Policy Contention
 

The Policy Debate comprises seven rounds: four Preliminary Rounds + Quarter Finals + Semi-Finals + Finals. The first four rounds would be open to all participants, post which there will be knockout rounds. Each round will be based on a theme, such as Sustainability, Digitalisation, Defence, Women and Child Welfare etc. There will be two policies per theme per round, out of which the participants will debate on one. The policy to be debated on as well as the affirmative and negative sides will be decided by a coin toss. The affirmative team will defend the policy and highlight its benefits, while the negative team will address the concerns regarding that policy and suggest changes/alternatives to it. Towards the end, both the teams will sit together and draft a mutually agreed upon resolution.

The flow of the debate will be as follows:

• Preparation time (15 mins)

• First speaker from the affirmative team (3-5 minutes)

• First speaker from the negative team (3-5 minutes)

• Second speaker from the affirmative team (3-5 minutes)

• Second speaker from the negative team (3-5 minutes)

• Rebuttal speech by the negative team (2-3 minutes)

• Rebuttal speech by the affirmative team (2-3 minutes)

• Drafting time (30 mins)

• Submitting the resolution

We will conduct a training session followed by a mock debate and a Q&A session to demonstrate the debate format to the participants and answer their queries.