The Maria Philip Debate Competition’, an annual tradition at XIME, was held with great enthusiasm recently.

This inter- B-School debate competition is held in memory of Maria Philip, daughter of XIME president J Philip, with teams from eminent B-Schools like IIM Bangalore, T A Pai Management Institute, Mount Carmel, among others, participating.

Participants were judged by a panel of judges with Chitra Talwar, former VP, international sales, PEPSICO as the chairperson.  The chief guest was S Chandrasekhar, MD, Bhoruka Power Corporation Limited and former chairman of CII-Karnataka.

Each team consisted of two members, who were asked to speak both for and against the topic, ‘Should India focus on being a superpower or a developed nation?”.

Participants put forth various facts such as rampant malnutrition, lack of access to basic facilities like electricity and healthcare, the below poverty line status of a large proportion of the country’s population.  The panel of judges awarded the first prize to T A Pai Management Institute, while the participants from IIM-Bangalore were declared runners-up.