Yi under its Student Nets platform conducted a simulation of the Indian Parliament on 26th & 27th September 2009 at Kochi. At the Indian Parliament Simulation 130 of the most talented applicants, from 18 cities and 32 institutes of the country were groomed to conduct the simulation, which exposed them to the intricacies of Parliamentary procedures, made them passionate about governance, its responsibilities and the effect it had on the common man. The inaugural was addressed by Prof K V Thomas, Minister of State for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food & PD, Government of India. The Simulation was very successful and was a great hit among the students and the members present at the event., where the students got to spend 36 hours role-playing as elected MPs, participating in a leadership experience unlike any other. The Inaugural session was followed by an extravagant cultural evening by the students from the 9 Yi Kochi Nets. The participating students passionately debated their concern about a whole range of pressing national issues – from the parallel economy to moral policing, from corruption in the bureaucracy to the vanishing tiger population, racism, defense and internal security, poverty, agriculture, use of public funds for subsidy, infrastructure, revamping of education system, suicide among farmers and even recent ones like NREGA scheme, Satyam fraud, etc.
The energy, vibrancy, diversity, even dressing & slang of speech used by the students was representative of Indian parliament and the observers felt as if they were watching Lok Sabha live on Doordarshan. The thumping of desks, the rhetoric verbosity and the gesticulations made within the confines of the parliament were beautifully emulated & were fabulously manifested by the students. The students were not only articulate but also meticulous in their research and made their discussions and debate authentic, intellectually rich and well balanced with data and statistics. This Indian Parliament Simulation was the second edition while the first edition was the simulation of the UN Parliament that was conducted at IIM Ahmedabad in June 2008.
