'I have not joined BJP': Former Karnataka Chief Secretary Ratna Prabha says
Bengaluru : Retired IAS officer and former Karnataka Chief Secretary K Ratna Prabha has categorically denied joining the BJP in light of multiple reports suggesting she has joined the Opposition party in the state.
“I have not joined the BJP, I am not even in Bengaluru. This is all fake news. This has made my life miserable and I am getting calls all throughout the morning. Nobody has even approached me,” the ex-IAS officer told TNM.
She added that someone with a personal vendetta could have planted the news for the CM was planning to give her an assignment.
Reports published both in Kannada and English media suggest that the popular bureaucrat had been roped into the party, keeping in mind the Lok Sabha elections in May 2019. The reports even suggested she could be pitted against Congress heavyweight and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge.
Ratna Prabha had retired from the post of Chief Secretary at the end of June, after talks of her getting a second three-month extension did not materialise. She is very popular in the Hyderabad Karnataka region, having served many positions there, including as the first woman District Collector of Raichur in the northwestern part of the state during her 37-year-old career.
An IAS officer of 1981 batch, she was appointed as the third woman Chief Secretary in the state ahead of the elections by then CM Siddaramaiah in November 2017 and was due to retire in March.
Earlier, BS Yeddyurappa, the state BJP president had attacked the then CM for choosing Subhash Chandra Khuntia (who was then away on a central deputation) over Ratna Prabha in September, 2016, for the Chief Secretary post.
The reports of her joining the party came after former Congress minister Baburao Chinchansur joined the BJP. It was suggested that moves would help the BJP storm the Congress bastion.
A senior BJP functionary in the state claimed he came to know about the incident only after reports appeared in the media. “I also saw the report in the papers. But as far as I know there has been no such development. But only our state president has to say the final word on this,” he said.
courtesy : thenewsminute.com
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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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