Goa CM faces flak for asking parents of rape victims why were their daughters out so late
Panaji, Jul 29: Under pressure from the opposition over the gang rape of two minor girls on a beach, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant is facing flak for remarking in the state Assembly that parents need to introspect on why their children were on the beach late at night.
When 14-year-olds stay on the beach the whole night, the parents need to introspect. Just because children don't listen, we cannot put the responsibility on the government and police, Sawant had said on Wednesday, during a debate on a calling attention notice in the House.
Sawant, who also holds the home portfolio, had said parents have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their children and hinted that they should not let their children, particularly minors, out at night.
Goa Congress spokesperson Altone D'Costa on Thursday said the law and order situation in the coastal state has deteriorated. Why should we fear while moving around at night? Criminals should be in jail and law abiding citizens should be out freely moving around, he said.
Goa Forward Party MLA Vijai Sardesai said it is disgusting that the chief minister is making such statements. The safety of citizens is the responsibility of police and state government. If they can't provide it to us, the CM has no right to sit in the post, he added.
It is shocking that @goacm is blaming parents for allowing their children to venture out in the night claiming that it is not safe. if State govt can't assure us our security, who can give it? Goa has a history of being safe state for women, that tag is being lost in @BJP4Goa rule, tweeted Independent MLA Rohan Khaunte.
We directly blame police, but I want to point out that of the 10 youth who went to the beach for a party, four stayed on the beach the whole night and the remaining six went home, Sawant had said in the House.
They were on the beach the whole night, two boys and two girls, said Sawant. Teens, particularly minors, should not be spending the nights on beaches," he added.
Four men, one of them a government employee (a driver with the agriculture department), posed as policemen and raped the two girls after beating up the boys who were with the girls on Benaulim beach, around 30 km south of Goa's capital, on Sunday.
All the four accused have been arrested, Sawant told the Assembly.
During the discussion in the House yesterday, an MLA had claimed that an influential person was trying to protect the accused, while another opposition member had alleged that a minister was calling the police and trying to influence the investigation. Speaker Rajesh Patnekar had expunged the remarks from the proceedings.
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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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