Delhi Confidential: New innings

Former NIA Director General Sharad Kumar is tipped to become Member, National Human Rights Commission, which will ensure him a fixed term of five years.

ex nia dg, sharad kumar, nhrc, train delays, railway ministry, indian express

Former NIA Director General Sharad Kumar

New Innings

Former NIA Director General Sharad Kumar is tipped to become Member, National Human Rights Commission, which will ensure him a fixed term of five years. Kumar, who got two extensions as NIA DG when the agency was handling key cases including 26/11, Samjhauta and Ajmer blasts, retired last year.

Tracking Delays

WITH TRAIN delays in northern and eastern parts of the country due to track-related work proving to be a headache, the Railways Ministry has told its zonal units that the department is facing a lot of “embarrassment” due to lack of punctuality. It has decided to hit the “reset” button on trains that are running over 24 hours late, which means that return trips of these trains will be cancelled. This will enable them to start as per their scheduled departure the next day. The instruction from the Railway Board is to get punctuality back on track by May 15.

Autonomy Relook

THE UNIVERSITY Grants Commission seems to have approved the graded autonomy regulation in a hurry. Although it has been only a month since it awarded graded autonomy to 60 institutions, the UGC has already set up a committee to revisit the regulations. The committee has been constituted in the wake of confusion triggered by a letter written by Symbiosis International, seeking clarification on setting up off-campus centres. Symbiosis International was awarded Category-I grade in March, which, as per the regulations, entitles the institute to not seek UGC’s permission before establishing off-campuses. The deemed university wanted to know if the government would continue to issue a notification announcing a new off-campus centre, even if it does not have to approach UGC for approval. In response to this letter, the HRD Ministry is learnt to have raised many questions, including why the graded autonomy regulations project UGC as the permission-granting authority, when it is actually the government. Caught off-guard by these questions, UGC is learnt to have set up a panel to look into the issue.