedom of speech, dissent and discussion of significant social issues are vital for change and well-being of the society. It is keenly focused on providing all the necessary opportunities to the students of SLS-H to gain more confidence and promote interest in the debating culture. The Literary and Debate Society thereby acts as the perfect platform for students to promote their interest in Literature and Debating by holding National Literary Fest: the annual flagship event which entails the National Parliamentary Debate, Mosaic: the internal flagship event aimed to satiate the literary hunger, Book Discussions, Debate and MUN Training,Literary Workshops amongst the others.

Objectives

• To improve the oratory skills of students and develop the passion for debating in order to create an active debating culture in the institution.

• To provide platforms for students to exhibit their artistic talents and skills in order to promote literature and various other forms of artistic expression.

• To create a healthy environment in the institute for students to express themselves freely, vocally or through art.

OFFICIAL EMAIL ID : lithebate@slsh.edu.in

Under the Guidance of :-

Dr Santosh Aghav – Director SLSH

Dr. Geetanjali Atri – Faculty in- charge

Dr. Sankar O – Co-Faculty in- charge

LIST OF EVENTS / Activities

Intra Varsity/National Level Events:

• 1st Virtual National Conference on Law, Language & Literature: 29th & 30th April 2022

  
  

  The Literary and debate Society of SLSH organised a national virtual conference in which participants from the fields of law, language and literature presented their papers in front of the external panel, which led to fruitful debate and discussion. The inaugural first day of the conference began with an enlightening address from Chief Guest Honourable Mr Justice G.R. Swaminathan, Judge of Madras High Court. The conference concluded with the inspiring words of the Chief Guest, Dr Gaurav J. Pathania, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Peacebuilding at the Centre for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, Virginia.

  

• SLSH Model UN: 20th & 21st March 2021

  
  

  Various colleges from India and Asia participated in the SLSH MUN, a 2-day conference to debate the international crisis prevailing in the world, which helped the youth get a holistic global perspective and knowledge about international politics. Hon'ble Sh. Suresh Prabhu, India's sherpa to G7 and former Union minister of railways and civil aviation, was the Chief Guest for the MUN and addressed the gathering on the importance of the United Nations in the 21st century along with a keynote address by Mr Aditya Kashyap, a representative from Think India.

  

• Power to the People: 10th & 11th July 2020

  
  

  The Literary and Debate Society conducted the first edition of the online National Debate competition, 'Power to the People', on the 10th and 11th of July 2020. The event required participants to form a team of two and send written submissions on the topics given, of which eight teams came for the preliminary rounds. The selected eight teams were required to debate various topics in the Oxford Union debate format, and the audience was required to vote for the teams that would determine the results of the competition. The teams were required to debate against each other in the preliminary rounds, and four teams qualified for the semi-final rounds based on the audience's vote.

• 1st National Webinar on Pandemic: Its Effect on Productivity, Creativity, & Mental Health: 18th May 2020

  
  

  The Literary and Debate Society conducted its first National Webinar on the Pandemic: Its Effect on Productivity, Creativity, and Mental Health on 18th May 2020. The main object of the webinar was to spread awareness and discuss the importance of mental health during the pandemic and its effect on academic and work life. The webinar had a panel of dignitaries like Prof. Amita Dhanda, a law professor at NALSAR Hyderabad and a mental health advocate, along with Ms Anindita Anand, a child psychologist and a personal growth coach. Ms Juhi Sharma, the founder of Light Up EMF (Emotions Matter Foundation) and Unbottle Emotions and Mr Amandeep Sandhu, the author of Sepia Leaves, a novel about mental illnesses, were other eminent panellists present for the webinar.

• 1st National Literary Fest, 2019

  
  

  The Literary and Debate Society conducted the first edition of the National Literary Fest on7th and 8th September 2019. The main object of the Literary Fest was to enrich literature andencourage the various forms of art and artistic expressions by conducting panel discussionsand a variety of competitions. The Inaugural ceremony and the first Panel discussion of theNational Literary Fest which was on the topic ‘Public Morality & Constitutional Morality:An Analysis of the Recent Supreme Court Judgments’ were graced by eminent dignitariesfrom the legal fraternity such as Shri Veerappa Moily, Justice GR Swaminathan, Dr. G BReddy, Dr. Ishwar Bhat and Madhabhushi Sridhar. The second Panel discussion on the topic‘As the 4th Estate of a Democracy, is the Media Influenced or Influencing?’ witnessed distinguished personalities from the journalism and the legal field such as SatarupaBhattacharya, Sushil Rao, Madhabhushi Sridhar, Justice Swaminathan and Dr.Radhakrishnan. In order to encourage storytelling and creative writing, a TTT Workshop wasconducted where the Chief curator of Terribly Tiny Tales, Joel Thottan had an interactivesession on writing stories with an audience of 100 participants. Several competitions such asPop Quiz, Open Mic, Online Creative Writing Competitions and Event Reportingcompetitions were conducted in order to nurture different forms of art and artistic expression.

  

  The Inauguration Ceremony of the 1st National Literary Fest, 2019

Intra Varsity/National Level Events:

• Mosaic- annual intra-college literary fest

  
  

  Mosaic is the annual flagship event conducted by the Literary and Debate Society for the students of SLSH. Various competitions like treasure hunt, face painting, pressure points, dialectic debates, and Hangman are conducted to help students showcase their oratory skills and talents in various art forms.

  Mosaic 4.0 was conducted virtually on the 25th and 26th of January 2022 and consisted of Muzakira 1.0, an intra-Asian parliamentary debate, Hangman, a virtual treasure hunt and meme-making, which included students from all batches of SLSH.

  

• Debate Training Sessions: "ABCD: Anybody Can Debate"

  
  

  The Society's 'Debate Training Session' on different forms of debating, i.e., The Asian Parliamentary Debate and The British Parliamentary Debate, was held over two days, respectively. The training session was curated for students enthusiastic about debating and further provided an opportunity to learn the nuances of debating while preparing them for the upcoming competitions. The training session saw enthusiastic participation from students across batches.

  Online Adjudication training sessions were conducted regularly by the Society to make students understand the nuances of adjudication.

• Lawterature, 2021

  
  

  To celebrate Law Day, celebrated every year on 26th November, the Literary and Debate Society called for submissions on Indian law in literature. The students participated enthusiastically and presented legal reviews, pictures and other art forms that displayed the use of law in literature. The selected pieces were put up on the social media page of the Literary and Debate Society.

• Intra-Qualifiers: a regular affair

  
  

  The Literary and Debate Society organises internal qualifier rounds to select teams representing the institute in external parliamentary debate competitions. The Society organises intra-qualifiers in various forms of debating depending upon the format of debate followed by the institution. The intra-qualifier allows interested students to debate in the British Parliamentary Debate format or Asian Parliamentary Debate form, or the Oxford Union format on a given motion. The top 1-2 teams and 1-2 Adjudicators are selected to represent the college at the competition. The Society has conducted more than 50 intra-qualifier rounds till now.

• Book Discussions

  
  The Literary and Debate Society conducted book discussions on a fortnightly basis where thestudents were allowed to deliberate on books of their choice. The results of the discussionwere determined through an audience poll and the best presenter was awarded a prize. Thepurpose of this discussion was to act as a platform where the students could exchangeopinions and insights on books of their interest. This activity also aimed at fostering theliterary interests of the students of Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad. Initially, the bestpresenter was awarded a cash prize of Rs. 1000 and later, food coupons were presented to allthe presenters. The book discussions witnessed participants discussing a range of books thatincluded ‘The Spy’ by Paulo Coelho, ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled Hosseini, ‘First they erased our name’ by Habib Rahman and Sophie Ansel and ‘Persepolis’ by MarjaneSatrapi.
  

  One of the presenters discussing a book in one of the Book Discussions

List of Achievements:

The Literary & Debate Society is proud to have some of the best literature and debate enthusiasts, and the achievements are testimony to that. Some of the achievements are as under:

1. Silvia Tomy Simon- 14th IIT Bombay PD- 2nd Best Adjudicator


2. Meghana Srinivas- 19th People Speak Parliamentary Debate- Octa & Grand Finals Judge


3. Shriya Srivastav and Sumedha S Vadhulas- VI NLUO BPD- Quarter Finalists Open Category


4. Meghana Srinivas- 19th People Speak Parliamentary Debate- Octa & Grand Finals Judge


5. Subhrotosh Banerjee, Vinamra Gogia and Aishwarya Julinka Anand- RMNLU APD 2021- Octa Finalists Open Category


6. Palomita Sharma, Saloni Atul Kumar and Pushpit Singh- RMNLU APD 2021- Octa Finalists, Open Category


7. Kartikya Singh- SLS PD 2021- Semi-Finalist adjudicator


8. Shreshtha Singh and Kartikya Singh- IIT Bombay PD 2021- Pro-am Reserve Break


9. V. Soorya Shrinivas and Shreshtha Singh- BITS Pearl Parliamentary debate 2021- Novice Semi-Finalist


10. Vishal Menon- Shri Ram BPD, 2021- Open quarter-final adjudicator


11. Saket Ranjan, Rohini Pandey, Rajamrit Das and Raghav Dagar- DR Memorial BPD, 2022- Quarter Finalists


12. Spandana Reddy Bommu and Manavi Dhingra- Shakti and Inksleuths Debate- Runners-Up


13. Hiya Sonchhatra, Victoria Gonsalves and Rajrishi Ramaswamy- DNLU APD 2022- Novice Finalists



Subhrotosh Banerjee and Vinamra Gogia