LAHORE: The Government College University Debating Society (GCUDS) has bagged 270 national oratory awards during the academic year 2015-16.

The laurels include 50 team trophies, nine runners-up trophies, two third position trophies, 93 best speaker awards, 65 second position awards, 48 third position and three consolation prizes, which were won at various declamation, parliamentary, recitation and poetry competitions at the national level.

`Speakers of GCUDS have always shown their mettle in English, Urdu and Punjabi languages. This year, however, the society took special initiatives to promote languages such as Seraiki and Pashto byintroducinginternalcompetition as well as winning national level awards in respective regional languages,` reads the GCUDS academic year 2015-16 report submitted to Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah on Tuesday.

`The GCUDS outshined every other institute in Pakistan in both declamation and parliamentary style of debate,` society Adviser Siddique Awan told the vice chancellor during the meeting.

The high achievers in parliamentary debates were Afzan Munir, Awais Ahmad Malik, Shahkar Ali Bukhari and Hasan Haider Raza. The team comprising Raza Gillani, Hassan Qadeer Butt and Hamza Abbas won almost every major Urdu tournament of the year.

The speakers who excelled in declamations include MohibaAhmed, Zainul Hassan, Ali Zar, Saad Khan, Usama Khan, Abdullah Zafar, Qasim Raza, Haris Ali Virk, Abdul Rahim Virk and Jovairiah Batool. Kafeel Rana, a student of psychology department, proved to be the highest achiever in declamations this year. Young poets Usama Zoraiz, Muhammad Ali Zaahir, Fahad Mehmood and Zohaib Alam excelled in various national-level poetry competitions.

GCUDS President Muhammad Afzan Munir attributed the successful year to the unflinching support and patronage of the vice chancellor and their advisers Awan and Prof Dr Haroon Qadir.

PHD DEGREES: The Punjab University has awarded PhD degrees to Sairah Hafeez Kamran in pharmacy (pharmacology) and Misbah Sultan in pharmacy(pharmaceutics).

Dr Sairah`s thesis was on Pharmacological Screening of Some Indigenous Plants and Elucidation of Biochemical, Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms for AntiDiabetic Activity` while Dr Misbah did her thesis on `Rheological and Release Characteristics of Drugs of Different Solubilities from Semisolid Matrix Filled in Hard Gelatin Capsule` Also, the Department of Political Science and Centre for South Asian Studies will organise a two-day national conference starting from Oct 5 (today) on `Indian Atrocities in Kashmir: Regional and Global Implications` Mushaal Mullick, chairperson of Global Alliance for Kashmir, MPA Dr Farzana Nazir Meer, Prof Emeritus Dr Hassan Askari and Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran will speak.