In today’s world, it’s not only music that connects, debate also connects. With international debating events such as World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC), Asian Universities Debating Championship (AUDC), Australasian Inter-Varsity Debating Championships (Australs), debating competitions have now become synonymous with youth congregation and symbol of global fraternity. There are two major debating fiestas of universities in Asia; All Asians Inter-Varsity Debate Championship, popularly abbreviated as All Asians and Asian Universities Debating Championship. Both the championships have their unique identity and style.

All Asians Inter-Varsity Debate Championship
All Asians was the first regional debating championship in Asia. Before the introduction of AUDC in 2005 as an alternative to All Asians, this was the only debating tournament of the region covering universities from many countries of Asia.
Australs is the second largest debating tournament in the world, lagging behind only WUDC in terms of size and attraction of the competition. There is a gulf of difference between Asian and Australian culture and many Asian debaters were subjective to few elements of Australian culture. Besides, some unexpected incidents occurred to Asian Debaters in Australs which inspired Asian participants of Australs to organize a debating event of their own and that’s how All Asians came into existence. Next year i.e. in 1994, All Asians was hosted by Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines with limited sponsors and financial support and now, fifteen years into its formation, All Asians Inter-Varsity Debate Championship is one of the most formidable debating events not only in Asia, but also in world.
In 2007, All Asians was hosted by Chung-Anq University, South Korea, with Universiti Teknologi MARA (Malaysia) and University of Malaya (Malaysia) being the champion and the runner-up respectively. This year, North South University was the host while both winning and runner-up team were from National Law School of India. Anirudh Wadha, NLS won the best speaker award.
In All Asians format, three speakers from each side get seven minutes for constructive speech and four minutes for rebuttal. 16th All Asians will be held next year as usual.

Asian Universities Debating Championship
AUDC was launched in 2005 as an alternative to All Asians, by those universities which were dissatisfied with All Asians, specially its adjudication. Since then, many universities, especially from South-East Asia with strong debating teams have avoided participating in All Asians. Institutions from Philippines and Singapore which had won All Asians avoided All Asians since the inception of AUDC, with the exception of only one university. Actually, schedules of AUDC and All Asians coincide in such a way that it becomes impossible for a team participating in one of the events to participate in the other one. So, the rivalry between the two championships can be guessed from their schedules.
AUDC 2008 was hosted by International Islamic University, Malaysia, with Nanyang Technological University of Singapore lifting the trophy while Ateneo de Manila University of Philippines came out runner-up. The best speaker award went to Roland Glenn Tuazon from the runner-up team.
In terms of format, AUDC is the Asian adaptation of Australs, the only difference is that, in AUDC, POIs can be raised from the 2nd up to the 5th minute of constructive speech.
AUDC will be organized by East West University, Bangladesh in 2009 and De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, Philippines in 2010. Organizers from East West University have already started working to turn AUDC 2009 into a successful event and they are expecting the largest ever contingent of AUDC for AUDC 2009. Besides, organizers in the debating arena of Bangladesh are endeavoring to win bid for WUDC 2012.