People decide candidates' fate: Siddaramaiah slams BJP chief's remark in campaign speech
Bengaluru: Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah has slammed BJP National President JP Nadda for asking the people of Karnataka during a rally to vote for BJP ‘so that the state is not deprived of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s blessings’, saying that Modi was not God to bless anyone.
Posting a media report on Nadda’s speech, Siddaramaiah tweeted on Wednesday, “In democracy, people decide the fate of the candidates & the elected representatives can serve them. @narendramodi is not God to bless anyone…. I condemn the statement of @JPNadda about @narendramodi 's blessings on Karnataka. Looks like he needs lessons on democracy…. All states are equal & have same rights according to the constitution. There is no space for dictatorship in democracy.”
ALSO READ: PM Modi to campaign in about 20 places in poll-bound Karnataka, indicates CM
The Congress leader added in Kannada, “If your statement that the people of Karnataka should not be deprived of @narendramodi's blessings is a threat, I condemn it. If this shows your ignorance, I pray that God blesses you with wisdom @JPNadda.”
Several other Congress leaders, including General Secretary Jairam Ramesh, Priyank Kharge and party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate, took to Twitter, to criticize the BJP president, accusing him of threatening and insulting Kannadigas.
Calling PM Modi a ‘narcissist’ and sharing a video clip of Nadda’s speech, Priyank Kharge tweeted that Karnataka had witnessed a lot of development work well before Modi took charge as the Prime Minister and that Modi’s blessings were not needed for the state to develop and prosper.
Citing a string of instances of development in the state, Kharge tweeted, “Do you think that Kannadigas lived in Stone Age before Modi became PM? We didn’t have a language or thriving culture, we didn’t have food, clothes, shelter or electricity? There were no roads, drains, no schools, no universities or no dams. We were all jobless?... Even before Modi ji blessed us with Make in India we built ITI, BEL, HMT, BHEL, Mangalore Refinery, Mysore lamps and other major & small scale industries We built NAL, HAL where planes and helicopters are being manufactured, we built ISRO & we are sending satellites to space… We were the IT Capital of India before a megalomaniac became the PM & @JPNadda ji many people from North India come looking for jobs & funding their startups here. Even before PM said #AtmaNirbharBharat, we had built many dams in Karnataka. Have you built any dams?”
Jairam Ramesh criticized Nadda for ‘excessive devotion’, tweeting in Hindi, “There should be a limit to devotion too, Nadda ji. Why are you threatening and scaring the people of Karnataka? With the blessings of the people of Karnataka, a Congress government is going to be formed.”
Expressing her fury at Nadda’s words to the people of Karnataka, Supriya Shrinate tweeted, “So when all else fails in Karnataka - BJP resorts to open threats? How dare does BJP President @JPNadda threaten the people of Karnataka by saying that they will be devoid of Modi’s blessings if they don’t vote for BJP? In a democracy does the PM bless people or does he discharge his constitutional duties? People are not at the mercy of Modi, they have rights under the constitution. And one of them is to vote freely for whoever they wish to vote for - and no power on earth can take that right away… Don’t be so drunk on power Mr Nadda and certainly don’t undermine Karnataka and the wonderful self respecting people of the state. You must apologise.”
ಪ್ರಜಾಪ್ರಭುತ್ವದಲ್ಲಿ ಜನರೇ ಜನಾರ್ಧನರು, ಆಶೀರ್ವಾದ ನೀಡಲು @narendramodi ಅವರು ದೇವರಲ್ಲ,
— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) April 19, 2023
ಜನರ ಸೇವೆ ಮಾಡಲು ಜನರಿಂದ ಆಯ್ಕೆಯಾಗಿರುವ ಪ್ರತಿನಿಧಿ ಎನ್ನುವುದು ನೆನಪಿರಲಿ @JPNadda ಅವರೇ. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/QmFcfWEnCh
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
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.”
_vb_28.jpeg)
