Sri Lanka lifts curfew in Negombo; police says situation under control
Colombo: Sri Lankan authorities Monday lifted an overnight curfew in the western coastal town of Negombo where violence erupted between groups of people over the weekend, days after the Easter bombings by Islamist extremists that killed more than 250 people in the island nation.
The curfew was imposed on Sunday after a group of miscreants carrying swords attacked some people travelling on a three-wheeler in Porathota area of the town. The vehicle was set on fire.
Several people were injured in clashes in Negombo, where St. Sebastian's Church was targeted in the Easter attacks carried out by suicide bombers who had pledged support for the ISIS.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said on Monday that Negombo was calm and curfew had ended at 7 am.
The government also blocked some social media sites overnight, including Facebook and WhatsApp, in order to control the situation. The block was lifted early Monday.
The police said an argument had instigated the clash and it was escalated after a drunken man's intervention. The curfew was imposed in the town as a precaution. Two people have been arrested in connection with the clashes.
Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo, said that it was a personal clash between two groups. "The situation was brought to my notice and we have restored calm," he said.
A senior police officer said an investigation was underway into the clashes.
Negombo is a majority Christian town where the St Sebastian's church was attacked by a suicide bomber on the Easter Sunday.
The Islamic State terror group claimed the attacks, but the government blamed local extremist group National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ).
Sri Lanka banned the NTJ and arrested over 100 people in connection with the blasts. Meanwhile, the schools re-opened Monday after the Easter Sunday blasts.
Police and soldiers combed school premises and the surrounding areas to make sure it is safe for children to go back on Monday, a senior police officer said.
Armed soldiers were seen guarding all leading schools in the city. However, the normal school traffic was not seen.
The education ministry's announcement to reopen schools after security guarantees were received from the military was still debated. Some leading Buddhist prelates had urged the government to delay the re-opening due to further possible attacks from the jihadists.
Sri Lanka has a population of 21 million which is a patchwork of ethnicities and religions, dominated by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.
Muslims account for 10 per cent of the population and are the second-largest minority after Hindus. Around seven per cent of Sri Lankans are Christians.
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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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