Black box of crashed AIE flight recovered; Probe underway
Kozhikode: The black box of the ill-fated Air India Express flight that could throw light on how it overshot the runway here and crashed has been recovered while the toll in the mishap rose to 18 on Saturday with a passenger succumbing to injuries, officials said.
Hours after the AIE flight from Dubai with 190 people on board overshot the tabletop runway at the airport here while landing in heavy rains and fell into a valley 35 feet below and broke into two portions on Friday night, investigations into the cause of the mishap are underway with top officials of the airlines and aviation regulator DGCA rushing here.
As authorities launched investigations into the crash that also left scores injured, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri also arrived here to take stock of the situation and implementation of the relief measures.
"Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the ill-fated aircraft have been retrieved. AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) is conducting investigations," Puri tweeted.
The minister said he would hold consultations "with senior civil aviation officials & professionals", adding reasons for the mishap were being investigated.
An official of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said the DFDR and CVR are with the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau and will be sent to Delhi for further investigation.
Puri announced Rs 10 lakh interim relief for each of the deceased, Rs 2 lakh for the seriously injured and Rs 50,000 for those who suffered minor injuries.
Malappuram District Collector K Gopalakrishnan said one more passenger succumbed to injuries, taking the toll in one of the major civil aviation mishaps in Kerala to 18.
Barring one, all those who had perished in the accident have been identified, he told reporters.
The condition of 16 passengers among 149 those admitted to various hospitals, was serious, he said.
Amid the tragedy, coroanvirus scare too surfaced with samples of one of the passengers who died in the mishap testing positive for the pathogen with state Health Minister K K Shailaja asking all those engaged in the rescue operations to go on self-quarantine as a precautionary measure and get themselves tested.
Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan, who arrived here this morning from New Delhi on the directive of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was briefed by the officials of Air India and Airport Authority of India (AAI) on the accident, that claimed the lives of both the pilots.
"Visited the crash site at #Calicut Airport. Officials of @airindiain and AAI briefed on how the accident had occurred. The investigation is on to ascertain various aspects of the crash," Muraleedharan said in a tweet.
The Air India Express said four crew members of the flight were safe, while the Employees Union of the low-cost air carrier, said they were under treatment at the hospital here for injuries suffered in the mishap.
It also said three relief flights had been arranged to assist passengers and their family members affected in the accident that also brought back memories of the crash of Air India Express flight IX 812 on May 22, 2010 at Mangaluru International Airport.
The flight from Dubai had overshot the runway and plunged down the cliff into a wooded valley, killing 158 people.
As top officials rushed here for investigations, it emerged the aviation regulator had issued a show-cause notice to the director of the Kozhikode airport on July 11 last year after it found "various critical safety lapses".
The DCGA had pointed to cracks on the runway, water stagnation and excessive rubber deposits among other lapses in its show-cause notice, an official said.
It had conducted the inspection after an Air India Express flight coming from Dammam in Saudi Arabia had a "tail strike" while landing at the airport here on July 2 last year, the official said.
Air India tweeted that its Chairman and Managing Director Rajiv Bansal, and Air India Express Chief Executive Officer K Shyam Sundar and others "rushed" to the accident site "to take stock of the situation and are being briefed by experts".
Two special relief flights have been arranged from Delhi and one from Mumbai for rendering humanitarian assistance to all the passengers and the family members, Air India Express, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the national carrier, said.
"The Emergency Response Director is coordinating with all the agencies in Calicut (Kozhikode), Mumbai as well as Delhi, Dubai for effective emergency response," it said in a statement.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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