A delegation of 10 students from Hill Top School, Jamshedpur, led by their principal Puneeta B. Chouhan participated at the Indian International Mock United Nations sessions at the UN headquarters in New York between August 15 and 17.
The Hill Top team, the only one from Bihar and Jharkhand and comprising students from Classes IX-XII, won their way to the New York event after emerging as the best delegation at a city-level Indian International Model United Nations (IIMUN) meet held at Hill Top School in Jamshedpur in January this year.
The exercise was organised by the Mumbai-based Indian International Model United Nations, which holds mock sessions of the UN and the Indian Parliament in various cities.
The students- Vaibhav Prakash Pandey, Subhashish, Nishant Singh from class XII, Ayush, from class XI Ayati Mishra, Stiti Pragnya Padhy, Atirek Aryan, Romit Bose and Sonal Priya from class X and D.V. Vedith Verma from class IX, rubbing shoulders with 700 similar students from across the globe, participated in various debates organised at the mock conference.
Participating in the UN general Assembly mock session, Sonal and Ayush representing Turkey and Vaibhav and Stiti representing India debated on 'Reforms in the United Nations Security Council'.
"The consensus of the general assembly plenary was to limit and justify veto in cases of mass atrocity crimes and genocide; introduction of new permanent members without veto power and increase in transparency, accountability and representatives of the Security Council," Sonal said.
Other students participated in mock Human Rights Council; Lok Sabha and the Security Council sessions.
The mock Lok Sabha session, organised in a separate room of the UN headquarters, debated the motion: 'Aadhaar Bill 2016-is it an intellectual anarchy?' Principal Chouhan said that foreign students also role-played BJP and Congress legislators, which gave them a glimpse of the working of the Indian parliamentary system.
Vaibhav said, "We understood the perspectives of various countries and were sensitised about world affairs. This was an international exposure to debating, diplomacy and public skills," he said.
