Pant was on his way to surprise his mother when he met car accident
New Delhi, Dec 30: Rishabh Pant's plan to surprise his mother ahead of the new year turned into a horrific accident after his car collided with a road divider on the Delhi-Dehradun highway in the wee hours on Friday.
The star India wicket-keeper batter was lucky to survive serious injuries due to his alertness, jumping off his Mercedes in the nick of time as the car went up in flames after hitting the divider.
Dr. Sushil Nagar, who was the first to attend to Pant in the emergency ward of Saksham Hospital near Roorkee, said the cricketer didn't suffer any fracture but there was a ligament injury on his knee which would require further investigation.
"When he was brought to our hospital, he was fully conscious and I spoke to him. He wanted to surprise his mother and was going back home," Nagar told PTI.
He suffered big bruises on his back but Nagar said those are not burn injuries.
"The injuries happened because he jumped out of car by breaking the window of his car as soon as it caught fire. As he landed on the side of the road on his rear, the skin peeled off. But those are not burn injuries and not very serious."
The 25-year-old dozed off and lost control of his Mercedes early morning on Friday en route to his home in Roorkee. He was alone in the car.
The accident happened at Mohammadpur Jat in Manglaur town of Haridwar district.
He suffered injuries on his head, back and feet but is in a stable condition.
"He had two lacerations (blunt trauma) on his head but I didn't put stitches. I have recommended him to Max Hospital where a plastic surgeon might see him," Nagar said.
The doctor, however, said Pant suffered a ligament tear on his right knee and the extent of that injury can only be ascertained after an MRI scan.
"However reports of X Rays conducted at our hospital suggest that there are no bone injuries. Yes, there is a ligament tear on his right knee. How serious it is can only be detected after further investigation and detailed MRI," he said.
Ligament injuries have various grades and it can take 2 to 6 months to regain full fitness, which puts a serious question mark over Pant's availability for the home Test series against Australia, starting February 9.
Pant was not part of the upcoming white-ball series against Sri Lanka beginning on January 3. He was supposed to join the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru for a strength and conditioning programme ahead of February's Border Gavaskar Trophy.
The explosive left-handed wicket-keeper batter has scored 2,271 runs in 33 Tests so far with the help of five hundreds and 11 half-centuries. He has also represented the country in 30 ODIs and 66 T20Is, scoring 865 and 987 runs respectively.
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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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