Ex-servicemen express mixed reactions on merger of Amar Jawan Jyoti with NWM's eternal fame
New Delhi(PTI): Ex-servicemen expressed mixed reactions on the Centre's decision to extinguish and merge the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate with the eternal flame at the National War Memorial (NWM) here on Friday.
Former Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter and requested him to rescind the decision.
"Sir, the eternal flame at India Gate is part of India's psyche. You, I and our generation grew up saluting our brave jawans there," he stated.
While National War Memorial is great, the memories of Amar Jawan Jyoti are indelible, Bahadur noted.
However, Former Lieutenant General Satish Dua expressed "great satisfaction" on merging the Amar Jawan Jyoti with the NWM's eternal flame.
"As someone who had steered the design selection and construction of the NWM, I had been of this view all along that India Gate is a memorial to the fallen heroes of First World War," Dua stated.
The Amar Jawan Jyoti was added in 1972 as we did not have another memorial, he mentioned.
The NWM pays homage to the soldiers who were killed in action after the country's independence and all homage ceremonies have been shifted to the new memorial already, he noted.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on February 25, 2019, inaugurated the NWM, where names of 25,942 soldiers have been inscribed in golden letters on granite tablets.
Former Army Chief General Ved Malik also supported the Centre's decision to merge the flames.
He said on Twitter that it is "a natural thing" to merge flames now as the NWM has been established and all ceremonials related to remembrance and honouring soldiers killed in action are being held there.
Former Colonel Rajendra Bhaduri said the Amar Jawan Jyoti is sacred and need not be extinguished.
"India Gate has names of Indian soldiers who died in wars. It is immaterial who constructed it," Bhaduri said on Twitter.
The Amar Jawan Jyoti was constructed as a memorial for Indian soldiers who were killed in action in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, which India won, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.
It was inaugurated by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, on January 26, 1972. Former Lieutenant General Kamal Jit Singh said on Friday that after the NWM's inauguration, it is logical to unify both the flames.
"Rationalise multiple memorials in penny packets," he said on Twitter.
Former Lieutenant Colonel Anil Duhoon said on Twitter that "If one can't make it then break it" is the BJP's mantra for new India.
He said the Amar Jawan Jyoti is too sacred to be touched or relocated. "Why can't they have two of them? Can't understand their functioning," Duhoon added.
Government sources said it was an odd thing to see that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid homage to the martyrs of the 1971 and other wars but none of their names are present there.
The names inscribed on the India Gate are of only some martyrs who fought for the British in the World War-1 and the Anglo Afghan War and thus is a symbol of our colonial past, the government sources said.
They said the names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial.
Hence it is a true homage to have the flame paying tribute to martyrs there, they added.
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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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