Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues Memorial Debate
The National level Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues Memorial Debate is a prestigious Debate Competition in Mumbai, hosted annually by Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering, Bandra. Inaugurated in the year 1999 as a debate competition for colleges within Mumbai, it became a National level Competition in 2012. It is a 2-day event usually held in the month of September. The debate aims to provide a forum for today’s youth to articulate views and engage in a dialogue on various affairs that affect the life of the common man, directly or otherwise.
Venue
The debates on the first day are carried out in various rooms in the Fr. CRCE campus at Agnel Ashram, Bandstand, Bandra. For the past 4 years, the final day is held at the state of the art College Hall ‘Samvaad’.
Format
The competition follows a knock-out, non-parliamentary format of debate. The language used in all the debates is English. There are 32 participating colleges from all over Maharashtra,Gujarat, Karnataka and Odisha. Each participating college sends a contingent of 2 students. The team is given the topics and theme weeks in advance of the competition.
The debates are judged by invited judges who represent various fields of education, social services, entertainment and industry.It is organized entirely by the Students’ Council of Fr. CRCE and the specially formed Debate Committee.
In the recent years, the knock-outs and the quarter finals are carried out on the first day of the two-day event. The second day witnesses the 4 teams going through the semi-finals and finals to win the Fr. C. R. Memorial Rolling Trophy and handsome cash prizes. The Best Speaker is also awarded a special prize.
Theme
Every year the college announces a theme for the debate. Ranging from national to abstract, the theme is a common link between the myriad topics that the students debate upon in the course of the event. The theme for the 2012 edition of the debate was “India: An Order Rising Amongst Chaos”. 2013, the run-up to the highly anticipated General Elections 2014 saw “India: Shifting towards Equinox” as its theme.The theme for the year 2014 was "Entranced by Light, Entrapped by Shadows". Separating the thin line between the realm of fantasy and reality, the theme for the year 2015 was "Appeasing mist shrouding the hills of reality".
Previous Winners
The list of the winners of the coveted Rolling Trophy since its inception.
| Year | Winner |
|---|---|
| 1999 | Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering |
| 2000 | Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering |
| 2001 | Lokmanya Tilak Medical College |
| 2002 | Indian Institute of Technology Bombay |
| 2003 | St. Francis Institute of Technology |
| 2004 | Lokmanya Tilak Medical College |
| 2005 | St. Francis Institute of Technology |
| 2006 | Thakur College of Engineering and Technology |
| 2007 | Thakur College of Engineering and Technology |
| 2008 | Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering |
| 2009 | Don Bosco Institute Of Technology |
| 2010 | Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering |
| 2011 | Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering |
| 2012 | St. Xavier's College, Mumbai |
| 2013 | Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies |
| 2014 | Pravin Gandhi College of Law |
| 2015 | St. Francis Institute of Technology |
Chief Guests
The quality of thoughts and ideas expressed by students over the past debates has been lauded by all the Chief Guests and Guests of Honour who have witnessed the event, some of them being Former MP Priya Dutt, Mrs. Shraddha Jadhav, Mr. Kumar Ketkar, Mr. Madhur Bhandarkar, Mr. Ashoke Pandit, Mr. Mahesh Bhatt, Mr. Prakash Jha, Mr. Sanjay Manjrekar, Mrs Dolly Thakore.
“No wonder films don’t always do well. After seeing a Debate like this where so many intellectual young minds fight it out, who would want to go to a movie theatre” - Mahesh Bhatt, Film Director
“ Way beyond my expectations. Never expected a technical college to hold such a non-technical Debate!” - Dolly Thakore, Theatre Actress
“The debate was well-organised and the participants were well aware.You people reminded me of the smart youth our country is famous for” - Madhur Bhandarkar, Film Director
The Chief Guest for the 2012 edition was Mr. Arnab Goswami, the acclaimed Editor-in-chief of Times Now. Famous Journalist, Mrs. Bachi Karkaria was the Chief Guest on the 15th Fr. C. R. Memorial Debate.In the year 2014, Mahrukh Inayet was the Chief Guest.