The participants of Tata Steel Rolling Trophy debate. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, Sept. 29: The panel discussion was a fitting finale of the Tata Steel Rolling Trophy debate today. The discussion had the audience glued to their seats.

Organised by Jamshedpur chapter of Association of British Scholars (ABS), the panellist at the session were Sunita Narain, the director of Centre for Science and Environment and publisher of Down to Earth magazine, Mark Runacres, the deputy British High Commissioner and a fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute and Jeetu Singh, the professor of general management and human resources with XLRI. The moderator was noted columnist Swapan Dasgupta.

While the topic for the debate was “World must slow down its pace of development for ecological security” the topic on which the panellist shed light were solutions to the rising concern of economic development at the cost of ecological security.

“The challenge on environment is not simple. Much has been said of making use of renewable energy but consumption of power of natural sources has been less than one per cent in our country. What we need is investment because production of renewable energy is costly. People will only invest if they have a commitment towards earth,” said Narain.

At the debate today four ABS chapters — New Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Jamshedpur — competed for the trophy. The students at the debate brought to the fore problems like carbon emissions, pollution, green house effect, displaced villagers, and extinct animals.