Miss World 2019 which is one of the biggest beauty pageant events was held at the ExCeL London yesterday on December 14. Miss Jamaica Toni Ann-Singh won the competition and was crowned by former Miss World Vanessa Ponce from Mexico. She was followed by Ophely Mezino of France and Suman Rao of India as the first and second runners up of the pageant respectively.
India’s Suman Rao announced as the Second Runner Up
British journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan was the head judge at the event in which 120 countries had participated in the event out of which 10 had reached the finals. Miss Nigeria and Brazil had also qualified for the top 5, out of which the winners were selected on the basis of questions asked by Morgan.
Suman Rao, a 21-year-old who hails from Rajasthan, India, won the title of Miss World Asia 2019 during the beauty pageant. She won the audience’s heart as well as those of the judges with her passion for women empowerment. Suman won hearts for her Beauty With A purpose initiative — Project Pragati, to empower women.
Born in Aaidana village near Udaipur, Suman along with her family later shifted to Mumbai. Suman’s father is a jeweller while her mother is a homemaker. She has two brothers.
Miss World 2019
After completing her school, Suman pursued a course in accountancy from the University of Mumbai. She is also a trained Kathak dancer. In 2018, Suman participated in the Miss Navi Mumbai contest where she was announced as the first runner-up. Thereafter, she auditioned for the Miss Rajasthan 2019 contest and won the title.
At the Miss India 2019 pageant, Suman represented Rajasthan and won the title as well in June this year. Expressing her happiness, she had earlier told, “The fact that I am Miss India is sinking in… I am doing fine now. Of course, it is a dream, right? For me, before the competition started, winning was important and that is why I was working towards it. I am always focused and sincere. But now I know that more than the result, the desire of winning is important because that drives me to stay focused.”
She further added, “I want to be the voice of gender equality. I come from a community where girls go through quite a lot due to inequality, and that also regarding some of the very basic choices. I want to create awareness among them because freedom is about equal opportunity. When it comes to gender discrimination, in any part of the world, the root cause is a mentality that needs to be changed. Once the mind is in the right direction, it reflects on society.”
Meanwhile, during the Miss World 2019 competition, the beauty queen spoke about equal opportunities that every woman deserves and thanked her mother on stage. When asked about one famous personality from her past or present to choose to make a change to the world, she said that instead of choosing a prominent figure from the past or present she believes that every individual must do everything they can to make the world a better place to live in today.
Her choice of attire to showcase Indian costume during the competition also got her lots of praises as she made a stunning appearance in a red lehenga complete with traditional jewellery. She also wowed everyone with her performance on Deepika Padukone’s hit song, ‘Ghoomar’.
Interestingly, Suman Rao is an ardent admirer of Deepika Padukone and aspires to be an actor.
