Ton-up Gill, Jaiswal lead India to 359/3 on Day 1
Leeds, Jun 20 (PTI): Yashasvi Jaiswal and captain Shubman Gill announced their readiness to carry India's batting into the post Virat Kohli-Rohit Sharma era, striking marvellous hundreds to guide the visitors to a dominant 359 for three against a faltering England on the first day of the opening Test here on Friday.
Gill (127 batting) and Jaiswal (101, 159b) shared a 129-run partnership for a determined third wicket alliance that carried India to 221 from a slightly wobbly 92 for two after KL Rahul (42) and debutant B Sai Sudharsan (0) were dismissed in quick succession.
Rishabh Pant (65 batting) was keeping vigil with Gill at close.
But there was an underlying significance to the centuries of Jaiswal and Gill other than giving India a head-start on the first day of the newly-minted five-match Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.
This Indian batting line-up is a tad thin on experience after the recent retirements of former skippers Kohli and Rohit, who played at the pivotal No. 4 and opening slots in their illustrious careers.
Both Jaiswal and Gill are not newcomers to the unforgiving Test arena, but there has been this widespread anxiety over how the 'New Gen' India stars would step into the big shoes of their predecessors.
But the portends are quite bright, if the day's innings by Jaiswal and Gill are anything to go by.
Jaiswal was the first to reach the three-figure mark, the fifth in his flourishing career, off 144 balls and Gill reached his own landmark off 140 balls in the final passage of the day, heralding the start of a new era in Indian cricket.
But the way they reached that point was entirely different. Jaiswal eschewed his natural flair as the first session offered its own share of assistance to the English bowlers in the shape of movement and carry.
However, it was an altogether different matter that the home bowlers were not prudent enough to exploit that offering, and later the pitch eased up considerably.
But a flaccid track and a fangless England attack without James Anderson or Stuart Broad could not take the sheen out of the knocks of Jaiswal and Gill.
It was not a typical Jaiswal innings where he simply flayed the bowlers around, but he showed admirable self-restraint, particularly outside the off-stump.
The left-hander was dismissed in that channel a couple of times while playing for India A against the England Lions in the recent tour matches, but here the 23-year-old did not repeat his mistakes.
Jaiswal began the morning session with a gorgeous drive through mid-off off pacer Chris Woakes, and he only grew in confidence from there.
Perhaps, the only time he showed his aggressive mindset was when the left-hander carted pacer Josh Tongue for a six and then later hammered him for two consecutive fours to reach 99.
It was Jaiswal's first innings in England, and he made it memorable, making a hundred soon after scampering for a single despite suffering some cramps on his hands.
He celebrated with gusto too — a roar and leap into the Headingley sky. England could not be blamed for imagining the Indian batter repeating his 712-run effort he managed last year during a home series.
If Jaiswal’s innings was more about adaptation, Gill’s knock was all about following his natural batting doctrine, which has its fundamentals in timing and elegance.
The right-hander played shots with minimum follow-through through on-side and with a flourish on the off-side.
The 25-year-old's languid grace wowed the crowd when he essayed an off-drive off Chris Woakes and followed it up with a dreamy clip off the pads for a four as currently England's second most experienced Test bowler went for nearly five runs an over across the first two sessions.
Once he went past the fifty off just 56 balls, Gill slowed down a touch, and nerves grew once he went past 90.
There was a cheeky uppish shot through the gully of Tongue and a full-stretched dive saved him from a potentially close run out.
But Gill did not want to let go of the opportunity to score a hundred in his first innings as India's Test captain.
He brought up that mark with a sumptuous boundary off Tongue, getting a standing ovation from everyone.
Gill also joined a very exclusive club of Vijay Hazare, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Virat Kohli as the Indian batters with hundreds on their captaincy debut.
However, the blooming alliance ended when the giant-hearted England skipper Ben Stokes produced a peach to rattle the stumps of Jaiswal immediately after tea.
Gill carried on nevertheless in the company of his adventurous deputy Pant, who in the process of making his 16th Test fifty completed 3000 runs in the format.
Gill and Pant added 138 runs for the unfinished fourth wicket stand, and it has the potential to produce more sparkling moments on Day 2.
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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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