Teesta Setalvad blames IISc administration for preventing her from holding meeting on its campus
Bengaluru, Aug 18: Human rights activist Teesta Setalvad on Friday said she was prevented from delivering a lecture at the premier Indian Institute of Science as the administration cancelled the meeting at the last minute.
According to the information available, the event was organised by a group called 'Break the Silence' on Wednesday evening at the IISc campus and the CCE Lecture Hall was booked for the programme.
However, at the last minute, the officials denied her entry to the hall, forcing them to hold the meeting in the garden outside the IISc canteen, Setalvad said in a video statement on social media.
Over 40 professors and students joined the lecture on the IISc campus, she said.
"Yesterday, I had a very unusual experience at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. Some professors and students had invited me for a lecture at the CCE Hall on 'Communal Harmony and Justice' and I think it was a last minute decision of the administration to cancel the meeting," she said.
According to her, the IISc administration even tried to prevent her from entering the institute's gate.
However, over 40 students and professors sat in the garden outside the canteen and had an intense discussions on "justice, peace, the critical juncture where India is at and also the need for citizens today to collectively come together, speak up for rationality, dissent, communal harmony and peace."
The activist said, "Communal harmony and peace cannot be a taboo word in modern-day 21st century India."
The organisers of the event said she spoke on communal riots and persecution of Muslims and dissenters in India.
The IISc authorities were not available for comment on the issue.
The Supreme Court had granted Setalvad regular bail last month in a case of alleged fabrication of documents to frame innocent people in the 2002 post-Godhra riot cases.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
