US supreme court upholds Trump's travel ban
Blow to anti-discrimination advocates as justices rule 5-4 in favor of Trump administration after months of legal battles
The US supreme court has upheld Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries, in a significant victory for the administration and a blow to anti-discrimination advocates.
In a 5-4 ruling handed down on Tuesday, the court accepted the government’s argument that the ban was within the president’s power to craft national security policy and his authority to “suspend entry of aliens into the United States”.
Minutes after the ruling was issued, Trump tweeted: “SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN. Wow!”
Opponents of the ban have said it has not made the country safer, while singling out Muslims for unfair treatment and violating constitutional protections against discrimination on religious grounds.
Even as the court upheld the ban, chief justice John Roberts criticised Trump, and emphasised the importance of the principle of religious non-discrimination in US history.
“The president of the United States possesses an extraordinary power to speak to his fellow citizens and on their behalf,” Roberts wrote. “Our presidents have frequently used that power to espouse the principles of religious freedom and tolerance on which this nation was founded.”
Roberts pointed out that George W Bush defended “the true faith of Islam” after the September 11 attacks and said America is “a great country because we share the same values of respect and dignity and human worth”.
“Yet it cannot be denied,” Roberts wrote, “that the federal government and the presidents who have carried its laws into effect have – from the nation’s earliest days – performed unevenly in living up to those inspiring words.”
The lawyer who argued against the ban, Neal Katyal, tweeted that he was “disappointed by [the] decision” but that Trump “shouldn’t take ruling as approval to continue attacking our constitution. I will always fight it.”
Trump has issued three executive orders curbing travel from certain Muslim-majority countries. Lower courts have blocked various versions of the ban. The current order was allowed to come into full effect in December 2017.
The ban targets travelers from Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. It also includes limited sanctions against North Korea and Venezuela.
Trump’s controversial ban was elevated to America’s highest court after several versions of the policy were rejected by the lower courts.
The president issued his first travel ban just a week after taking office in January 2017, prompting widespread chaos and protests at airports and in cities across the US. Although the administration sought to modify the policy to pass legal muster, different versions of the travel ban have since been rejected as unconstitutional by federal judges in Hawaii, California, Maryland and Virginia.
The appeals process ultimately forced the conservative-leaning supreme court to determine the validity of the travel ban, which in its third version seeks to bar or limit entry to immigrants from five Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. The policy also imposed travel restrictions on certain government officials from Venezuela and their families, as well as North Korea, which were not challenged in court.
Oral arguments before the supreme court in April focused largely on Trump’s motivations in ordering the travel ban, given his sharp rhetoric against Muslims on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.
Opponents of the travel ban argued the policy was a watered-down attempt by Trump to make good on his campaign pledge to ban all Muslims from coming to the US. They also cited Trump’s repeated derogatory statements about Muslims and Islam, both as a candidate and since taking office, to demonstrate that the policy was rooted in religious discrimination.
While several of the supreme court justices acknowledged Trump’s record of espousing anti-Muslim views, chief justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, the two most likely swing votes, signaled they were reluctant to challenge the president’s authority on what he claims is a matter of national security. The bench also grappled with the relevance of campaign statements in assessing official policy.
While earlier versions of Trump’s travel ban indefinitely suspended all refugee admissions to the US, the president signed an executive order in October that resumed the processing of refugees. In doing so, Trump also called for a 90-day review of the program for 11 countries, most of them Muslim-majority, deemed as “high risk” by his administration.
Courtesy: www.theguardian.com
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)
