Third Eye: A long waiting list; temple run & 'master' of staying incommunicado

As Parliament's winter session was adjourned sine die on Friday, the education ministry once again missed the bus on two key legislations, which have been on a waiting list for long. The ₹537 crore Digital Vishwavidyalaya Bill - a budget 2022 promise to set up a digital university - has gone through legal vetting but is yet to be approved by the Union Cabinet. The other is the plan to set up a single higher education regulator under the National Education Policy 2020.

Temple Run
Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren was on a temple-visiting spree after taking oath as chief minister. He first visited Baba Baidyanath Dham in Deoghar. Later, he visited Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. On Sunday, he returned to Ranchi after visiting Tirumala Venkateswara Temple.

‘Master’ of Staying Incommunicado
Recently, Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar was incommunicado for a few days. He neither met his party leaders nor appeared in the Maharashtra assembly. When asked about ‘missing’ Pawar, Shiv Sena-UBT leader Uddhav Thackeray said that it was Pawar’s ‘old habit’ and suggested that “if you want to find him, you can do it in the early morning”. This led to laughter all around as Thackeray was referring to the 2019 incident, when Pawar took an early-morning oath along with Devendra Fadnavis.