Congress worships one family, can't respect democracy: Modi
Baghpat , May 27: Making a stinging attack on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said those worshipping one family cannot respect democracy.
Asking the people of the country to weigh their options, he, in a reference to the Congress, said that on the other side are those for whom their family is their country, while for him, the country is his family.
Terming the opposition party anti-poor and anti-Dalit, Modi said: "Whenever we announce any programme for upliftment of the backward classes, the Congress either stalls them, or it makes fun of such programmes."
"They find development a joke... sanitation, building toilets for women, opening bank accounts for women a joke... Only those with anti-poor mentality can find jokes in all these issues," Modi said after inaugurating the 135-km Eastern Peripheral Expressway here.
Accusing the Congress of lying for its political gains even in the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister said the party doesn't realise it's creating instability in the country.
"Now they are spreading a new lie among the farmers that if they give their land on contract farming, the government will charge them 18 per cent GST. The party which did not learn from their defeat in elections is spreading lies and misleading the farmers."
He urged the farmers to not believe in "their lies and instead complain against those who are spreading them". "They will face the full force of the law", he added.
Modi said those who worship one family cannot respect the democracy. "I never expected that while opposing Modi, they will start opposing the nation."
He also accused the Congress of raising doubts when India conducted a surgical strike into Pakistan territory.
"When they were in power, various agencies released growth figures. Now when the same agencies release figures showing the growth we have achieved, they doubt those agencies," he said.
Modi said his government had done more work in last four years than the previous UPA governments did in ten years.
"Four years ago, we used to build 12 km of road per day, but now we are building 27 km. During four years of UPA government, they could connect only 59 panchayats with optical fibre but in the last four years, we connected over one lakh villages.
"We also promoted manufacturing in India through 'Make in India' programme and while before our government, only two factories manufactured mobile phones in India, now 120 factories are doing it. Many of them are in NCR (National Capital Region)."
Earlier, Modi inaugurated the Eastern Peripheral Expressway which will connect Palwal with Kundli in Haryana and reduce travel time between the two from over four hours to 72 minutes.
He also inaugurated the first nine-kilometre stretch of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway.
Modi said the two roads will significantly reduce pollution and traffic jams in Delhi as 30 per cent of the vehicles entering Delhi will be diverted.
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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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