The university had on Monday issued an ultimatum to the protesters to vacate the encampments by 2 pm or face suspensions. And on Tuesday morning began suspending students who stayed on. Later the university said now they face expulsion. However, a statement by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine on X said “Students’ blood will be on your hands” if police are brought to the campus to evict them. The students were still occupying the Hall.

NEW YORK CITY, Apr 30: Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters laid siege to Hamilton Hall, a famed academic building of the Columbia university in Manhattan, and occupied it late Monday night by locking their arms. They barricaded the entrances and unfurled Palestinian flags from the building and a banner from a window of the iconic Hall which read 'Hind's Hall', in remembrance of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in the on-going Israel-Hamas war.

Protests are not new to the prestigious Hamilton Hall building which has witnessed several student actions in the past, and a historic takeover by a multiracial group in 1968.The protests were over Vietnam war and racism.

The students occupying Hamilton Hall face expulsion, the university said in a statement Tuesday. Vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows and blockading entrances constitute an untenable situation, it said.

President Nemat Minouche Shafik refused to bow to protesters' demands for divestment from bodies linked to Israel and has begun a crackdown and has begun suspending those setting up encampments on the campus. However, the protesters have said they will not succumb to threats. Columbia has a $13.64bn endowment fund. The returns form investments are for academic programmes. According to reports, the fund for Northwestern University in Illinois is $14.4bn and Yale University’s endowment is $40.7bn.

The university had in a letter on Monday given an ultimatum to the protesters to vacate the campus, about 120 tents, by 2 pm or face suspensions. "We have begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts to ensure safety on our campus," a spokesperson said in the evening. They are also eing asked to sign a good conduct contract.

But a statement by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine on X on Tuesday, reacting to the President's deadline to vacate the encampments which has already lapsed, said “Students’ blood will be on your hands” if police are brought to the campus.

The demand for divestment is part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for the boycott of companies and organisations linked to Israel. The student protesters demand that the universities pull out their funds or investments in terms of shares in such companies or corporations that they allege profit from Israel’s war in Gaza. Lockheed Martin, HEICO, BlackRock, Google and Microsoft are some of them. They also include firms supplying arms to Israel.

The encampments on Columbia campus began on April 17.

Police use tasers and stun guns at Emory

The police have arrested over 550 protesters. There have been clashes too in some universities with cops. Apart from divestment demand, student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has topped 34,305. The protesters want universities to cut their investments in everything tied to Israel.

At Emory, the police used tasers, tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls, and stun guns and arrested several of them. Bottles and other items were being thrown at the police.

An elderly American economics professor, Caroline Fohlin, is seen on Twitter being assaulted by the police. She is an over 65.

Brown stir off on accord

Meanwhile, at Brown University, student protesters have reached an agreement to disband their encampment as the Ivy League university agreed to hold a vote on divestment from companies that support Israel, in October.

At Yale, all the protesters have left the encampment, and the university is clearing tents from the area. The protesters were threatened with suspension.

Thirteen people were arrested during a protest on Virginia Commonwealth University’s campus Monday night.

The demonstrators at Johns Hopkins University reached an agreement to disperse the encampment.

About 35 people were arrested at the California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, campus in Northern California early Tuesday morning, clearing the buildings.

At the University of Southern California nearly 100 protesters were arrested last week.

Protesters have been arrested on more than 20 campuses across at least 16 states

Two days earlier, in a similar incident in the area, a domestic help was bitten by a pet dog in the lift when she was going for work.

Tailpiece: Sometimes appearing to outnumnber men and women on the streets, the stray dogs are turning more and more daring with sections of anti-social elements out there to feed and protect them in order to find a window for their unfulfilled love! There is an all-pervading feeling of lack of authority.

Ankit Tiwari had told the employee that “instructions had been received from the Prime Minister’s Office to conduct an enquiry” and reopen the “already disposed of” case and asked him to appear before the ED office at Madurai on October 30, DVAC said. The doctor was allegedly threatened with arrest and told to pay a bribe of Rs 3 cr to avoid the ED probe, which was later negotiated down to Rs 50 lakh.

Tailpiece: We are made to believe RBI, CBI, ED, Judiciary as sacrosanct and all others like railways, transport, revenue, education, PWD departments are composed of us the mortals, absolutely corrupt! As if in the sacrosanct places the angels descend from the heavens to work in the night and fly away before day-break! Let's be true to ourselves, we are all cut from the same cloth.

Apart from cash, Gill had also taken three planes as bribe and two of them were leased out to Redbird Aviation Academy. With the result, flying schools compromised on safety requirements and trainers met with accidents several times.

Five people were arrested from a banquet hall in Sector 51 Noida on Thursday where they were called to hold a rave party in a trap laid by the animal rights group, PFA. They named Yadav but he was not present.

Betting through Dubai-based Mahadev Book in India is conducted through a countrywide network. Probes reveal that the online gambling is worth several millions and top politicians, officials and celebs have been beneficiaries.

TAILPIECE: Polling dates for some States are round the corner. Top politicians have begun their acrimonious debate who looted more, even as Mahadev is washing their dirty laundry in the open ghat. Come what may, one needs to seize power to amass "thy wretched pelf!" One simple question is, why else one should spend lakhs or crores to get elected! A question every Indian should ask to oneself at least once a day!

His inaction amounts to defeating the rights of the people of the State to welfare measures sought to be implemented through the Bills, the Kerala Government's petition submitted, while the State of Tamil Nadu remarked that its "Governor is acting as a political rival."

Tailpiece: Coming up back to back, the petitions in their totality seem to question the provision of Raj Bhavan, and not motives of a Governor as a person.

Hundreds of cars piled up behind the wreckage of crashes occurring one after other in backing up - continuous crashes to the rhythm of metallic clanks and bangs back to back. According to reports, some ops required 'Jaws of Life' to pull apart the mangled cars to save lives inside.

The pilots struggled with Emerson to thwart a shut-off as he reached for the T-handles (see pix). Later he admitted to police he had taken psychedelic mushrooms and had a "nervous breakdown."

Doctors reasoned how the incidence of heart attacks is spiking over time and advise the simple way to play safely is to take a break and rehydrate yourself.

But how come ten people, including children, die of cardiac arrest at Garba in 24 hours, and that at different places of Gujarat? Garba had been going on for six days, and every year it is celebrated.

The killing of a teacher in France by an Islamic radical last Friday is linked to the Israel-Hamas war in West Asia, say authorities.

Shocking news from the UK: Leading grocers have started bribing policemen with free food and drinks to persuade them to take action against shoplifters.

Shoplifting has risen by about 27 per cent in 10 major cities across the UK this year. The cost of retail crime last year was $2.15 billion. Besides, “We are seeing organised gangs threatening staff with weapons and emptying stores," Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said. Data shows that the police failed to respond to 73 per cent of serious retail crimes that included assault and abuse of workers, apart from shoplifting.

Isar Mohammad allegedly picked up a banana offered to Ganesh idol on Chaturthi at a makeshift temple in Delhi and consumed it.

Harris said hip-hop is “the ultimate American art form” that “shapes every aspect of American popular culture.” “Hip-hop culture is American culture,” she said in a talk at her official residence at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

The social media had mixed reaction. There was much appreciation that she dances better than any VP in American history. But some called her "moves" as “cringe” while others did not like her pink pants - "pink pants don’t look good.” In fact, her ensembles have always been incongruous.

"Let’s see how the (Governor's) Vice-Chancellors are given salary." Mamata's extreme statements will put the Marxist Government in Kerala, which is also facing similar issues, to shame. Has she begun the countdown for a war on the streets?

It's true Mamata has come to see a conspiracy to demolish the established systems across the country, but lacks the ability to foresee what exactly is being pushed.

Brandishing a sword, Mahant Paramhans told reporters on Tuesday he himself will behead MK Stalin's son for his remarks against Sanatan Dharma in case nobody came forward to accept his offer he made in his video. Udhayanidhi reacted to the saint's Monday video, "I will speak more. I am the grandson of the artist who put his head on the rail track for Tamil Nadu."

Somanath elaborated, "I am an explorer. I explore the Moon. I explore the inner space. So it's a part of the journey of my life to explore both science and spirituality. So I visit many temples and I read many scriptures. So try to find the meaning of our existence and our journey in this cosmos. So it's a part of the culture that we are all built to explore, find out the inner self as well as outer self. So for the outer, I do science, for the inner I come to temples." (See videos)

Rao the mathematical legend had fathered the path-breaking Rao-Blackwell theorem, one of the most important theorems in mathematical statistics, at the age of 25. That brought him global fame. He is also famous for his Cramér-Rao Bound inequality theorem relating to quality of estimators in statistics which has had a profound bearing on applications of modern economics and several other diverse fields. Simply put, with the pioneering statistician computation became a tool to analyse even socio-economic challenges of modern times.

The alleged incident has received such a flash publicity that a standardised city's hugely middle class population will have second thoughts about eating outside for some time. Now everything on the table looks suspicious!

“All subjects directly connected to the people should be shifted to the State List. Particularly the subject of education. Only if this is done can cruel exams like NEET be abolished,” Stalin said. Education was moved from the State List to the Concurrent List with the 42nd Constitution Amendment made by the Central Government in 1976.

Decentralisation has been at the core of Tamil politics since the times of CN Annadurai. Stalin indicated there will be political changes in the offing.

TAILPIECE: While the Centre and the States are at loggerheads, it takes a different cognitive acumen to know that entrance tests are not the way for students' admission to courses.