Marathon to create awareness on drug addiction at Manipal
More than 3,000 students, people participate
Udupi, September 23: More than 3,000 students and general public participated in a 5 km long marathon organised by the district police, district working journalists association and Press Club in association with MAHE and Manipal Runners Club to mark anti-drug month to create awareness on drug addiction held at Manipal on Sunday.
Right from kids to aged people including Students, Employees, Police officers participated with enthusiasm. SP Lakshman Nimbargi, MAHE Pro-vice Chancellor Dr. H.S. Ballal and flagged off the marathon in front of the University. The marathon passes through M Cops, Upendra Pai Circle, Syndicate Circle, Venugopal Temple, MIT Swimming Pool, MIT, Kamath Café, Tiger Circle and converged at the Manipal Edu Building.
Speaking at the programme, MAHE Pro-vice-chancellor Dr. H.S. Ballal said that the awareness jatha was organized to create awareness among youth who have been addicting into the drugs. The Manipal Institutions have been contributing to the creation of healthy society and in future also, such programmes would be held, he said.
SP Lakshman Nimbargi said that the country has the highest number of youth in the world and socio-economical and political future of the country was depending upon the youth who should be guided properly. As part of the Anti-Drugs Month programme, various programmes were conducted in the district in the last two months. Many people have the opinion that the police could arrest the drug addicts and the drug peddlers and check the drug addiction. But only people and law could not control this evil. As a result, the department has planned to conducted awareness jatha to give a message to the youth, he said.
Syndicate Bank General Manager H. Bhaskar Hande, GDM B.R. Hiremath, District Working Journalists Association President Ganesh Prasad Pandelu, Press Club convener Nagaraj Rao, KMC professor Dr. Vinod Nayak and others were present. The police personnel and officers who are always busy in providing security and investigation and interrogation, have also participated. SP Lakshman Nimbargi, ASP Kumarachandra, DySP Kumaraswamy, Belliyappa, Dinesh Kumar and other police officers participated in the sports dress.
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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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