India player Murali Vijay calls time on international career
Chennai (PTI): Out-of-favour India player Murali Vijay on Monday announced he was retiring from international cricket.
The right-handed batter who featured in 61 Tests, 17 ODIs and nine T20 Internationals last played for the country in the Perth Test against Australia in December 2018.
His Test debut was against Australia in the 2008-09 season at Nagpur as a replacement for Gautam Gambhir.
He featured in first-class and List A cricket for Tamil Nadu late in 2019. As far as professional cricket is concerned, he last turned out for Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League in 2020.
"Today, with immense gratitude and humility, I announce my retirement from all forms of international cricket," Vijay said in a statement on Twitter.
"I am excited to announce that I will be exploring new opportunities in the world of cricket and the business side of it, where I will also continue to participate in the sport that I love and challenge myself in new and different environments," the 38-year-old Vijay added.
"I believe this is the next step in my journey as a cricketer and I look forward to the new chapter in my life."
He thanked the BCCI, TNCA, CSK and Chemplast Sanmar and said, "I am grateful for the opportunities given to me by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, Chennai Super Kings and Chemplast Sanmar."
"To all my team-mates, coaches, mentors and support staff: It has been an absolute privilege to have played with you all, and, I thank you for helping me turn my dream into reality," he further said.
Thanking fans for their support through his ups and downs, he said, "I will forever cherish the moments I spent with you all and your support has always been a source of motivation for me.
"Lastly, I would like to thank my family & friends for their unconditional love and support throughout my career. They have been my backbone and without them, I would not have been able to achieve what I have today," he said.
In 61 Tests, Vijay scored 3982 runs at an average of 38.28 with a highest score of 167. He hit 12 hundreds and 15 half-centuries.
In 17 ODIs, he made 339 runs and in seven T20Is, he got 169 runs.
In the IPL, he shone for CSK and the runs he scored turned the attention on him. In the 2010 season, Vijay scored 458 runs for the Super Kings with a century and two fifties, including a blistering 127 against Rajasthan Royals in Chennai, which brought him into the national reckoning.
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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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