A seminar scheduled to be held at Jawahar Nehru University in the capital Delhi has been cancelled. According to sources, representatives from Iran, Palestine and Lebanon will participate in the seminar. He confirmed that the organizers had received information from the SIS dean that prior permission would be required for any such seminar.
Students receive emails a few hours before the seminar.
Iranian Ambassador Dr. Iraj Elahi was scheduled to speak at a seminar on “How Iran Views Recent Developments in West Asia” on Thursday at 11 a.m., but hours before the seminar began, the coordinator Sima Baidya called students to the 8 am meeting. An email was received at 9am advising that the program had been cancelled.
In the email, Baidia also mentioned a seminar on violence in Palestine held on November 7, addressed by Palestinian Ambassador Adnan Abu Haija, and a seminar on the situation in Lebanon held on November 14, Addressed by Palestinian Ambassador Adnan Abu Haija. Two scheduled speeches by Lebanese Ambassador Dr. Rabbi Nash have been cancelled.
Sources in the Iranian and Lebanese embassies told The Indian Express that the decision to cancel the event was taken by the university and they did not know the reasons. The Palestinian embassy did not respond to text messages or phone calls. University sources said senior professors at the School of International Studies (SIS), which houses the Center for West Asian Studies, expressed concerns about possible protests on campus. He believed that seminars on such sensitive issues could create tensions on campus and therefore deemed it appropriate to cancel such seminars.
A university source told The Indian Express that the seminars were aimed at understanding the views of West Asian countries on the current international situation, but there were concerns about how these topics would be reverberated on campus.
