IPL Auction 2018: Uncapped Chakravarthy, Unadkat rake in big money; Yuvraj unsold
Jaipur, Dec 18: Unheralded architect-turned-cricketer Varun Chakravarthy Tuesday fetched a sensational bid of Rs 8.4 crore, more than 40 times his base price, but veteran Yuvraj Singh went unsold in an IPL players' auction that had an unmissable Caribbean flavour to it.
Chakravarthy, with a base price of Rs 20 lakh, went to Kings XI Punjab after a bidding war that also involved Delhi Capitals, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.
KXIP also spent big on England all-rounder Sam Curran, buying him for Rs 7.2 crore.
Medium pacer Jaydev Unadkat became a millionaire once again with a Rs 8.4 crore bid from Rajasthan Royals but the spotlight was firmly on Chakravarthy, the 27-year-old mystery spinner from Tamil Nadu who gave up a career as freelance architect to pursue cricket.
"We always knew that we will break the wall for him," said KXIP CEO Satish Menon.
Chakravarthy has risen to prominence owing to a strong showing in the Tamil Nadu Premier League. He has been widely credited for Madurai Panthers maiden TNPL title win this year.
Unadkat, on the other hand, is back in the RR fold after being released at the end of the 2018 season. He had been bought for Rs 11.5 crore by RR earlier this year. On Tuesday, the Royals lapped him up him after a bidding battle with KXI, CSK and Delhi Capitals.
Capped Indian players were in demand and so were the West Indians before a 15-minute tea break at the auction.
However, there were no takers for 37-year-old Yuvraj, who was a sought after player in the IPL for a long time and during his prime, attracted a Rs 16 crore bid.
He entered into the auction with a base price of Rs one crore and could still find a buyer later in the auction if he is among the unsold players brought back into the pool by the franchises.
Yuvraj going unsold was not particularly surprising as he endured a lean run in the 2018 edition after KXIP bought him at a base price of Rs two crore before releasing him in November.
Besides the capped Indians, the West Indians too were in demand with Shimron Hetmyer, Carlos Brathwaite and Nicholas Pooran bagging hefty deals in the first round of bidding.
Spinner Axar Patel (Rs five crore), pacer Mohit Sharma (Rs five crore) and Mohammad Shami (Rs 4.8 crore) were the other names to fetch big bids.
Patel, who made his name at KXIP, was bought by Delhi Capitals after a bidding battle with the Punjab franchise.
Shami, who turned up for Delhi last season, was sold to KXIP while Mohit went back to Chennai Super Kings after a stint with KXIP.
Royal Challengers Bangalore paid Rs 4.2 crore for Hetmyer. Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Capitals also bid for the stylish West Indian batsman, who had a base price of Rs 50 lakh.
His teammate Brathwaite, the star of 2016 World T20, was sold to KKR for Rs five crore after a bidding war between the Dinesh Karthik-led side and Kings XI Punjab.
The all-rounder had entered the auction with a base price of Rs 75.
Another West Indian to get an attractive deal was wicketkeeper Nicholas Pooran. The 23-year-old, who came with a base price of Rs 75 lakh, went for Rs 4.20 crore to KXIP. He is a T20 find and is yet to play Test cricket.
Indian Test player Hanuma Vihari was sold to Delhi Capitals for Rs two crore, four times his base price.
Pacer Ishant Sharma, who had a base price of Rs 75 lakh, went to Delhi Capitals for Rs 1.1 crore while wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha was bought back by Sunrisers Hyderabad for Rs 1.2 crore.
The high-profile unsold players were Cheteshwar Pujara, Brendon McCullum and Chris Woakes.
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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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