Karnataka to host Khelo India University Games 2021
Bengaluru, Feb 21: Karnataka will host the second Khelo India University Games (KIUG) later this year, state chief minister BS Yediyurappa and Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju announced on Sunday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Games to be held in the city-based Jain University and other venues, Rijiju told a press conference here.
"We have decided that the second edition of Khelo India University Games will be given to Karnataka and the university is Jain University," he said, in the presence of Yediyurappa and state Youth Empowerment and Sports Minister K C Narayana Gowda.
The union minister said he was confident that the Jain University would organise one of the best university games in the country's history.
It would be held in partnership with Association of Indian Universities (AIU).
KIUG is the largest University Games in the country and is aimed at tapping sporting talent, who can represent India in international events, including the Olympics.
The first edition of KIUG was held in Bhubaneswar in February last year and saw a total participation of 3,182 athletes in the U-25 age group, across 158 universities and colleges from all states.
This year, Yogasana and Mallakhamb have been added to the roster, with an effort to preserve and promote the century-old sporting disciplines of the country.
With the inclusion of these disciplines, the athlete participation figure is expected to cross 4000, this year.
Earlier in the day, Rijiju visited Shivamogga where he announced a Rs 50 crore project comprising a multi-purpose sports centre of high standards in the district.
Rijiju underlined that a large and young country like India with the highest number of young people in the world must be in the top rank in the Olympics in the future.
"India cannot afford to be satisfied with one or two medals. We Indians have talents, Indians have all the potential but unfortunately we could not focus, we lacked vision in the past," he pointed out.
The Minister explained that the Centre has also started indigenous games and recognised five indigenous games, which are Malkhamb, Kallaripayattu, Gatka, Thang Ta and Yogasana.
"We are going to provide lots of funding of indigenous sports. We have to play international sports and we have to play our traditional indigenous sports," he added.
Rijiju said the state will have many facilities similar to the Sports Authority of India facility in Bengaluru.
Yediyurappa said about 150 universities are likely to participate in the event.
The sports meet will be organised at the Kanteerava Stadium and hockey matches will be organised at the General Cariappa Hockey Stadium. All the arrangements will be borne by the state government and the university, the Chief Minister said.
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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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