Australia retains Ashes with win over England
Melbourne, Dec 28 (AP): It was quite a Test debut for Australia fast bowler Scott Boland.
Player-of-the-match Boland claimed the remarkable bowling figures of six wickets for seven runs as Australia beat England by an innings and 14 runs before lunch on the third day of the third Ashes test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday.
The massive victory means Australia retains the Ashes, with a 3-0 lead in the five-match series.
Resuming on Tuesday on 31-4, England was bowled out for 68. Ben Stokes, on 11, was bowled by Mitchell Starc in the fifth over of the day.
The 32-year-old Boland removed Jonny Bairstow for 5 in his first over of the day, then world No. 2-ranked batter Joe Root for 28 in his second over, before dismissing Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson without scoring in his third over.
When James Anderson was bowled by Cameron Green for 2, England's resistance had lasted just 27.4 overs.
Boland, who claimed match figures of 7-55 and is only the second Indigenous player to represent Australia's men's test-cricket side, was awarded the Johnny Mullagh Medal for player of the match. The award honors Australia's Indigenous team which toured England in 1868.
Australia captain Pat Cummins said his side had been relentless and would now aim for a 5-0 sweep of the series.
"Any Ashes series is when you try to make a mark on your test career, so a chance to start cementing our identity," Cummins said.
England captain Joe Root tried to remain positive.
"We have to stay strong and look at the next two games to take something from the tour," Root said at the post-match ceremony.
Play resumed as scheduled on Tuesday after players from both teams were tested for COVID-19 overnight.
"All results have come back negative," Cricket Australia said.
The start of Monday's second day of play was delayed by 30 minutes due to a COVID-19 scare involving two members of England's support staff.
Australia was bowled out for 267 on Monday as the home side grabbed a first-innings advantage of 82 runs. England could not even reach that figure to make Australia bat a second time.
The fourth test is scheduled to begin on Jan. 5 in Sydney, with the fifth from January 14 in Hobart.
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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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