Captain Virat Kohli ruled out of second Test due to back spasm
Johannesburg(PTI): India captain Virat Kohli was on Monday ruled out of the second Test against South Africa here just before start of the game because of an upper back spasm, leaving K L Rahul to lead the side in the crucial match.
Rahul said at the toss that Kohli is expected to be available for the third and final Test from January 11.
"Unfortunately, Virat is having an upper back spasm. The physios are working on him and hopefully he will recover in time for the next Test," Rahul said at the toss when asked about Kohli's absence from the match.
All-rounder Hanuma Vihari has come in the playing XI to replace Kohli.
Kohli, who has been battling a prolonged lean patch with the willow, will thus not be able to complete his landmark 100th Test in the series-finale at Cape Town.
The 33-year-old will be playing in the ODI series against the Proteas starting January 19. Rahul will captain India in that rubber as regular white-ball skipper Rohit Sharma is out injured.
The BCCI also issued a statement later in which it informed that Jasprit Bumrah would be Rahul's deputy during the match here. Bumrah is also due to play the same role during the ODI series
As per the Indian team's fixtures, Kohli, if all goes well, will now get to play his 100th Test against Sri Lanka at Bengaluru in February.
It is worth noting that head coach Rahul Dravid, while addressing the pre-match press conference on Sunday, gave no indication of any possible injury concerns over Kohli, who is locked in a war of words with the BCCI over the way his white-ball captaincy tenure ended.
Dravid, one of India's all-time greats, had lent support to the superstar batter for the "phenomenal" manner in which he has led the team despite "all the noise around him".
Kohli kicked up a storm before the ongoing tour by stating that he was never asked to reconsider leaving T20 captaincy as asserted by BCCI President Sourav Ganguly.
His statement was met with a rebuttal from chief selector Chetan Sharma who said that Kohli was requested to hold his decision at least till the end of the T20 World Cup. After relinquishing T20 leadership, Kohli was remoed as ODI captain in December.
Ever since that dramatic press conference in which he contradicted Ganguly, Kohli has not had a media interaction and Dravid on Sunday said that the star would make himself available for questions on the eve of his 100th Test.
With that now effectively moved to next month, it remains to be seen whether Kohli would show up for the media conference before the Cape Town Test, on Monday next.
Kohli enjoys an impeccable record in Johannesburg where he has scored a century and a couple of half-centuries in two Test matches.
Overall, he has scored 310 runs at the iconic Wanderers and stood just seven runs away from owning another batting record -- most Test runs scored at the venue.
The visiting team won the series-opener last week and is now eyeing its maiden Test series triumph in South Africa.
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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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