Congress wants Centre to come out with White Paper on situation along the LAC with China
Bengaluru (PTI): Targeting the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, senior Congress leader Manish Tewari on Tuesday urged the dispensation to immediately publish a White Paper on the situation prevailing along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.
The former Union minister was addressing a press conference here to make a "critical appraisal" of the performance of the NDA government on its completion of nine years in office.
"The performance of any government is benchmarked on five parameters -- India's external security, the state of the economy, social cohesion, internal security, and India's relations with the world or its foreign policy. On each of the benchmarks in the past nine years, the NDA-BJP government has come up completely short," Tewari said.
Noting that India today is confronted with the most unprecedented external security challenge that it has faced in a number of decades, he said: "For the three years, the Chinese People's Liberation Army has not vacated its transgression into Indian territory -- all the buffer zones have been created in what is India's perception of its territory."
Unfortunately, rather than being upfront with the country about the Chinese transgression, the NDA government has not allowed a single discussion on the issue in Parliament since September 2020, the Congress leader said. All questions raised by Members of Parliament even from the ruling party have not been entertained on the grounds of national security, he opined.
"We (Congress) demand that the NDA-BJP government immediately publish a White Paper on what is the situation along the Line of Actual Control with China, how many buffer zones have been created, how many of those are in Indian territory, and how much of territory have we lost," he said, pointing at reports stating that India has lost access to 26 out of 65 patrolling points (PPs) along the LAC, which translates to about 2,000 square kilometres of territory.
Regarding India's foreign policy, Tewari asked External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar as to why the needle hasn't moved a single millimetre in the past nine years on India getting a permanent seat in the UN Security Council (UNSC).
"Also, why has India not got the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group? Why is it that no SAARC summit has been held since 2015? What is the government doing to counter rising Chinese influence in India's neighborhood? and does India have the counter strategy for the growing Russian-Chinese convergence?" he asked.
While dwelling on the internal security scenario, the former Union minister pointing at the situation in Manipur said it is after so many days that the Union Home Minister (Amit Shah) has found it appropriate to go and visit the state.
He also questioned the government as to why is it "scared and petrified" of holding elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
Speaking about the economic situation in the country, the Congress leader said food inflation has been the single biggest problem for household budgets across the country.
Highlighting high fuel prices and growing disparity between rich and poor, he also attacked the BJP government alleging it has failed in job creation.
Noting that even in the states where the BJP is ruling, the party has not fought elections based on performance, and Karnataka is the latest example, Tewari said.
"There is a concerted attempt to keep the communal temperature of the country on the slow burn, because it helps the politics of polarisation of the NDA-BJP, but it harms the country," the Congress leader said.
Across the board except for hype and hoopla, the Central government has nothing in terms of performance on its balance sheet, he said, adding: "Karnataka has chosen wisely in the recent election, and I would like to urge the people of India to choose wisely in 2024, because your choice would determine whether India remains a democracy or it goes down the path which will not be in India's interest."
Complementing the people of Karnataka for voting in Congress to power in the state, Tewari said they have shown the path to the rest of the country as to how the politics of polarisation can be kept aside and real issues brought to the fore, which help the destinies of both Karnataka and the rest of the country.
He also expressed confidence that the Congress government in the state would fulfil all the commitments made to the people of the state ahead of the elections.
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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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