NLSIU Bangalore broke into the double-octafinal rounds of the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) today, becoming the first Indian law school in history to have proceeded to the elimination rounds of the world’s largest debating championship. It has now been knocked out this year.

NLSIU’s Vanshaj Jain, who is also one of India’s five newest Rhodes scholars, and Isha Jain made up the team which was one of the top 48 in this year’s WUDC parliamentary debating championship. The WUDC has over 400 participating teams each year.

The team lost in the double-octafinals after winning nine preliminary rounds to be ranked among the top 48, Vanshaj confirmed. The winners – the top two teams - from the double-octafinals compete with the teams ranked 1-16, in the octafinals, to proceed to the quarter finals, he said.

The WUDC 2017 or the Dutch WUDC, is being hosted by The Hague and is following the British parliamentary debate format. In the double-octafinals, NLSIU faced Stanford A, Western Australia and Queensland universities.

This is the farthest an Indian law school has gone yet in the WUDC, according to the following post on NLSIU’s Facebook page:

This is historic for NLSIU. Isha Jain and Vanshaj Jain have broken at World’s University Debating Championship, 2017. WUDC is the biggest debating championship in which over 400 teams from all over the world, across disciplines, participate. NLS is the first ever law school from India to have achieved this feat. There has only been one Indian team before them to have ever broken at World’s. We are overwhelmed to say the least. We wish them all the best for the rest of the tournament. Needless to say, we are immensely, immensely proud of both of you. :) A huge shout out to Karan Bhuwalka and Ajinkya Deshpandey from IIT Bombay for breaking as well.

The debate is currently in its quarter finals, according to its live video stream, and will hold the final rounds tomorrow.