Ashwin replaces Anderson as No.1 ranked Test bowler
Dubai(PTI): Veteran Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Wednesday jumped to the top of the latest ICC Men's Test Bowling Rankings, replacing England pacer James Anderson.
Ashwin claimed the top spot after taking six wickets in India's emphatic victory over Australia in the second Test in New Delhi.
Anderson dropped to second place after England's stunning loss to New Zealand in the Wellington Test.
The 36-year-old Ashwin first claimed the top honour among Test bowlers in 2015, and has returned to the top spot on several occasions since then.
Ashwin bagged big wickets in India's win in Dehli, removing Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith in the same over of the first innings before returning to pick up Alex Carey for a duck.
The off-spinner was at it again in the second innings, picking up three of the top five while his spin-bowling accomplice Ravindra Jadeja rattled through the rest of the Australia batters from the other end.
Ashwin has an opportunity to extend his latest stay in the No.1 spot in India's remaining two Tests on home soil in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy
Ashwin is the third No.1 Test bowler in as many weeks, after Anderson replaced Australia captain Pat Cummins at the summit last time around. The trio continue to make up the top three bowlers in the latest rankings.
Anderson is now five rating points behind Ashwin, who remains on 864 points.
Jadeja's 10 wickets in the second Test against Australia also sees him move up the bowling rankings into eighth spot,
Jadeja and Ashwin occupy the top two positions in Test All-Rounder Rankings.
England's Joe Root is the other big mover in the all-rounder rankings, up two spots to eighth.
Root's return to top form in Wellington also sees him leapfrog Travis Head and Babar Azam into third position in the MRF Tyres ICC Test Batting Rankings.
Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith remain first and second respectively among Test batters.
New Zealander Tom Blundell is a new arrival in the top 10, rising four places to seventh after he helped the Black Caps to their famous follow-on victory by one run in the second Test against England.
England young gun Harry Brook continues his meteoric rise up the batting rankings after another superb century, climbing 15 places to draw level with Virat Kohli in 16th.
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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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