US Senator John McCain dies at 81
Washington, Aug 26 : John McCain, a proud naval aviator who survived years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and going on to become a Republican congressman, senator from Arizona and a two-time contender for presidency, has died after a battle with a malignant brain tumour. He was 81.
McCain, died on Saturday at 4.28 p.m. at his ranch near Sedona, Arizona, his office announced in a statement on Sunday. The son and grandson of Navy admirals, he was born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone.
He was diagnosed last year with the tumour, called a glioblastoma, for which he had been treated periodically with radiation and chemotherapy since its discovery in 2017.
His family had announced earlier this week that he was discontinuing medical treatment. During three decades of representing Arizona in the Senate, he ran twice unsuccessfully for president, reports The Washington Post.
He lost a bitter primary campaign to George W. Bush and the Republican establishment in 2000.
McCain then returned to win the nomination in 2008, only to be defeated in the general election by Barack Obama, a charismatic Illinois Democrat who had served less than one term as a senator.
The Arizonan warrior politician, who survived plane crashes, several bouts of skin cancer and brushes with political oblivion, often seemed to be perpetually waging a race against time and his own mortality while striving to ensure that his five-and-a-half years as a Vietnam prisoner of war did not stand as the defining experience of his life.
McCain had not been in Washington since December 2017, leaving a vacuum in the corridors of the Senate and the television news studios he roamed for decades, CNN said.
In recent months, he was not completely quiet, however, blasting President Donald Trump in tweets and statements that showed while he was ailing he had lost none of his appetite for the political fight.
The Senator repeatedly made clear that he saw Trump and his "America First" ideology as a departure from the values and traditions of global leadership that he saw epitomised in the US.
McCain's most dramatic break with Trump came nine days after the Senator announced on July 19, 2017, that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer. He returned to the Senate chamber, with an incision from surgery still fresh above his left eye, and turned thumbs down on a Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.
His no vote, along with those of two other Republicans, sent his party's signature legislative goal hurtling toward oblivion.
He also questioned why Trump was solicitous of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he regarded as an unreformed KGB apparatchik.
In one of his final public acts, he blasted Trump's cozy summit with Putin in July, blasting it as "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory".
McCain had been planning his funeral services over the last year and his family made clear that Trump was not invited, a position that has not changed, family friends said on Saturday.
Obama and Bush were asked to give eulogies. In a memoir published in May, McCain wrote that he hated to leave the world, but had no complaints.
"It's been quite a ride. I've known great passions, seen amazing wonders, fought in a war, and helped make peace," McCain wrote.
"I've lived very well and I've been deprived of all comforts. I've been as lonely as a person can be and I've enjoyed the company of heroes. I've suffered the deepest despair and experienced the highest exultation. I made a small place for myself in the story of America and the history of my times."
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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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