CPIM-led LDF bags 16 of 30 seats in civic bypolls; BJP fails to win any seat
Thiruvananthapuram: Nothwithstanding the row over the Sabarimala women entry issue, the ruling CPI-M-led LDF in Kerala Friday bagged 16 out of the 30 seats in the bypolls conducted for various local bodies across the state.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front got 12 seats while the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) and a Congress rebel retained the seats at Onchiyam in Kozhikode and Alappuzha district respectively.
The BJP, which spearheaded the Sabarimala protests and had high hopes, came a cropper, failing to win any seat.
In a setback to the ruling CPI(M), the RMP, to which slain leader T P Chandrasekharan belonged, retained the Onchiyam Panchayat seat. The CPI(M) had been saying the RMP had lost its relevance and was expecting to win this seat.
RMP's P Sreejith won the fifth ward of Onchiyam panchayat with a majority of 308 votes and retained power in the Panchayat. The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of RMP member A K Gopinath.
The election assumed importance as RMP was formed by Chandrasekharan, who was a former fellow-traveller of the CPI(M). Chandrasekharan was killed in May 2012, three years after he parted ways with the CPI(M) and founded the RMP.
In the bypolls, UDF lost five of its sitting seats in which four were won by the LDF and one by a Congress rebel.
However, UDF won the five seats which were the sitting seats of ruling LDF. In the November 2018 bypolls, the LDF had won 21 out of the 39 seats. The UDF had secured 12 seats while BJP two.
The Supreme Court had on September 28 last year allowed women of all age groups to enter the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple, where earlier women in the menstruating age of 10-50 years were barred from offering prayers.
With the LDF government making it clear that it was constitutionally bound to implement the top court verdict, the BJP and right wing outfits and a section of devotees had launched massive and violent protests on the issue.
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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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