Andhra Cricket Association serves show-cause notice to Hanuma Vihari
Bengaluru, Mar 28: The Andhra Cricket Association has served a show-cause notice to Hanuma Vihari a month after the India batter accused the governing body of unceremoniously removing him from captaincy and vowed not to play for the state again.
However, Vihari is yet to respond to the notice which was served after the ACA Apex Council meeting a few days ago.
"Yes, we have served him a show-cause notice and we are awaiting his reply," an ACA official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
However, the official said the association did not want to prolong the issue.
"This is just to find what made him react the way he did last month. He has not reached out to us, so this is a chance for him to come out with his grievances.
"After all, we value Vihari and his contributions to the growth of state cricket as he has played a big part in Andhra going up in the ranks in domestic cricket," he added.
The train of unsavoury incidents began soon after Andhra lost to Madhya Pradesh in this year's Ranji Trophy quarterfinal.
The 30-year-old right-handed batter took to social media to accuse the ACA of stripping him of captaincy right after Andhra's first match of the season against Bengal.
However, at that time Vihari attributed the decision to "personal reasons."
But in his Instagram post, Vihari said the ACA acted under pressure from a local politician after his son, a 17th player during that match, complained that the middle-order batter shouted swear words at him.
"I have decided that I will never play for Andhra where I lost my self-respect," Vihari wrote in his emotional outburst.
Later, Vihari, who played 16 Tests for India, also posted a letter of support from his fellow Andhra players on his X account.
However, KN Prudhuvi Raj, the 17th player during the match against Bengal, also took to social media and lambasted Vihari for making false accusations against him.
"Personal attacks and vulgar language are not acceptable in any kind of human platform. Everyone in the team knows what happened that day," wrote Raj on his Instagram handle.
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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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