Ashima Sharma, Keekli Reporter, 1st August, 2015, Shimla
BL Modi Memorial Invitational Inter-School Elocution Competition was held in Bishop Cottons School here today, wherein Ian Boye, the Senior Master of Bishop Cotton School presided as the chief guest and Mrs Modi, the wife of the Late B.L. Modi also graced the occasion with her presence. Students from different schools participated in the event including Auckland House Girls and Boys School; Chapslee School; Convent of Jesus and Mary; Himalayan International School; Loreto Convent Tara Hall; Pinegrove School, Kasauli; Shimla Public School; St Lukes School, Solan; St Mary School; St Edwards School; St Thomas School and the hosts, Bishop Cottons School. Headmaster Christopher Robinson was also present on the occasion to encourage the students.
The students endowed with exceptional oratory skills performed flawlessly. The competition was categorized in various groups, including Poetry for Junior Division – Class 6; Intermediate Division – Class 7; Prose for Intermediate Division – Class 8; Drama for Senior Division – Class 9 and 10 and Turn-Coat Open Division for Classes 11 and 12. The guidelines and rules were based as per the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. The participants were given a time limit of maximum three minutes to put their best foot forward and impress the judges with their proficiency. The open divisions were given topics randomly out of a box at the start of the competition along with a thesaurus and a book of quotes for reference.
In the Open Division students spoke for and against on the topic “homework helps students in performing better”, while in the poetry competition, random selections excerpts were from poems by Blake, Wordsworth and in the drama recitation, Shakespeare’s famous plays Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet were chosen for the students.
The winners in Junior Category 
Class VI Poetry, were 1st – Harshpreet Singh (Bishop Cotton School); 2nd – Smriti Kaith (Auckland House Girls School); 3rd – Aanchal Gupta (Convent of Jesus and Mary); 4th – Ojaswi Keshta (Loreto Convent Tara Hall); 5th – Ritvick Anand Benjamin (Auckland House Boys School).
In the Senior Division, Class IX and X, Drama Category, the position were as follows; 1st – Kapish Arya (Bishop Cotton School); 2nd – Muskan Sharda (Auckland House Girls School); 3rd – Gunjan Singh Negi (Convent of Jesus and Mary); 4th – Deyani Gupta (Loreto Convent Tara Hall) and 5th – Vaibhav Hurram (Shimla Public School). The Best Speaker was bagged by Muskan Sharda and Kapesh Maurya won the most Promising Speaker award.
The results for Prose category for Class 8 were – 1st Kuldeep (Bishop Cotton School); 2nd – Saumya (Chapslee Public School) and 3rd – Ohm Sharma (St Edwards School). In the Turn-coat Open Division first position was secured by Digvijay Dhillion (Pinegrove School).
The overall winner of the competition was Bishop Cotton School. Senior Master and Mrs Modi awarded all the winners and congratulated them on their remarkable performances. The event concluded with a speech by the Headmaster who congratulated all the students on performing whole heartedly and said, “It was very tough for the judges to choose any one of you young oratory geniuses as a winner, all the participants who have come here from 12 different schools have performed brilliantly and made their respective schools proud. I would like to thank Mrs Modi for gracing this occasion with her presence. I would also like to thank our senior master to be our special chief guest today and Sushila Prabhudas for organizing and managing this impeccable event”.
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