Devdutt Padikkal: Overcoming health complications to land a dream Test debut
Bengaluru (PTI): Devdutt Padikkal beamed broadly while receiving his India Test cap from Ravichandran Ashwin on Thursday but the happy exterior masked the struggles the 23-year-old had to go through over the last two years to reach this dream point.
After making his India debut in 2021 during a T20I against Sri Lanka, Devdutt's career graph did not go up as expected due to a COVID-19 infection and a stomach-related health complication.
"Those two years (2021 to early 2023), he was struggling to stay fit and healthy. He suffered from loss of weight too. It was a constant stomach bug that was troubling him.
"We kept talking to each other over phone, and incidentally, I was also having the same condition and we were consulting the same doctor in the Jain Hospital without each other knowing," Irfan Sait, the founder of Karnataka Institute of Cricket (KIOC), told PTI.
"Mohammed Naseerudden, another coach here, too has been close to him and kept in touch with him during those low-mood phases."
However, Devdutt has this in-built streak of determination to hurdle over obstacles.
"I have known Devdutt from the age of 11 when he relocated to Bangalore from Hyderabad to pursue a career in cricket. He was a determined kid and the illness did not change anything.
"He worked really hard on his fitness and diet ahead of the 2023 season because he wanted to get back to the place where he was in 2020-21," he said.
The hard work did not go in vain. The graceful left-hander had a fine 2023-24 season for Karnataka across the formats.
He opened the season scoring 119 runs in five T20s while striking at 118 in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy but bettered those stats in the ensuing Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Devdutt was the highest run-getter for Karnataka with 465 runs from five matches with two hundreds and three fifties. He averaged a mind-boggling 155 in that tournament and struck runs at 120.46.
But he slipped into his real self in the Ranji Trophy. Devdutt could play only four matches, courtesy his national duties, but emerged as the leading run-scorer for the state with 556 runs.
He averaged 92.66 and registered three hundreds, including a season-topping 193 against Punjab.
But his 105 for India A against England Lions at Ahmedabad and 151 against Tamil Nadu at Chennai turned the tide for him, as the latter innings was seen in person by chief selector Ajit Agarkar.
"Once KL Rahul did not pass the fitness test (ahead of the third Test against England), India needed a replacement.
"Rahul Dravid and Ajit Agarkar held a brief discussion and the latter was mighty impressed with Devdutt after that Chennai innings and recommended his name," said a BCCI official on conditions of anonymity.
Sait was confident that Devdutt would exploit this opening to the hilt.
"There is absolutely nothing in his life apart from cricket. I know him as a child and he has been a topper in the U14, U16 and U19 levels. He worked very hard to add batting skills after starting as an off-spinner.
"Now, the way he battled past his health complications is a tribute to his character and determination. There would not have been a happier person than me when I got a message from him about his impending first Test," he added.
Other debutants like Dhurv Jurel, Akash Deep and Sarfaraz Khan have had their moments in this series against England. Now, it's the turn of Devdutt to add a page to that flipbook.
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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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