The Public Speaking Society

The English Debating Society of Lady Shri Ram College is an egalitarian society dedicated to intellectual growth, thought provocation and public speaking. We seek to present a passionate debating environment on the foundations of free speech and critical thought and provide a politically and religiously neutral environment to discuss world issues. The society provides members and non-members an opportunity to indulge in intellectual discourse and acts as a platform for the emergence and fusion of diverse opinions.

Staff Advisors :
Convener: Snehil Kacker
Co-Convener: Vasavi

Activities 2022-23
The English Debating Society of Lady Shri Ram College for Women is an open society aimed at creating a group of well-read public speakers that not just are eloquent, but are also analytical and perceptive of issues of a wide variety. Primarily participating in the Asian Parliamentary format of debating, students participate in national debates across the Delhi University circuit as well as outside. The purpose is to create access for all people into spaces of intellectual thinking, not merely competitive excellence. The tenure of 2022-2023 began with the NAAC visit in the month of July, which saw society members gearing up to display the rich legacy of our society through an extensive board presentation. Throughout the year, it invited external speakers and alumni, having regular non-competitive sessions such as debate screenings and discussions, fostering inter-batch conversations, and formalising research resources (articles, audio-visual resources, etc.) in an easily accessible format. This is a structural feature of the EDS, implemented regardless of the presence or absence of tournaments. Reading Circle sessions were organized on a fortnightly basis and were open to all students of the college. Through these sessions, society aim to encourage and facilitate discussions around the disciplines of politics, history, society, gender, philosophy, ethics, law, literature, economics, and so on through texts, video essays and other sources It aspire to equip each member of the society to think more, think differently, and think critically. LSR Parliamentary Debate took place in the online mode from 14th April to 16th April 2023 in the Asian Parliamentary Debate format. It saw a stellar core adjudication panel, with 100+ members participating across the nation, debating on motions on philosophy, feminism, economics, law, and more. The event was a great success and helped to foster a competitive yet inclusive spirit among participants.

Activities 2021-22
The English Debating Society is an open society and accepts all students who wish to be a part of it, thus valuing genuine interest over prior knowledge or skill. It trains new members, organizes a variety of sessions, competes in tournaments and organizes the LSR Annual Parliamentary Debate. The formal orientation for the new batch took place on 2nd January 2022 and featured two exhibition debates by senior members. This was followed by the recruitment process done through Google forms with prompts for critical thinking and a short speaking task, after which approximately 150 new members were inducted into the society.

The training sessions began soon after induction, with new members being taught about the Asian Parliamentary and British Parliamentary forms of debate. The topics that were covered included formats, rules of procedure, motions, speaker roles, speech format and content, adjudication and argumentation among others. After the training sessions, regular mock debates were organized and adjudicated by senior members for the new students. Case preparation sessions were also organized to help new members understand case construction and argumentation. Two sensitisation sessions were held for the new members facilitated by Vibha Swaminathan and Saniya Rizwan.

As a means of expanding the activities of the society beyond competitive debating, the initiative of Reading Circle sessions was introduced. These sessions were open to all students of LSR to encourage critical thinking, intellectual engagement and meaningful conversations over historical and contemporary issues. The six such sessions organised received enormous participation.

The annual LSR Parliamentary Debate was organised from 15-17 April, 2022 in the online format. Witnessing the enthusiastic participation of 32 teams and over 45 adjudicators, the tournament consisted of five in-rounds, a quarterfinal round, a semifinal round and culminated in the Grand Finals. The tournament had internationally acclaimed debaters on the Core Adjudication Panel and featured motions on the themes of academia, arts, economics, census, climate change, law, ethics and philosophy. The winning team was a Cross consisting of Gunjan Saini, Anjana Pillai and Prarthna Jhawar and the Best Adjudicator was Vaibhav Kumar.

The following prizes were won:

The LSR MUN Society is one of the most popular societies in LSR. MUNs are basically a simulation of the United Nations, whereby students take up different roles and responsibilities and act as delegates by representing a country in the UN and its subsidiary agencies. Our annual conference LSR MUN is organised every year around the month of March. Students from other schools and colleges from across the country are invited to participate.

Staff Advisors
Convener: Nitika Ladda
Co-Convener: Hari Krishan Sharma

Society email – lsr.modelun@gmail.com

Activities 2022-23
LSR Model United Nations and Public Speaking Society is an avenue for students to come together and hone their skills in creative thinking and research. Aiming to argument these skills among students it provides them a platform to further their interest in international relations, national politics and social development issues. The society is beyond MUNs and thrives at social impact initiatives, research publications, diplomacy and inclusivity. The society this year focused on giving its members boundless exposure by organizing the Annual Fresher’s competition. It had the honour of hosting several esteemed speakers including Amb Rahul Chabbra and Mr. Harsh Pant

The society upheld its long-standing collaboration with Child Right and You (CRY) and organized the NGO Committee to train children from a settlement in Tigri in public speaking over the course of a month, and simulated the Citizens’ Open Forum. Society sent out 6 delegations to various prestigious MUN conferences across the year, and won the best delegation award at St Stephens’s MUN. Having created our annual newsletter in collaboration with Hive, with a readership of 1500+, negotiated several collaborations with United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and United Nation Development Programme.

Activities 2021-22

LSR Model United Nations and Public Speaking Society is an avenue for students passionate about international relations and debate to come together and hone their skills in creative thinking, research and argumentation. This year, the focus was on the intersection of three  areas: Inclusivity, Capacity Building, and Diplomacy.

The society adopted a year-round inclusivity mission. With the spirit of eliminating exclusionary jargon, the society pivoted to end-to-end bilingual communication. Furthermore, the society hosted Asia’s first-ever multilingual and free of cost conference, breaking financial and linguistic barriers to participation in MUNs. Owing to the online mode, the team also redesigned a cyber equity policy and instituted an Equity Cell to increase transparency and inclusion throughout the conference. The tradition of promoting public speaking for students belonging to disadvantaged backgrounds was continued through the simulation of the NGO Committee and a donation drive in collaboration with KHUSHII and MIMA NGOs.

The society made capacity building and training the central focus of the year. Overall, there was a three-fold increase in the number of capacity building initiatives including but not limited to pioneering LSR’s first MUN training bootcamp, three intra-college simulations, and the establishment of the MUN Training Team. As a result of these initiatives, the society achieved an 11-fold boost in its annual win rate, with over 15 maiden wins and a Best Institutional Delegation title at AMIMUN, Asia’s largest Model UN Conference.

With its efforts to promote diplomacy and negotiation, the society successfully organized its annual Model UN Conference – LSR MUN 2022. With its theme as Building Back Better, it simulated 7 committees in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Information Center for India and Bhutan and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The conference hosted over 20 Institutional Delegations, witnessing a four-fold increase since its previous conference and received over 1500 delegate registrations. The conference was featured by some leading media forums including DU Official, Amar Ujala and DU Beat.

The society upheld the spirit of knowledge sharing and released several publications over the past year. Two society newsletters were released on the themes of ‘Protection of Human Rights in Conflict Zones’ as well as ‘Dissent’. Furthermore, the conference newsletters focused on our theme of ‘Building Back Better’. The society also increased its synergies by collaborating with other societies such as GAEE LSR, Expressions, Projekt, FISCUL (Department of Economics) to organize inter-college competitions, intra-college simulations and reading circles.

The following speaker events were held:

Vaktritva, the Hindi Debating society of LSR is well -known for its vigorous participation and achievements in conventional and parliamentary debates, mock parliaments, extempore etc, in colleges throughout Delhi. It is a platform which offers its members a space to develop their debating skills along with polishing the qualities of those members who have already been in the field of debating. The ’society aims to develop a rational, empirical and informed vision within its members along with the qualities of organization of ideas and presentation of thought.

Staff Advisors
Convener: Sarika Kalra
Co-Convener: Yogesh Rastogi