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No Lecture at Harvard: Why Did Lalu’s Daughter Misa Bharti Lie? 

Lalu’s daughter Misa Bharti claims she gave a lecture at Harvard, even fudging pics. But all she did was pay to be in the audience.  

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“The play was a great success but the audience was a total failure”, said Oscar Wilde, after the first performance of one of his plays, Lady Windermere’s Fan.

Since then, the phrase has also been borrowed by public speakers who bomb their lectures; only, they replace the word ‘play’ with ‘lecture’ while appropriating the context.

The latest person to borrow the phrase is Misa Bharti, former Bihar CM Lalu Yadav’s daughter. Misa, it seems, tried to scam her friends and followers back in India and in Bihar, projecting herself as a special invitee to speak at Harvard University. But her plans bombed after the media did some fact checking.

What Misa Said

On March 7, Misa Bharti, Lalu’s 40 year old daughter, told her friends in a Facebook post that she was on her way to Harvard to participate in an ‘India Conference’ on 7th and 8th March -

Lalu’s daughter Misa Bharti claims she gave a lecture at Harvard, even fudging pics. But all she did was pay to be in the audience.   
Screenshot of Dr. Misa Bharti’s Twitter Page. Photo: Twitter/MisaBharti. 

Local Bihar papers lapped it up with expected enthusiasm, no questions asked. After all, it was an ‘invite’ from the hallowed Harvard University.

Lalu’s daughter Misa Bharti claims she gave a lecture at Harvard, even fudging pics. But all she did was pay to be in the audience.   

Here is where the case gets curious. Photographs uploaded on Misa’s Facebook page show her on stage, as if taking part in an animated discussion. The photographs also show Misa speaking from behind the podium, as if speaking to an audience. Were these photographs taken to mislead?

Unfortunately for Misa, media back in India got curious, and actually asked Harvard University whether they had invited her as a Speaker. That’s when the bubble burst.

What Harvard Said

Rajat Sethi, Co-chair, India Conference at Harvard, told NDTV in an email that Misa Bharti was ‘part of the audience’ and not a speaker -

“She was not invited to deliver any lecture. Her attendee status can be confirmed from the fact that she had to purchase a conference ticket as an audience”

- Rajat Sethi, Co-chair, India Conference, Harvard


At the conference, that was sponsored primarily by the Tata group, the speakers included activist-politician Kiran Bedi, actor-activist Rahul Bose, ex Chief Minister of Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan and BJP National Secretary Ram Madhav. But not Misa Yadav.

Misa is yet to put out a clarification on the matter.

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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