ANI Editor Mrs. Smita Prakash alleged disrespectful treatment at Miranda House by the MUN Club stating that the audience had not shown up to her session. However, contradictory reports state that several students from different colleges had queued up outside the venue for the session.
On 11th April, Asian News International (ANI) editor, Mrs. Smita Prakash, wrote on X that she was invited to Miranda House as the Chief Guest by the MUN Club, Suvakta for a speaker session at the Mini Auditorium. She had been invited as a part of the MUN Club’s fest Oratoria 2026 for a speaker session on Day 2, to address the audience on “Feminism and Global Politics”. However, despite arriving before the scheduled time, she posted in her video that none of the students nor members of the staff were present to greet her, except barely 4 to 5 students while the event was expected to have a turnout of 150 to 300 attendees.
While the event was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM proceeded by the welcome of the Chief Guest at 11:15 AM, Mrs. Prakash after arriving at 10:58 AM, left the venue around 11:04AM. She took to X at exactly 11:17 AM, expressing her frustration. She expressed distrust about the convener of the event being “supposedly stuck in traffic on a Saturday,” and said that she wanted the principal, students, and staff of Miranda House to learn that “tardiness is equal to disrespect.”
However, according to the President of Suvakta, the participants had queued up outside the venue, as they were instructed, so that their confirmation emails could be checked. She stated that it was 11:00 AM when the emails were being checked and that Mrs. Prakash had requested on arrival for the session to commence earlier than the scheduled time, but due to the infeasibility of the request, the organisers had no choice but to deny.
Speaking to DU Beat, the President dismissed allegations of a boycott on the grounds of conflicting political ideology, revealing that a large number of students, including medical students, students from distant colleges, and IITs, had turned up for the event. She added that the convenors and core council of Suvakta had tried to persuade her to stay, apologising for the inconvenience caused to her, but Mrs Prakash did not wish to listen to their requests. She said,
We were very disappointed, and we even apologised, but unfortunately, the session could not begin. People were very disappointed, so of course, we had to issue a wider apology as well. The formal apology was issued officially by our club at around 4 in the evening,”
A medical student who had left their surgery posting to attend the event, writing to the PR Head of Suvakta, said, “The guest entered and exited all in the course of 10 minutes…she posted a video saying there was no audience. We were right outside waiting.”
Another student attending the event wrote,
“I was super excited about the speaker session because I myself aspire to be a journalist. It was a space filled with [young women and men], and many of us admire and learn from such a public figure. It was so disheartening to see her act like this,”
A student from IIT Delhi, said that they had left their classes in hopes of an insightful interaction. He added,
“We were exploring the stalls before the seminar, around 11 and were just coming to the venue when we saw that ma’am had already left, which was quite disheartening because the session was scheduled to start at 11:15.”
A misunderstanding of the itinerary was what had supposedly caused this miscommunication between the event organisers and the Chief Guest. Miranda House has also issued a formal apology to Mrs. Prakash for the supposed delay both on her email, as published by the Chief Guest, and on LinkedIn. She has publicly accepted the apology on X and wrote, “Thank you Miranda House for this mail. Apology accepted. As we say in Punjabi, mitti pao. Wishing students and faculty the very best for the future.”
However, the event is not likely to be rescheduled. Regardless, Miranda House states that it hopes that Mrs. Prakash will likely return to campus in the near future.
Read Also: Hansraj College Fest Witnesses Chaos; Alleged Stabbing and Fights Ensued
Image Credits: President of Suvakta
Souparnika. S. Rajkumar
Trending
