Students display debate skills at inter-school event
Times of India | 2 November 2025
Kolkata: A five-day event, organised by the Calcutta Boys' School Literary Society, the 9th Clifford Hicks International Debate Competition, concluded on Saturday as students from seven schools showcased their debating skills in the finals.
The topic was ‘The house believes that the use of psychological and persuasive techniques in advertising is morally wrong and unacceptable'.
The competition was initiated in 2015 in remembrance of the life and services of Clifford Hicks, who began as a teacher in the 1940s and then became the principal and secretary from 1952 to 1974.
The debate was held in two categories: Category I for Classes XI and XII, and Category II for Classes IX and X.
The preliminaries, conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the semi-finals on Thursday, saw participation from 85 schools, including 27 from nine states and Union Territories, and four international schools. In both categories, seven schools qualified for the finals. The finals of Category II were held on Friday, while the Category I finals took place on Saturday.
The Category I participants from seven schools demonstrated their wit and rhetorical skills on Saturday as they referred to Nike's ‘Run Your Run' campaign, the mass sales and production of cigarettes, Heineken's positive campaign, derogatory fairness cream campaigns, irresponsible alcohol promotion under surrogate advertising, Cristiano Ronaldo's Coca-Cola incident, and the freedom of the press during the debate.
Antariksh Mondal from Calcutta Boys' School supported the motion, saying how modern advertisements convince people to abandon their rational thinking and make uninformed choices. Meanwhile, Aroush Mukadam from Bishops Co-ed School, Undri, felt that the choice of products by consumers depends on their own moral code of conduct and used the example of the Consumers Protection Act, which protects consumers from the trap of false advertising, to prove her point.
Some of the thought-provoking topics debated during the five-day event were ‘Democracy has no future if left to the wisdom of the average electorate', ‘Law enforcement should be able to use racial or ethnic profiling to combat crime and terrorism', ‘All forms of surveillance, including CCTV monitoring, infringe upon the rights of individual citizens', and ‘Today's human society lacks empathy and humility.'
La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata, took the winners' trophy in the Category I finals, while The Bishop's Co-ed School, Undri, and Calcutta Boys' School were the first and second runners-up, respectively. The Bishop's Co-ed School, Undri, took the winners' trophy in the Category II finals, while La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata, were the runners-up. Principal and secretary of Calcutta Boys' School, Raja McGee, said, "The event is not just a debate but a festival and a platform for not only fostering friendships but also a platform to approve, agree and disagree.