Lecture on "Empowering Differently Abled" January 10, 2015

The J&K Regional Branch of Indian Institute of Public Administration in collaboration with Department of Students Welfare (DSW) University of Kashmir organized the 10th IIPA Annual Debate Competition at Gandhi Bhawan, University of Kashmir on December 20, 2014.
 After three years of wait, the University of Kashmir (KU) team finally reclaimed the annual IIPA-DSW debating competition title. KU team today finished on a winning note after defeating around 26 participants who were divided into 13 teams which also included the defending champions from Women`s College MA Road who were the winners of annual IIPA-DSW debating competition in 2013.

The debating team from Department of Social Work, KU which included Tabinda Wani and Sadaf Zehra won the title for University of Kashmir where as Arbeena Hamid  from Department of Law won the first position and Zubair Ahmad from Business School University of Kashmir and Ehsan-ul-lah from Department of Economics secured the second and third position in the competition.

The first consolation prize was bagged by Sadaf Zehra from Department of Social Work KU and the second consolation prize went to Syed Areej from Women`s College MA Road.
Students from various colleges and universities of Kashmir division and from various PG departments of KU participated.

The topic for the day-long debate was ‘Information Technology has adversely affected the reading writing and retention capabilities of youth’. During the competition strong arguments were made in favor of the motion as well as against it.

The debate was informative and power pact with participants putting in their energy and intellect together to make the audience bend in their favor.

Later during the valedictory function, Vice Chancellor University of Kashmir Prof Khurshid Iqbal Andrabi who was chief guest on the occasion while giving away the prizes and certificates of participation amongst the debaters expressed happiness over the way students articulated their views on the topic and said job of universities should not be just to offer  degrees but to evolve  young leaders who can lead the society for better.

Prof Andrabi said, “Such kind of events give me a kick and I always make myself present in these events so that in the process I may also learn something.”

Vice Chancellor Central University of Kashmir Prof Mehraj-ud-din Mir said on the occasion that though it is a fact that relying too much on IT sources has affected our retention capabilities but both IT as well as book reading in its traditional hard copy format have their positive as well as negative aspects.

He added, “At the same time we have to ensure judicious use of information technology sources and filter out those dimensions of IT which can have negative effect on our psyche.”
Director Tourism Talat Pervaiz who was guest of honor on the occasion stressed on getting benefitted from the positive aspects of IT and asked the students to maintain a balance between what to choose and what not.

District Development Commissioner Srinagar Farooq Ahmad Shah who was also present on the occasion said that our young generation is accessing internet more and are giving very less time to book reading which he said is not a good sign and can have serious affect on the tradition of book reading and writing.

Prof S.M Afzal Qadri, Director Seminars IIPA, J&K Regional Branch said IIPA has been organizing such kind of debates from a very long time and many issues which are prevalent in our society have been discussed in these debates.

Dean Students Welfare KU Prof Neelofar Khan said that these events help students to give vent to their   talent and added that the recommendations of the debate need to be looked into by the concerned quarters.

The debating competition was coordinated by SGM Andrabi, Joint Secretary IIPA J&K Regional Branch and Shahid Ali khan Cultural Officer University of Kashmir.