ABCD खबर

Center for Applied Research and Rural Development (CARRD), a club run by students of Nepal Engineering College, has recently completed the second edition of Nepal Engineering Debate Championship (NEDC) with grandeur. Along with the Debate Championship, the club also organizes many other events, including Karmalaya, Nirmalaya, Jigyasu, Heritage Walk, Research Walk, Hiking, Picnic, etc. The main objective of this club is to develop soft skills along with technical qualities in engineers.

NEDC is an Asian/Australasian parliamentary format debate competition. There are 2 teams in this competition where 1 team plays the role of the proposition/ruling/government side and the other team plays the role of the opposition side. A team consists of 3 people, president, vice president and whip. The second edition of NEDC started on Poush 21, 2079. On this day 8 teams were formed and topics for debate were given to all the 8 teams. In this session all the teams got information about the parliamentary format and understood the rules. After 2 weeks of preparation time, the practice session was held on the 5^th of Magh, 2079. On this day proposition teams and opposition teams practiced debating with each other on their respective assigned topics. On the 6^th of Magh, the quarter-final round took place, where after the competition, the best 4 teams from the eight teams managed to reach the pre-finals. The program was hosted by Khemraj Bhatt, Head of Management, CARRD. Mr. Dayasagar Niraula, Assistant Professor of Nepal Engineering College and Mr. Ashutosh Mani Tripathi, former program coordinator of CARRD, was on the adjudicator’s jury.

Continuing the same program, the pre-final and final rounds were conducted on Magh 7. After the singing of the national anthem, the program continued with the welcome speech of CARRD’s program coordinator Mr. Purushottam Pandey where he warmly welcomed all the guests, adjudicators, participants, OC members and audience. He wished best of luck to all the participants for the competition. Academic coordinator of Nepal Engineering College, Associate Professor Baburam Bhattarai was welcomed as the chief guest in this program. Mr. Khula Nath Gautam was present on behalf of the National Youth Council as a distinguished guest. Ms. Sami Subedi, President of CARRD took the seat as the Chairperson. The Mayor of Changunarayan Municipality Mr. Jeevan Khatri was very eager to participate in this program but due to his busy schedule he was unable to attend, so he sent a video message to his well-wishers and all the participants to encourage and express their hearts. The program hosted by Mr. Dhruba Pandey, the management supervisor of CARRD had Associate Professor Ganesh Prasad Adhikari, Assistant Professor Dayasagar Niraula and Junior Professor Yam Krishna Paudel as the adjudicators. The 4 participating teams debated two topics in the pre-final round. The first topic was "Engineers don’t need to go to foreign countries for opportunity." Similarly, the second topic was "MCC is not well suited for Nepal". In the debate titled "Engineers don’t need to go to foreign countries for opportunity.", the jury declared the proposition team as the winner. Similarly, in the debate titled "MCC is not well suited for Nepal", the jury declared the opposition team as the winner.

With this decision, two teams were selected for the final round. The members of the first team were Subhas Khanal, Kiran Limbu and Ashish Timalsina, while the members of the second team were Sudishana Khadka, Ayusha Karki and Sachita Pudasaini. These 2 teams were going to face each other in the final round which was titled “Artificial Intelligence is dangerous for human civilization”. In this debate, the second team was performing the responsibility of the ruling party, while the first team had to speak as the opposition. The final round proceeded with grandeur and both the ruling party and the opposition presented their unique arguments. The jury struggled to choose a winner, after about 15 to 20 minutes of deliberation, the jury managed to choose a winner. In the final decision, the team that spoke in opposition to the said topic was declared the winner, i.e. Subhas Khanal, Kiran Limbu and Ashish Timilsina were in the winning team and Sudishana Khadka, Ayusha Karki and Sachita Pudasaini were in the runner-up team. Medals, trophies and cash prizes were handed over to the winning and runner-up teams by the Chief Guest. Sachita Pudasaini was awarded the title of best speaker and Associate Professor Ganesh Prasad Adhikari was present to honor her with a medal. Likewise, while appreciating the hard work of the organizing committee, certificates were handed over to all the members of the organizing committee by the Assistant Professor Dayasagar Niraula on behalf of the jury. After this, the Junior Professor Mr. Yam Krishna Paudel from the jury gave certificates of participation to all the participating teams. Ms. Sami Subedi, President of CARRD, expressed her gratitude to all those present, expressed her gratitude to all those who helped in completing the program in a dignified and grand manner. Similarly, she concluded this program by giving special thanks to Nepal Engineering College, Changunarayan Municipality and National Youth Council who played a vital role in making this program possible and successful. She assured that in the future more of such comprehensive programs will be brought and interaction and coordination between students will be increased.