Sania ends Grand Slam career after finishing as runner-up in mixed doubles final
Melbourne (PTI): Trailblazing Indian tennis star Sania Mirza capped off her glorious Grand Slam career with a runners-up finish alongside 'best friend' Rohan Bopanna in the Australian Open mixed doubles final here on Friday.
Pairing up with her first-ever mixed doubles partner Bopanna, the unseeded Indian duo went down 6-7(2) 2-6 to the Brazilian pair of Luisa Stefani and Rafael Mataos in the final at the Rod Laver Arena.
"If I cry, these are happy tears. That's just a disclaimer. I'm still going to play a couple of more tournaments but my journey of my professional career started in Melbourne," an emotional Sania said as she struggled to hold back tears.
"Rohan was my first-ever mixed doubles partner when I was 14 and we won the nationals, it was 22 year ago and I couldn't think of a better person, he's my best friend and one of my best partners to finish my career," Sania said, thanking Bopanna, who has one French Open mixed doubles title to his credit.
The 36-year-old, who earlier announced that the WTA event in Dubai next month will be her swansong, is India's most accomplished woman tennis player, having won six Grand Slam title, including three mixed doubles trophies.
She had won the the mixed doubles titles at the 2009 Australian Open and the 2012 French Open with Mahesh Bhupathi and the 2014 US Open with Brazillian Bruno Soares.
The Rod Laver Arena has been a happy hunting ground for the Hyderabadi. She has a women's doubles and mixed doubles title each and has finished runner up four times at the Australian Open.
"It started in 2005 when I played Serena Williams in the third round as an 18-year-old and that was scarily enough 18 years ago. I have had the privilege to come back here again and again, win some tournaments here and play some great finals amongst you all.
"Rod Laver Arena has really been special in my life and I coudn't think of a better arena to finish my career at in a Grand Slam," Sania said.
The presence of her son Izhaan , alongside family and friends made the occasion sweeter.
"I never thought I'd be able to play in front of my child in a Grand Slam final, so it's truly special for me, to have my four-year-old here and my parents here, and Rohan's wife, my trainers, my family in Australia who made me fell like home away from home.
"Cara Black who is my best friend and one of my first partners, it's been truly special I wouldn't be able to achieve anything without you all," Sania said.
The Indians were on the back foot from the beginning as they were broken in the very first game and were down 0-2.
But the two veterans managed to settle down after a nervy start, winning three games in a row to quickly take a 5-3 lead. The Brazillians, however, forced a tiebreak capitalising on Bopanna's poor service games.
With the momentum on their side, Stefani and Mataos took the tiebreak after saving a set point in the 12th game.
The Indians let the Brazillians dominate them in the second set as Sania failed to hold serve in the fourth and eighth game to concede the fixture.
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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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