Alibaba's Jack Ma to retire next year, Daniel Zhang to succeed
Bengaluru/Beijing, Sep 10: Alibaba's Executive Chairman Jack Ma will step down in September 2019 and hand over the reins to Chief Executive Daniel Zhang, the Chinese e-commerce giant said on Monday.
Ma, who co-founded the company almost 20 years ago which now is the world's biggest e-commerce behemoths, said in a letter to his employees that "transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up from a company that relies on individuals, to one built on a culture of talent development".
Ma, who was a school teacher in China's small town of Hangzhou where Alibaba is headquartered and now one of the richest men in the world, will get to back to education, the billionaire said in a letter to his employees.
On the company's 20th anniversary on September 10, 2019, Zhang will take charge as the new chairman.
The development comes days after his imminent retirement in a report by the New York Times, juked by the company.
"Ma will continue as the executive chairman of the company over the next 12 months to ensure a smooth transition to Zhang," a statement from the firm said.
Ma's net worth is $36.6 billion.
Zhang, who was earlier the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Taobao, an online shopping portal owned by the Alibaba Group, was appointed the CEO of the group in 2015. He has been with the company since 2007.
The co-founder of the company, Ma, will however, remain as a board member of the Alibaba Group until the annual shareholder meet in 2020, which marks the 21st anniversary of the e-commerce and tech conglomerate.
"While remaining as executive chairman in the next 12 months, I will work closely with Daniel (Zhang) to ensure smooth transition," Ma said in a letter to the shareholders and employees on the occasion of the company's 19th anniversary on Monday.
The transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up from a company that relies on individuals, to one built on a culture of talent development, Ma's letter addressed to the company's 86,000 employees said.
Ma, who turned 54, will remain a lifetime partner in the Alibaba Partnership and is a member of its partnership committee, the statement added.
The Alibaba Partnership has 36 partners, who are the senior management of Alibaba Group or its affiliates, including movie-making firm Alibaba Pictures, cloud computing firm Alibaba Cloud, financial services firm Ant Financial among others.
Founded in 1999, Alibaba stands among one of the largest companies in the world.
"I want to return to education, which excites me with so much blessing because this is what I love to do. The world is big, and I am still young, so I want to try new things," the Chinese business icon's letter added.
The group's e-tail portals Alibaba.com, Taobao, Tmall and AliExpress together clock billions of dollars of sales each year.
As per its statement, the company's revenue was $39.9 billion for fiscal 2017-18.
During the company's annual global shopping festival held on November 11 last year, the firm made a whopping $25 billion worth sales in a 24-hour period across its e-commerce platforms.
Apart from its online shopping portals, Alibaba also offers electronic payment services and cloud computing services.
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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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