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WORLD June 5, 1999 VNN4043 See Related VNN Stories | Comment on this story CHAKRA Agrees To Host Historic Debate BY IRG INDIA INDIA, Jun 5 (VNN) — In an unprecedented move CHAKRA, the GBC-friendly web-site, has agreed to act as a neutral moderator for a discussion on the ritvik issue for the next 3-4 weeks at least. Supporting the IRG will be Adridharan Prabhu. The GBC will be supported by Ajamila prabhu, a contributor of 'Prabhupada's Order'. The rules of the debate will be as follows: 1. One introductory statement by each party, not exceeding 6,000 words will be posted on Chakra on Thursday, June 10. 2. These will be followed by a second simultaneous set of "comments" of no more than 1000 words each, including references. These will be posted side by side on Saturday, June 12. 3. Following these comments, each party will have their submissions posted on alternate days. The debate will be conducted in a "6 round format" as follows: ROUND ONE Ajamila asks Adri a question in no more than 650 words Adri answers that question in no more than 650 words Ajamila comments on Adri's answer in no more than 650 words. ROUND TWO Adri asks Ajamila a question in no more than 650 words Ajamila answers that question in no more than 650 words Adri comments on Ajamila's answer in no more than 650 words. ROUND THREE Ajamila asks Adri a question in no more than 650 words Adri answers that question in no more than 650 words Ajamila comments on Adri's answer in no more than 650 words. [...] ROUND SIX Adri asks Ajamila a question in no more than 650 words Ajamila answers that question in no more than 650 words Adri comments on Ajamila's answer in no more than 650 words. The first submission, which will be from Ajamila will be posted on Monday, June 14th. After that day each party will post on alternate days, meaning that there will be a new posting every single day. 4. There will be no breaks. Chakra will decide (primarily based on reader interest) if the debate will conclude or continue at that point. If we decide to stop it and one of you disagrees with this decision, you will be allowed to state this in your closing comment. 5. We will end the debate by posting two side-by-side closing statements of no more than 1000 words each. 6. Chakra will only post philosophical arguments in this debate. References to the personal lives of the devotees involved in this issue, name-calling, insults and other personal attacks, as well as any reference to legal issues, will be edited out. 7. Neither one of the parties will be allowed to publish any other articles on Chakra during this debate. 8. All evidence has to come from Prabhupada's talks and writings and from the different official GBC and IRG papers that have already been distributed. We will allow statements from other books only if those quotes are taken directly from Prabhupada's books or the papers above. Since this debate is about how Prabhupada wanted to set up ISKCON initiations, debating other books would most likely get us into the issue of what is an "authorized" translation, and we would quickly lose the focus of the debate. At the same time, if Prabhupada used quotes from other works, those particular quotes must be considered "authorized". 9. Reader letters will be collected and may be shared between us while the debate is going on. However, Chakra will not post them until the debate is over. We may however post a count and encourage readers to write in for a later publication date. As noted above a decision regarding whether or not to extend the debate after the initial exchanges have finished will be based on the amount interest that is generated by the debate, based on the number of hits the debate is receiving. Thus it will up to the readers to decide how long they wish to see the debate continue by the frequency with which they log onto the debate articles. The debate is seen as a big step forward for free speech in that historically CHAKRA has refused to publish IRG replies to anti-ritvik papers that have been published on CHAKRA, with only VNN giving us the right of reply. It will also be a progressive move since for the first time the many GBC supporters who normally log onto CHKARA or who are on ISKCON com, will be educated on the IRG position directly from the IRG, without any censorship or mis-representation. We hope that this will be the beginning of the process of dialogue, that may help to resolve this issue. Related VNN Stories | Comment on this story | Contact VNN about this story | Send this story to a friend
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