Vidyalankar Institute team on top in Mumbai leg of HT Centennial Debate

2 teams qualify for the national final as bright young minds from India's financial capital engage in a battle of wits and knowledge

- HT Correspondent

MUMBAI: Twenty-four of Mumbai's best higher education institutions battled it out on Wednesday morning in the second regional leg of the Hindustan Times centennial debate.

Held at the Jio World Convention Centre, the four-hour-long event saw the city's brightest young minds engage in a battle of wits and knowledge on the topic "the social media generation is more lost than found".

A team of Parth Gupta and Utkarsh Karmungikar from the Vidyalankar Institute of Technology were the team winners of Wednesday's debate. They proceed to the national finals to be held in Delhi, along with Vivekanand Education Society's Institute of Technology, comprising Preetika Khilnaney and Aditya Santosh. These two teams will join Ashoka University and OP Jindal Global University, who were the winner and runner-up respectively of the Delhi leg of the debate, in the national final.

Mehar Kazi from Mithibai College was adjudicated the best speaker, followed by Utkarsh Karmungikar from the Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, and Preetika Khilnaney from the Vivekanand Education Society's Institute of Technology.

The jury, comprising celebrated writer and lyricist Jaideep Sahni, leading lawyer and philanthropist Naheed Carrimjee, and influential advertising guru Agnello Dias, applauded the efforts of the nearly 50 debaters who held forth on issues as wide-ranging as misinformation, waning attention spans, cognitive functions, and social movements.