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US President Donald Trump on Tuesday charged at Harvard University again threatening it taking away its “tax exempt status” for “pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?'”.
This follows the Trump administration’s decision to freeze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts due to the university’s refusal to adhere to newly issued federal directives.
Also read: Donald Trump’s campus crackdown hits Harvard university – and it’s just the beginning
“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?” Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” he said in a post on Truth Social.
Former US President Barack Obama reacted to the funding freeze saying, “Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.”

The funding freeze was enforced after Harvard refused to comply with an April 3 directive that called for the dismantling of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices, revisions to its hiring and admissions practices, and cooperation with immigration screenings for international students.
Also read: Will the Trump administration funding freeze truly impact Harvard University?
“The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” the university said.
“Harvard remains open to dialogue about what the university has done, and is planning to do, to improve the experience of every member of its community. But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration,” it said in its letter to the administration.
The Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which halted the funding, said that these steps were essential to uphold civil rights and ensure responsible use of taxpayer money by academic institutions.

A special court in Bengaluru has deferred its decision on the Enforcement Directorate’s petition challenging the “B report” of Lokayukta in the MUDA land case, in which Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has been named. The court said it would not give a decision on the petition until the final report of the Lokayukta Police is filed. Judge Santosh Gajanan Bhat has directed the Lokayukta Police to continue the investigation and submit the final report.

In the “B Report”, the Lokayukta Police had given a clean chit to the Chief Minister, his wife Parvati, wife’s brother and the land seller due to lack of evidence. The ED, however, has challenged the report and demanded a deeper probe.

The Lokayukta is already investigating more than 130 other people connected to the alleged scam. 

Earlier, the Lokayukta police had submitted an initial report after looking into the allegations against Siddaramaiah and three others. 
But the court said the investigation should not be limited to just four individuals and asked the police to investigate everyone connected to the case and file a comprehensive report.

The next hearing of the case will be on May 7.

The MUDA case involves allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 premium sites in Mysuru to Mr Siddaramaiah’s wife by the authority. 

It has been alleged that the value of the compensatory sites — located in an upmarket area in Mysuru — is far higher than that of the land acquired from her by MUDA.

Social activists have alleged that the allotment has led to a loss of Rs 45 crore to the state. 

Besides Mr Siddaramaiah and his wife, his brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy, Devaraju and others have been named in the FIR registered by the Lokayukta police on September 27. 

Devaraju is the man from whom Mallikarjuna Swamy had purchased land and gifted it to Ms Parvathi.

Taylor Swift and Kanye West have had a pretty complicated bond since their feud began in 2009. While both Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have kept themselves away from issuing any public statements, the billionaire pop star had admitted how much she had suffered previously because of Kanye West and his ex wife, famous socialite Kim Kardashian.

In 2016, Taylor Swift found herself mentioned in Kanye West’s song, Famous, which became a huge hit. Kanye West had spoken about how Taylor Swift had consented to the rap about her which read as, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have s*x. Why? I made that b*tch famous (God damn) I made that b*tch famous”.
This had gotten Kanye West brutally trolled but his ex wife Kim Kardashian had come to his rescue. The famous socialite and founder of SKIMS released the phone call recording between the pop star and Kanye West where it seemed like Taylor Swift had consented to being mentioned in his song.
But later, it was found out that the released tape of their phone call was heavily edited.
In 2023, in an interview with TIME, Taylor Swift spoke about the aftereffects and the trauma she went through because of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
Taylor Swift said, “Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me. That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before.”
The billionaire pop star added, “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar.”
She continued, “I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year…I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”

Nine years after that infamous phone call between Kanye West and Taylor Swift, the rapper again targetted the pop sensation.
A few days ago he made sexually explicit posts about Taylor Swift’s life and even implied that Justin Bieber and Harry Styles have had s*x with Taylor.
Kanye West also expressed a desire to have s*x with Taylor Swift as in one of the now deleted posts he had written, “IM MAD I HAVENT F***ED TAYLOR SWIFT … YET.”
But Taylor Swift’s fans have not held back and has brutally trolled the famous rapper. As per Daily Mail, Travis Kelce wants to confront Kanye West and have a “man to man” conversation about this.
For now, neither Taylor Swift nor her team has officially reacted to this.
Also Read: “She ended him”: Taylor Swift didn’t respond to Kanye West but fans think she shut him down back in 2024

Businessman Robert Vadra – Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s husband and brother-in-law of Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi – marched to the Enforcement Directorate’s Delhi office Tuesday morning after receiving a second summons. The first was on April 8.

His statement will likely be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Mr Vadra, who slammed the probe agency’s summons as “political vendetta by the BJP” and a “witch hunt”, is to be questioned over money laundering charges linked to a Haryana land deal.

“Whenever I raise the people’s voice, they try to suppress me. I have nothing to hide. They can ask me whatever they want and I’ll answer them,” he told reporters en route to the ED office.

“They misuse the power of probe agencies. I do not have any fear. I have nothing to hide,” the 56-year-old businessman said, marching to the beat of Congress supporters chanting ‘jab Modi darta hai, ED ko aage karta hai’, or ‘whenever Modi is scared, he calls on the ED’.

The swipe was a reference to repeated claims by the Congress and other opposition parties – that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government uses central investigative agencies like the ED to harass and target rival politicians, particularly before elections.

The case involving Mr Vadra is about the purchase of land in Haryana – by his company, Skylight Hospitality – in 2008 for Rs 7.5 crore. Shortly thereafter he got a permit to develop a housing society and the land value spiked. He then sold it to real estate developers DLF for Rs 58 crore.

The Congress was in power in the state at the time and Bhupinder Hooda was Chief Minister. As a result, the BJP has repeatedly accused its rival of stealing land from farmers to give to Mr Vadra. Mr Hooda has, just as often, dismissed the allegation; in October last year, hours before voting for the Assembly election, Mr Hooda once again batted away charges made by the BJP.

“I challenge that the Congress did not give even an inch of government land to Robert Vadra. If the BJP shows proof of giving land to Vadra, I will leave politics,” he said.

Meanwhile, Robert Vadra has also spoken of the possibility of a dramatic entry into politics.

Before the Lok Sabha election last year, Mr Vadra was spoken of as a surprise pick to contest the party stronghold of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. The Amethi seat had been held by Rahul Gandhi earlier before his shock defeat to the BJP’s Smriti Irani in the 2019 election.

“My association with politics is only because I am a member of the Gandhi family. But I will also say that in the last many years, many parties have used my name and always pulled me into politics by default because every time there’s an election, they remember my name. Every time they have an issue that they want to digress from, they remember my name,” he said.

The Trump administration announced a freeze on more than $2.3 billion in federal funding to Harvard University, escalating an ongoing standoff between the Trump administration and elite universities over civil rights compliance, campus protests, and diversity programming.
The decision, unveiled Monday by a task force created to combat antisemitism, is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reshape higher education and assert political control over what it sees as left-leaning academic institutions.

Why was the funding frozen?

According to the Education Department’s antisemitism task force, Harvard is being penalized for refusing to comply with a series of federal demands aimed at addressing civil rights violations, including antisemitic incidents and alleged ideological bias on campus. The freeze includes $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts. The US administration demanded that by August 2025, Harvard must make meaningful governance reforms and restructure to ensure major policy changes which included elimination of DEI policies, admission process changes etc.
The administration accused Harvard of fostering an environment where antisemitic harassment can persist and failing to implement reforms that align with federal directives.
Read more:Trump admin freezes $2.2 billion of grants to Harvard, says ‘Investment is not an entitlement’

Demands for Harvard

In a 5-page letter sent to Harvard last week addressed to Harvard president, the US official said, “The United States has invested in Harvard University’s operations because of the value to the country of scholarly discovery and academic excellence. But an investment is not an entitlement. It
depends on Harvard upholding federal civil rights laws, and it only makes sense if Harvard fosters the kind of environment that produces intellectual creativity and scholarly rigor, both of which are antithetical to ideological capture.”
The administration outlined a sweeping set of requirements, including:

The White House also called for the university to bring in an external auditor to review departments and programs suspected of “ideological capture” or encouraging antisemitism.
Read more: Full text of what US officials demanded from Harvard through its letter

Harvard’s push back

Harvard University President Alan Garber rejected the demands in a public statement Monday, declaring that the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
Garber denounced the government’s actions as politically motivated, saying, “Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”
A letter from the university’s legal team further asserted that the administration was exceeding its lawful authority and that Harvard would not comply with conditions that compromise academic freedom.

Wider campaign against higher education

The Harvard funding freeze is part of a broader Trump administration campaign to “de-woke” America’s universities. The White House is reviewing federal funding to dozens of elite institutions, including Columbia, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Columbia University recently relented to a similar list of demands in exchange for restored funding, while other schools like Princeton and Brown have had hundreds of millions in research funding suspended.
The Trump administration’s approach relies on an opaque task force of around 20 officials from various federal agencies, operating under the Justice Department’s civil rights division, and tasked with investigating alleged discrimination and ideological bias.

Campus protests used as leverage

US President Trump has cited pro-Palestine protests on campus in his threats to strip federal funding from schools and universities that permit what he calls “illegal protests.” The move targets student demonstrations over Israel’s war in Gaza, which have drawn allegations of anti-Semitism. Institutions like Columbia University faced potential funding losses, with the administration citing failure to protect Jewish students. Backed by education secretary Linda McMahon, Trump’s hardline approach ties into a broader strategy to rally his base by cracking down on perceived “woke” culture in education.

Criticism and legal action

The American Association of University Professors and multiple civil liberties groups have filed lawsuits against the administration, arguing that the government is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by making politically motivated demands unrelated to lawful enforcement of anti-discrimination statutes.
“These sweeping yet indeterminate demands overtly seek to impose political views and punish disfavored speech,” one lawsuit claims.
Alumni and faculty at Harvard and other institutions have also spoken out. “Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to bullying and authoritarian whims,” said Harvard alumna Anurima Bhargava.

What’s next?

The Trump administration has warned more than 60 universities that they may face similar scrutiny and penalties. Administration officials have privately discussed “toppling” a major university to set an example and recalibrate the balance of ideological influence on campuses.

Karnataka CM siddaramaiah

NEW DELHI: Any decision taken by the Karnataka government on increasing reservation on the basis of its caste census for socially and educationally backward communities and those who are inadequately represented will have a tough time passing judicial muster, as many such laws framed by other states have failed.
Though Supreme Court, while upholding Centre’s decision to provide 10% quota for economically weaker sections (EWS) by a 3-2 majority, had said “50% cap on quota is not inflexible and inviolable for all times to come”, the controversial issue cannot be said to have been authoritatively adjudicated with the majority verdict adding a rider that the cap applied only to SC/ST/OBC reservation and the dissent verdict of two judges refusing to go into the issue of the cap as the matter was pending in court for adjudication in case of Tamil Nadu.
“Reservation for EWS of citizens up to 10%, in addition to the existing reservations, does not result in violation of any essential feature of the Constitution and does not cause any damage to the basic structure of the Constitution on account of breach of the ceiling limit of 50% because that ceiling limit itself is not inflexible and in any case, applies only to the reservations envisaged by Articles 15(4), 15(5) and 16(4) of the Constitution,” the majority verdict penned by Justice Dinesh Maheshwari had said.
In a dissent note, Justice Ravindra Bhat had said he was not going into the question of violation of 50% rule as it was the principal ground of challenge on the validity of Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act, 1993, which was pending in court. “The view of the members of this bench constituting the majority – that creation of another class which can be a recipient of up to 10% of reservation, over and above 50%, which is permitted under Articles 15(4) or 16(4), in my considered opinion, therefore, has a direct bearing on the likely outcome in the challenge in that proceeding,” he had said.
In a note of caution, Justice Bhat said if the ambit of reservation kept increasing, then the right to equality would be reduced to right to reservation and the observations of B R Ambedkar had to to be kept in mind that reservations were to be seen as temporary and exceptional or else they would “eat up the rule of equality”.
In a landmark judgment in Indra Sawhney case in 1992, SC had held that 50% quota shall be the rule and can be increased only in case of extraordinary situations “inherent in the great diversity of this country and the people”.
In recent years, many state govts attempted to breach the cap but they failed to pass judicial muster. On the basis of a caste census’s findings, Bihar govt increased quota for reserved classes from 50% to 65%. However, Patna high court last year declared the law unconstitutional and the appeal against the HC ruling is pending in the SC which refused to stay the order.
Chhattisgarh govt had also amended reservation rules, slashing the quota for Scheduled Castes by 4% (16% to 12%) and raising reservation for Scheduled Tribes by 12% – from 20% to 32%. OBC reservation was kept unchanged at 14%, taking the total reservation to 58%. But the HC in 2022 quashed the decision for breach of the cap.

NASA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion or DEI chief Neela Rajendra, who is of Indian origin, has been sacked by the US space agency in compliance with Donald Trump’s executive order to “terminate” all persons employed under such initiatives, and end all such programmes across the country.

In an attempt to save her from being fired, NASA had reportedly changed her designation to ‘Head of Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success’ shortly after President Trump’s executive order. But attempts to protect her ultimately failed.

In an e-mail update shared by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory last week, employees working at the top space lab were informed of Ms Rajendra’s exit. “Neela Rajendra is no longer working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organisation. We wish her the very best,” read the e-mail, which, according to British newspaper Daily Mail, was sent by Laurie Leshin, Director of NASA’s JPL.

Ms Rajendra was among a handful of employees whose job was not axed last year when NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab faced a severe fund crunch. The jobs of nearly 900 other DEI employees at the top space agency were terminated at the time.

Even when NASA pulled the shutter down on its Diversity department in March this year, following Donald Trump’s presidential order, Ms Rajendra managed to evade it as her designation had been changed, though her responsibilities remained the same. An entirely new department was created for her.

In an email dated March 10, NASA had informed its employees that Neela Rajendra would now head the ‘Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success’. The lab staff was told that in her new role, Ms Rajendra would would be responsible for “affinity groups” at the laboratory, which includes the “Black Excellence Strategic Team”.

After assuming her revised role, Ms Rajendra had written on her LinkedIn page that her job as the head of the newly formed office at NASA was primarily to “unlock our potential to dare mighty things together.”

However, after a strict crackdown by the Trump administration in early April, she was relieved of her duties at NASA.

Neela Rajendra had been at a leadership role at NASA for several years. During her tenure, she was in-charge of efforts to help diversify NASA, which included the ‘Space Workforce 2030’ pledge, whose primary objective was to hire women and minorities in the organisation.

NASA now joins a host of other federal government agencies which have completely shut down its diversity programs. Donald Trump’s executive order states that such programs have divided Americans on the basis of race, colour, and gender; have wasted taxpayer dollars, and “resulted in shameful discrimination”.
 

LSG vs CSK Score, IPL 2025 Cricket Updates© BCCI

Chennai Super Kings’ captain MS Dhoni being congratulated by Lucknow Super Giants’ captain Rishabh Pant after winning the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 T20 cricket match, at Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, in Lucknow. (PTI)

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) ended their five-match losing streak with a hard-fought five-wicket win against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow, on Monday.
Chasing 167, CSK found themselves in a precarious position, reeling at 111 for 5 after 15 overs.
MS Dhoni (26 not out off 11 balls; 4×4, 1×6) and Shivam Dube (43 not out off 37 balls; 3×4, 2×6) ensured CSK’s victory.
CSK benefited from their new opening pair of Rachin Ravindra and Shaik Rasheed, despite a middle-order collapse. LSG’s poor death bowling proved costly.
“This means a lot. Losing 5 in a row, that’s not CSK. I have played for 3 years for CSK. Our bowlers did well. I thought I will bat through tonight and finish the game,” said Shivam Dube after the match.
Dube credited MS Dhoni for easing the pressure on him.
“I think, when he came and started smashing the bowlers, it became easier for me. I decided I will go for it only if the ball is in my area. If it is not there, I won’t try extra hard. Their bowlers executed their plans well,” he said.
Pant’s Feisty Innings
For LSG, Rishabh Pant returned to form with a crucial half-century, guiding Lucknow Super Giants to 166 for seven.
Pant (63 off 49 balls) initially struggled but gained confidence as the innings progressed. He and Abdul Samad (20) shared a 53-run partnership for the fifth wicket off 33 balls. After five consecutive losses, CSK made a dream start after electing to bowl.
Pant, who has struggled in the tournament so far, came out with intent and looked to get back to form with some unorthodox but confident hitting, which included a reverse scoop six off a length delivery from Jamie Overton.
Pant struggled against CSK’s spinners, particularly Noor Ahmad, who returned excellent figures of 4-0-13-0.
However, with the return of pace in the form of Pathirana in the 18th over, Pant seized his opportunity, hitting the Sri Lankan for two sixes—the second a one-handed pull over square-leg to reach his fifty.