BCCI postpones Ranji Trophy and other domestic tourneys amid COVID-19 surge
New Delhi, Jan 4: India's domestic cricket schedule was thrown into chaos on Tuesday when the BCCI decided to postpone major tournaments including Ranji Trophy and the Col CK Naidu Trophy due to a surge in COVID-19 cases across the country.
With as many as six members of the Bengal contingent including five players testing positive along with a few Mumbai players, it was inevitable that the blue riband tournament beginning January 13 had to be shelved indefinitely.
"The Ranji Trophy & Col C K Nayudu Trophy were scheduled to begin this month while the Senior Women's T20 League was scheduled to commence in February," BCCI secretary Jay Shah stated in a press release.
Shah said that BCCI didn't want to compromise on the health of its players, support staff and match officials which is the reason that for the second year in a row that the red ball competition in all probability will not be held.
"The BCCI will continue to assess the situation and take a call on the start of the tournaments accordingly," Shah added.
The BCCI had formed six separate bio-bubbles in six different cities with multiple grounds -- Ahmedabad, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata.
In fact, Mumbai team had arrived in Kolkata and then their out of favour India all-rounder Shivam Dube tested positive and had to be isolated.
CAB secretary Avishek Dalmiya had been admitted to a city nursing home as a precautionary measure after testing positive.
The situation is grim across all the major cities with Delhi recording 5481 cases on Tuesday while Mumbai had 10,860 new cases with hundreds of them being affected by new Omicron variant.
Bengal has seen a single day highest ever rise of 9073 cases as per state's health department.
Shah on his part thanked all the stakeholders for being able to organise more than 700 matches across all age-groups during the season.
"BCCI thanks and continues to appreciate the efforts of the healthcare workers, state associations, players, support staff, match officials and all the service providers who put their best foot forward to host more than 700 matches across 11 tournaments in the current 2021-22 domestic season," he said.
🚨 NEWS 🚨: BCCI postpones Ranji Trophy, Col C K Nayudu Trophy & Senior Women’s T20 League for 2021-22 season.
— BCCI (@BCCI) January 4, 2022
The ongoing Cooch Behar Trophy will continue as scheduled.
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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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