India set to give new energy to global aviation market: PM Modi
Bengaluru (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday lauded the strides made by India in aviation and aerospace and the growing role of women in the sector, while asserting that the country will spur the global aviation market.
In his address after inaugurating aircraft maker Boeing's new global engineering and technology centre campus near here, he said women were leading in the aviation and aerospace sector, be it fighter or civil aircraft. They constituted about 15 per cent of the total pilots in India, which was three times the global average.
The time for women-led development has come, Modi said. India, he said, has become the third major domestic aviation market in the world and, in a decade, the number of passengers will double.
The 'UDAN' scheme has played a vital role in enhancing the domestic aviation market, the PM said. Due to the growing demand, airlines in India have ordered hundreds of aircraft. "India is set to give new energy to the global aviation market" he said.
Further, "we gave priority to connectivity infrastructure making India a well connected market", Modi said.
Taking a dig at the Congress, he said earlier India was unable to transform its potential into performance.
The PM also launched the Boeing Sukanya Programme. The company said the initiative aims to support the entry of more girl children from across India into the country's growing aviation sector.
The 43-acre state-of-the-art Boeing India Engineering and Technology Centre (BIETC) campus is the planemaker's largest such investment outside the US, the company said. It has been built at a cost of Rs 1,600 crore.
The campus at Hightech Defence and Aerospace Park in Devanahalli on the city outskirts will become a cornerstone for partnerships with vibrant startups, private and government ecosystem in India, and will help develop next-generation products and services for the global aerospace and defence industry, Boeing said.
The Boeing Sukanya programme will provide opportunities for girls and women from across India to learn critical skills in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) fields and train for jobs in the aviation sector, a company statement said.
For young girls, the programme will create STEM Labs at 150 planned locations to help spark interest in related careers. It will also provide scholarships to women who are training to be pilots. Investments will support flight training curriculum, obtaining certifications, funding for simulator training, and career development programmes, Boeing said.
"We are honored and privileged to support Prime Minister Modi's transformative vision for India, and we are grateful to have him dedicate the Boeing campus to foster aerospace innovation in the country," said David L Calhoun, Boeing president and CEO.
Over the years, the statement said, Boeing India has grown its team in engineering and R&D talent to the largest number of employees in any country outside the United States, with more than 6,000 as of December 2023.
Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Leader of the Opposition in Legislative Assembly, R Ashoka, and Boeing Chief Operating Officer, Stephanie Pope, were among those present on the occasion.
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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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