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BJP MLAs join Jammu students' protest, back demand for National Law University

BJP MLAs led by Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma joined Jammu University students protesting for the establishment of a National Law University in Jammu.

The legislators asserted on Sunday that they would take up the issue both on the streets and in the Legislative Assembly.

Sharma, along with party MLAs Advocate R S Pathania, Shagun Parihar and Devyani Rana, extended full support to the 25-day-long agitation and sat on dharna at the university campus, amid sloganeering against the government.

"We will demand a National Law University in Jammu during the Assembly session that begins on Monday. We are with you. This is not just your battle but also that of the entire Jammu region," Sharma told reporters.

He said the government should address the demand without delay, warning that the failure to do so could lead to a mass agitation involving all BJP legislators.

"We will fight with you from the Assembly to the roads. It is up to the government how long it wants to prolong this agitation. The demand needs to be fulfilled," he said.

Sharma also offered support in facilitating funds to set up the university, stating that the BJP would help secure financial assistance from the Central government if required.

On Friday, the students held a massive agitation in Jammu and blocked the busy Tawi bridge for more than an hour.

When police attempted to disperse the protesters and detained some students, Yuva Rajput Sabha president Mandeep Singh Chib and others resisted the move by blocking a police vehicle.

Gaza's crucial Rafah crossing prepares for limited travel to resume Monday

Palestinians in Gaza watched with hope and impatience Sunday as workers laid the groundwork to reopen the territory's Rafah border crossing with Egypt, its lifeline to the world. Israel says the crossing is scheduled to resume Monday as its ceasefire with Hamas moves ahead.

“Opening the crossing is a good step, but they set a limit on the number of people allowed to cross, and this is a problem,” said Ghalia Abu Mustafa, a woman from Khan Younis.

Israel said the crossing had opened in a test, and the Israeli military agency that controls aid to Gaza said residents could begin crossing Monday. But only a small number of people can cross at first.

“We want a large number of people to leave, for it to be open so that sick people can go and return,” said Suhaila Al-Astal, a woman displaced from the city of Rafah who said her sick daughter needed help abroad.

”We want the crossing to be open permanently.” Israel's announcement came a day after Israeli strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians including several children, according to hospital officials — one of the highest death tolls since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10.

Israel had accused Hamas of new truce violations. AP

XJ Kennedy, prize-winning poet and educator, dead at 96

 X.J. Kennedy, an award-winning US poet, author, translator and educator who schooled millions of students through "The Bedford Reader" and other textbooks and engaged voluntary readers with his children's stories and intricate, witty verse, has died at age 96.

Kennedy died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Peabody, Massachusetts, according to his daughter, Dr. Kate Kennedy.

Born Joseph Charles Kennedy, he chose the professional name X.J. Kennedy as a young man to avoid confusion with Joseph P. Kennedy, the former ambassador to Britain and father of President John F. Kennedy.

Starting in the early 1960s, he turned out dozens of poetry and children's books, contributed to the popular Bedford Reader and collaborated with the poet and onetime National Endowment for the Arts chair Dana Gioia on anthologies of poetry, drama and fiction.

"I write for three separate audiences: children, college students (who use textbooks), and that small band of people who still read poetry," Kennedy once observed.

The Bedford Reader, established in the early 1980s, is a widely used composition book for college students that has included everything from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream" speech to the classic Shirley Jackson story “The Lottery.” Kennedy edited the Reader along with his wife, Dorothy; Jane E. Aaron and Ellen Kuhl Repetto. The goal, they stated, was “to show you how good writers write" and not to feel “glum if at first you find an immense gap” between yourself, and, say, E.B. White.

Kennedy's poems, some published in The New Yorker and The Atlantic, were rhyming vignettes on everyday and macabre matter such as bartending, aging and the discovery of a severed arm. They were brief, often light-hearted in tone and dark and unsettling in content. In "Innocent Times," Kennedy mocks the idea that the country was better off during the "Mad Man" era, looking back to when doctors "puffed their cigarettes" and "cheap thermometer and thermostat/leaked jets of mercury like poison darts." The poem "Fireflies" shifts abruptly from the calm of a twilight lawn to the horrors of the war on terrorism.

His awards included a Los Angeles Times book prize, the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement and the Jackson prize from Poets & Writers for an “American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition.” He taught English at the University of Michigan, the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now UNC-Greensboro), and Tufts University, among other schools. In the 1970s, he served as the Paris Review's poetry editor.

A native of Dover, New Jersey, he was an intrepid young man who wrote and published science fiction and helped found the Spectator Amateur Press Association, a leading science fiction fandom organization in which members have included Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg and Lenny Kaye. After attending Seton Hall and Columbia University, Kennedy served briefly in the Navy during World War II. At the University of Michigan, he worked for several years on a PhD in the 1950s and 1960s and never finished his dissertation. But he did meet his future wife and professional collaborator, Dorothy Mintzlaff, who died in 2018. They had five children and six grandchildren.

His first book, "Nude Descending a Staircase: Poems, Songs, a Ballad," was published in 1961. His children's books included "One Winter Night in August and Other Nonsense Jingles" and the novel "The Owlstone Crown," while "In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus" is a compilation of poems from 1955 to 2007 that ends with a bon voyage for the text itself. AP

The Dalai Lama, K-pop win first Grammys, Steven Spielberg achieves EGOT status

The 68th annual Grammy Awards are taking place in Los Angeles Sunday and spirits were high from the jump after a few back-to-back, history making moments.

The Dalai Lama won his first Grammy for audio book, narration and storytelling recording, beating out Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. You ready that correctly.

“I am not the Dalai Lama,” Rufus Wainwright joked in an acceptance speech. “It was a privilege to participate on this project." “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters” won song written for visual media at the Premiere Ceremony, marking the first time a K-pop act has won a Grammy. Songwriters delivered their acceptance speech in both English and Korean, highlighting the song's bilingual appeal.

Music film went to “Music for John Williams,” which means director Steven Spielberg has officially won his first Grammy. That makes him an EGOT winner — an artist with an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Oscar.

The Premiere Ceremony, a pre-telecast show held at the adjacent Peacock Theater, began with musician and host Darren Criss setting the scene — giving out the first award of the day, for best pop/duo group performance to Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande for "Defying Gravity.” They were not present to accept the award.

An impressive 86 Grammys will be handed out pre-broadcast.

4.6-magnitude earthquake shakes Kashmir

A 4.6-magnitude earthquake shook Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district early Monday, officials said.

The tremor occurred at 5.35 am, they said, adding that the Pattan area was the epicentre.

There were no reports of any damage due to the earthquake so far, the officials said.