Obama slams Trump-era, warns of 'strongman politics'
Johannesburg (South Africa), July 18 : Barack Obama has used his first high-profile speech since stepping down as US president to take swipes at "strongman politics" and politicians' disregard for facts.
Obama on Tuesday here mounted a passionate defence of democracy and warned against the politics of the day as his successor, Donald Trump, was heavily criticised for a humiliating news conference on Monday with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the BBC reported.
In his address in honour of the late Nelson Mandela ahead of the 100th anniversary of his birth, Obama slammed populist movements toward authoritarianism around the world and ridiculed the "utter loss of shame among political leaders" who lie.
Obama, who has made an art of criticising Trump's values without explicitly naming him, peppered his speech on Tuesday with warnings against some of his successor's key policies, including protectionism, climate change denial and closed borders.
"The politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment is on the move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago," he told the crowd of around 15,000 people in Johannesburg.
"I am not being alarmist, I'm simply stating the facts. Strongman politics are ascendant, suddenly, whereby elections and some pretence of democracy are maintained,... those in powers seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning."
His remarks followed Trump's news conference in Helsinki, Finland, in which the US leader sided with Putin over his own country's intelligence agencies on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 US election, the CNN reported.
Dashing expectations of him confronting Putin over the issue after the US indicted 12 Russians, accused of hacking the Democrat's emails and computer networks to target Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Trump sort of toed the Russian line.
"You have to believe in facts. Without facts there's no basis for cooperation. If I say this is a podium and you say this is an elephant, it's going to be hard for us to cooperate," he said.
"I can't find common ground if somebody says that climate change just isn't happening, when almost all the world's scientists tell us it is. I don't know where to start talking to you about this. If you say it's an elaborate hoax, where do we start?"
He said politics today often reject the concept of objective truth. "People just make stuff up. We see it in the growth of state sponsored propaganda, internet fabrications, the blurring of lines between news and entertainment, the utter loss of shame among political leaders...," he said, to laughter in the crowd.
Obama had opened his speech reflecting on the recent chaos of the world that gave him the opportunity to seek perspective.
"But in the strange and uncertain times that we are in -- with each day's news cycles bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines -- I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and try to get some perspective," Obama added.
He warned that the press was under attack, that censorship and state control of media is on the rise and that social media was being used to promote hate, propaganda and conspiracy theories.
"So, on Madiba's 100 birthday, we now stand at a crossroads," he said, using a clan name of affection for Mandela. He said that there was a choice between two visions of humanity's future that the world must choose between.
"Let me tell you what I believe. I believe in Nelson Mandela's vision, I believe in a vision shared by (Mahatma) Gandhi and (Martin Luther) King (Jr), and Abraham Lincoln," he said.
He talked about equality and justice and freedom and multi-racial democracy built on the premise that all people were created equal and were endowed with certain inalienable rights.
Obama's speech at the 16th annual Nelson Mandela Lecture, is one of his highest-profile appearances and his first return to Africa since he left office in 2017.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
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.”
_vb_22.jpeg)
