Debating duo gets twice lucky

CHENNAI: Amid raised eyebrows and overawed looks, two class 10 students Manasvini Mukund and Barath Balaji on Monday won the annual Landmark Debate for the second consecutive time. Speaking for the topic ‘Should public figures be entitled to their private space’, the team put up a tough fight against a much-older debating duo from Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering. Opponents Vivian Paul Gonsalves and K Dinesh Kumar were no match for the Class 10 students of PS Senior Secondary School. The participants were allotted their topic by picking lots. Barath, who won the Best Speaker Award, argued that it was not fair for children of popular author J K Rowling to be constantly followed by cameras just because their mother was famous. He went on to say that constant scrutiny would affect public figures in their line of work. His teammate Manasvini added that whether a politician was good or bad had nothing to do with his personal life.Vivian counter-argued that it was that scrutiny that made people want to perform better. It motivates them to exceed expectations, he reasoned. The cases of Tiger Woods, Micheal Jackson and even Lady Gaga did come up, but the arguments veered away from the paparazzi culture towards investigative journalism.One of the judges, advocate Dorothy Thomas pointed out that there were issues pertaining celebrities apart from broken hearts, bathroom incidents and failed marriages, but in vain.Where a line has to be drawn was a point that Balaji brought up. When Dinesh and Vivian said that they had the right to know about the personal lives of public figures, the other judge, actor Gauthami, wanted to know how such intense media glare on public figures would affect their family and friends. The discussion took off, but no concrete conclusion was provided by the opposition team.   When the question of the definition of public figures in context to the debate arose, Manasvini established that any person whose actions are significant to the society and are of public interest will qualify for a public figure. Social media amplification and peeping toms were other issues that were extensively debated about. G C Shekhar- Associate Editor, Telegraph, was the third judge for the debate.