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| The marching band of Shaw Public School at the school’s annual inter-house athletic meet at the Oxford Mission School grounds in Behala on December 4. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta |
Progress or 2012?
Devvrat Poddar and Abhishek Ghosh of Delhi Public School (DPS) Megacity held their own through several rigorous rounds to seal their place in the eastern region finals of Debating Matters, the inter-school competition organised by British Council and Institute of Ideas, UK, at the Indian Council of Cultural Relations on November 27 and 28.
Twelve schools from eastern India participated in the day-long event that saw students holding forth on topics including whether the media is justified in invading the privacy of public personalities and the moral acceptability of commercial surrogacy in India.
Four schools — Army Public School, Bengdubi, DPS Megacity, Loreto Day School, Sealdah, and Kendriya Vidyalaya, Cossipore — made it to the semi-finals.
After closely-fought debates, Devvrat and Abhishek from DPS Megacity and Ipshita Shome and Deepawali Mitra from Loreto, Sealdah, made it to the finals.
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| One of the participating teams at the eastern region finals of Debating Matters, at ICCR, on November 28. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta |
The final debate for the day, chaired by the director of British Council, East India, Sujata Sen, dealt with the topic, ‘India should pay more attention to economic development than to climate change’.
Speaking for the motion, said Abhishek: “The developed nations have greater responsibility towards battling climate change, as they emitted very high levels of harmful chemicals when they were setting up their industries. Now that it is India’s turn, why should we have to limit ourselves?”
Explaining the need to adopt environment-friendly measures like rainwater harvesting, Deepawali countered: “If we only pay attention to development, it won’t be long before films like 2012 are a reality.”
Devvrat was declared best speaker for the day. “I can’t wait to start preparing for the finals,” said the Class XI student, who received his prize from British deputy high commissioner Sanjay Wadvani.
The winner, DPS Megacity, as well as the runner-up, Loreto, Sealdah, will participate in the national finals of Debating Matters, to be held from January 14 to 16 in New Delhi.
Ready reckoner with Indian feel
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| Barry O’Brien. A Telegraph picture |
Can you find “correct information” in a book faster than the time taken to Google it? That’s Barry O’Brien’s challenge for you, as the popular quizmaster unveils his new book, General Knowledge Manual 2010.
Conceptualised and developed on the basis of requirements for competitive exams, the 1,500-pager, to be launched at Starmark on Thursday, is also designed as an encyclopaedic guide for the senior student.
“For the first time, I have ventured into the high school-college space and in a way, I am reaching out to the entire family,” says O’Brien. “My school books, Find Out and Get Set, Go!, have been bestsellers for many years now. While Find Out is a general knowledge series, Get Set, Go! is about general awareness along with ‘life skills’ and ‘personality development’. The new General Knowledge Manual, which will be an annual release, is your big, fat reference book on the shelf.”
Besides being broken down into sections on geography, environment, history, science, computers and sports, the book has multiple-choice questions, a glossary of medical and IT terms, plus sections on personality development, communication skills and improving English.
“Three years of very hard research have gone into the book,” reveals O’Brien. “I have researched and edited the sections on English, general knowledge, current affairs, showbiz and sports myself. But we had separate editors working on sections like science and environment. I took the information and made it reader-friendly. I have also tried to Indianise the language and feel of the content, making it easy for the readers.”
O’Brien feels that his “finger on the pulse of the Indian student”, thanks to “two decades of travel, teaching and meeting with other educators”, is what sets the book apart from other general knowledge manuals.
“It’s not a trivia book copy-pasted from the world wide web. It’s more than just a date and a name,” he clarifies. “It’s for people who like to read and want to know more about a subject.”
The book will have to take on the Internet, the ready reckoner for information today, but O’Brien is upbeat about it. “I have seen people spending 10 to 15 minutes trying to find out the right information on the Net,” he says excitedly.
“Even if you forget the speed of access, how reliable is the information that Google throws up? Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. I claim that my book is more reliable than what’s available on the Internet,” he adds.
Two thumbs up to that!
Life’s like that
So many priests, so many popes.
Sitting inside, asking us to hope.
People still cry.
People still die.
Tell me why.
Who is to blame?
It’s all just a game
That people in power play All night and day!
What to do, what not to do,
Nobody has the slightest clue.
Puppets we are
In the hands of the dumb.
Deprived of all,
We’ve become numb.
Whether a god exists, no one knows.
We travel on a path,
No one knows where it goes!
