“Won’t pick up his call even if he calls me 10 times”
CM's spar over farmers' stir
Chandigarh, Nov 28: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday said he will not speak to his Haryana counter Manohar Lal Khattar until he seeks an apology for "inflicting brutality" on farmers marching to Delhi.
The Punjab chief minister also junked the allegations that he did not speak to Khattar over the farmers' issue despite repeated attempts by the Haryana CM, according to a statement.
Khattar is lying that he tried calling me earlier and I did not respond. But now, after what he has done to my farmers, I will not speak to him even if he calls me 10 times. Unless he apologises and admits that he did wrong with Punjab's farmers, I will not forgive him, said Singh, seeking apology from the Haryana CM for "inflicting brutality" on farmers.
The Punjab CM's reaction has come after Khattar alleged on Saturday alleged that despite wanting to talk to him over the issue, he did not respond even when telephone calls to his office were made for three days.
Claiming a conspiracy , Khattar told reporters in Gurgaon that officials in the Punjab Chief Minister's Office are giving directions to the protesting farmers from Punjab.
Earlier, Khattar had accused the Punjab CM of only tweeting and running away from talks with him on the issue.
Amarinder Singh said there is no way he would talk to Khattar again-- neighbour or no neighbour --after Haryana's use of water cannons and teargas shells against farmers.
Singh said if he could talk to the prime minister and the Union home minister so many times on the farmers' issue, why would he have not taken calls from a neighbouring chief minister if he had truly called earlier.
Questioning Khattar's decision of not allowing farmers to go peacefully to the national capital, Amarinder Singh demanded to know who's Khattar to come in between? What business does he have interfering in this whole affair?
Amarinder Singh also slammed the Haryana CM for making baseless allegations that he is instigating farmers.
I am a nationalist to the core. I run a border state and will never do anything to create a law and order problem of any kind, he asserted.
For 60 days, the farmers were blocking Punjab's railway tracks, causing more than Rs 43,000 crore in losses to the state, without any problem.
I will not take this nonsense from Khattar. Don't I have better things to do than to incite farmers, he asked.
Sometimes they say it's Khalistanis who're managing the protests and sometimes they accuse me of doing it let them make up their minds, said Amarinder Singh.
The CM declared that no political party was involved in the farmers' protests, which were a spontaneous reaction of farmers who were fighting for their future, according to the release.
Lambasting Khattar's charges that farmers were creating law and order problem, the CM said the Punjabis are law-abiding citizens and it is Haryana which is damaging public property and blocking the highways to stop farmers.
Terming as ludicrous Khattar's claim that Haryana farmers are not part of the Delhi Chalo agitation, Amarider Singh said Punjab's intelligence showed that as many as 40,000-50,000 farmers from the neighbouring state have joined the march to the national capital, which even the Centre's intelligence reports would have borne out.
He (Khattar) doesn't know what's happening in his own state and he's telling me what to do in my state, quipped Amarinder.
The Punjab CM said farmers had announced their decision to go to Delhi several days ago, even before lifting the rail blockade.
Farmers are angry over the farm laws, which seek to destroy a well-tried and successful 100-year-old system of mandis and arhtiyas (commission agents), he said.
Stating that nobody was stopping corporate houses from coming into the agricultural marketing system, the CM said they are even now procuring and running businesses in Punjab.
They can do this while continuing with the existing system, both can run in parallel, he added.
The CM said he also wanted the issue to be settled and the confrontation to end and will do what he can to help resolve the problem.
He was prepared to back any attempts by the Centre to end this imbroglio, he said, adding that the Centre has to talk to the farmers and find a solution.
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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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