UK sizzles on hottest day ever at 40C
London, July 19: The UK broke an unwelcome record on Tuesday when Heathrow in south-west London recorded 40.2 degrees Celsius on the hottest day ever experienced in the country.
The reading came soon after Surrey in south-east England had broken the record of the highest temperature ever since records began at 39 degrees Celsius. The previous record high temperature was 38.7C, set in 2019 at Cambridge Botanic Garden in eastern England.
The Meteorological (Met) Office said the readings are provisional as the temperatures are expected to soar even further with other regions reporting their readings at different times of the day.
The country was braced for unprecedented temperatures on Tuesday after the ongoing heat wave resulted in the hottest night on record at 26 degrees Celsius in parts of London overnight on Monday.
The Met Office red warning of danger to life from extreme heat remains in place for much of central, northern, and south-east England, including the capital city. At least five people are believed to have drowned after attempting to escape the heat in rivers and lakes.
Tuesday will be a pretty unprecedented day, with the mercury possibly reaching highs of 41C in spots in England. This will make it the hottest day on record and the first time we have seen temperatures as high as 40C," said Rachel Ayers, a Met Office forecaster.
There are likely to be delays on roads, with road closures, as well as possible delays and cancellations to trains and maybe issues with air travel. This could pose a significant health risk to those stuck on services or roads during the heat, she said.
A high of 38.1C was reached in Suffolk, eastern England, on Monday, just short of the UK record of 38.7C set in 2019. Scotland and Wales are also forecast to see their hottest days on record after a scorching Monday, when the latter set a new high temperature mark at 37.1C.
Network Rail issued a "do not travel" warning for Tuesday, affecting services travelling through the "red zone" under the Met Office warning map. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the UK's rail network could not cope with the extreme heat, adding that it would take "many years" before upgrades would mean services could handle the hotter climate.
"The simple answer is no, the network cannot cope with the heat right now," he told the BBC.
"In 40C heat, tracks can reach 50C, 60C, and even 70C, and there's a severe danger of tracks buckling and a terrible derailing. We are building new specifications, creating overhead lines that can withstand higher temperatures. But with the best will in the world, this is infrastructure which has taken decades to build, with some of our railways stretching back 200 years," he said.
The country's infrastructure structured around cold temperatures has struggled to cope with the extreme heat since the weekend. Runways at Luton Airport and Royal Air Force (RAF) Brize Norton were also impacted by the heat on Monday, forcing aircraft to divert.
There have been warnings of pressure on hospitals and ambulance services as temperatures are set to peak on Tuesday. Monday saw a number of schools close ahead of a scheduled annual summer break.
Water companies in southern and eastern England have warned increased demand is leading to low pressure, and even interrupted supply, for some households.
According to experts, heatwaves are becoming more likely and more extreme because of human-induced climate change. The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began, and temperatures are set to keep rising unless sharp cuts are made to carbon emissions.
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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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