NEWSMAKERS OF THE WEEK
THE GURMEHAR KAUR CONTROVERSY SOON AFTER THE DELHI UNIVERSITY VIOLENCE HAS TRIGGERED THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH DEBATE. THIS TIME, THE RAGING DEBATE HAS ALSO REACHED THE FOREIGN SHORES AS INDIAN STUDENTS STUDYING ABROAD HAVE TAKE IT UP.
FACE OF RESISTANCE
Many students in the US, UK and across Europe have come out in solidarity with Delhi University. Critical of the ABVP, as a mark of resistance, they have changed their profile pictures on FB, a step that Gurmehar Kaur (above) had taken, igniting a nation-wide debate on free speech. A series of events have been lined up in Oxford, Columbia University and so on to lodge protest against the DU fracas.
MARK OF A MAN
Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, will get his college degree 12 years after leaving his alma mater. Mr Zuckerberg will return to Harvard to deliver the commencement address and also receive an honorary degree. A young Zuckerberg had founded Facebook in 2004 in his Harvard dormitory and had then dropped out to focus on building the social media company, which transformed the way people interacted.
HEY KRISHNA
In what is being seen as a huge body blow to the Siddaramaiah government, which faces fresh elections in just over a year, Karnataka’s iconic former Congressman S.M. Krishna, severed ties with the Congress on January 29. He will finally shut the doors on his parent party and, in the presence of BJP bigwigs, become a fullfledged card-carrying member of the BJP on March 17 or 18, the party said.
TRUMP, ARNIE IN LOVE
After Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he was quitting
The Apprentice show, citing Donald Trump’s “baggage”, the US President snapped back and claimed the actor was “fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings”. Schwarzenegger and Trump’s ongoing feud is no secret and the pair often vent their frustrations. Floating a new theory about the President, Schwarzenegger, went so far as to suggest Mr Trump was “in love” with him.
SO THAT OTHERS LIVE
Dr Thomas Starzl, who made organ transplantation a mainstream surgery, died last week at age 90. Starzl started organ transplant research in the 1950s at Johns Hopkins Hospital after a liver operation led to experiments on dogs to determine whether diabetes originated in the liver. This started him on a path to start working on solid organ transplant surgery.