Saurabh tops junior 10m air rifle, bronze for Arjun at Shooting Worlds
Changwon (South Korea), Sep 6: A couple of weeks after his triumph at the Asian Games, Indias Saurabh Chaudhary hunted down yet another gold medal as he won the men's junior 10m air pistol title, even as teammate Arjun Singh Cheema took a bronze medal at the 52nd ISSF World Championships here on Thursday.
Saurabh, 16, produced a world record score of 245.5 as he shattered the previous world record of 243.7 points, a record he had set at the ISSF Junior World Cup on June 26 to finish ahead of South Korean Lim Honjin (243.1) and Arjun (218.0).
Hojin had won a silver medal also at this year's ISSF Junior World Cup in Suhl, finishing behind Saurabh and his record scores. And on Thursday, the result didn't change as the Indian gained the lead after a superb 10.9 on his eighth shot in the first competition stage.
From there on, he kept on piling up tenths of advantage over his opponents who missed some crucial shots, failing to catch up with him. At the end of the first competition stage, Saurabh had 103.0, while Hojin had 102.1 and Arjun had 101.0.
In the second competition stage -- elimination round -- Saurabh continued to widen the gap against Hojin and Arjun. With more than a four-point lead after the seventh series, it was easy for Saurabh even though Hojin tried his best to erase the deficit.
Arjun exited the competition after the eighth series with a total of 218.0. At this juncture, Saurabh had 225.0, while Hojin had 222.4 as the two shooters went into the ninth and final round.
In the final round, the Meerut talent shot 10.6 and 9.9, while Hojin came up with 10.0 and 10.7. However, the South Korean finished 2.4 points behind the Indian, who claimed the title.
Dionysios Korakakis finished in fourth with 197.4, besting Italy's Paolo Monna (5th with 178.3 points), the second South Korea finalist Sung Yunho (6th with 156.9 points), China's Xie Yu (7th with 135.4 points) and Germany's Robin Walter (8th with 114.8 points).
In the team event in this category, South Korea clinched the gold with a new junior world record of 1732 points, scored by Hojin, Sung Yunho and Shin Okcheol.
India, comprising Saurabh, Arjun and Anmol, finished in second place with 1730 points. Russia's team of Alexander Petrov, Aleksandr Kondrashin and Anton Aristarkhov came third with 1711 points.
Meanwhile, in the men's 10m air pistol competition, Abhishek Verma finished eighth and last with 118.0 points.
In the men's junior trap event, Aman Ali Elahi was sixth and last with 10 points.
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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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