Is this Jack Ma? Billionaire and Alibaba co-founder seen riding bicycle in China's Hangzhou — Viral video
The footage recorded by a woman and posted by an X user named Dott Orikon, shows Ma, known globally for his entrepreneurial prowess, pedaling casually without any visible security around him.
Posted the video, an X user said, 'Although he has retained his position as CEO, his story reminds me of China's Last Emperor, who was pardoned after the revolution (despite collaborating with the Japanese) and became a simple gardener.'
This statement compares Jack Ma to Puyi, China's last emperor. Puyi after losing his imperial power and even collaborating with the Japanese, was eventually pardoned and lived his remaining life humbly by being a gardener.
The video garnered attention from several X users. Some people raised concerns about his safety as he was seen riding on the roads alone at night. The road also appeared quite empty in the posted video.
A user also questioned China's safety, by stating, 'A simple gardener with billions in the bank, is China so safe that billionaires like him don't need body guards?' X user comment on the post
While another user mirrored this concern and said, 'Dangerous to be biking at night.'
Some users also questioned his sudden disappearance, adding in their theories.
A user fueled this thought by stating, 'Unless he can give an interview and have people vouch he is alive, have to assume bad things happened to him.'
Another person said, 'I thought he has disappeared. When did he reappear in public and why did he go missing for a while?'
All the questions about Jack Ma's disappearance emerged after he started maintaining extremely low public life in late 2020 following regulatory crackdowns in China. His reduced visibility was also fueled by his critical comments on China's financial system.
Ma lost more than half of his fortune after the incident, which also caused the suspension of Ant Group's IPO where he had 9.9% stake, according to CNN.
He resigned as the CEO of Alibaba in 2013 and executive chairman in 2019 as he continued to be the largest shareholder of the company.
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Business Standard
2 hours ago
- Business Standard
Asian stocks slip from highs, dollar gains ahead of crucial 'tariff' week
Asian shares eased from highs on Friday, with Japanese markets retreating from a record peak, as investors locked in profits ahead of a crucial week that includes US President Donald Trump's tariff deadline and a host of central bank meetings. The dollar gained against the yen after bouncing off a two-week low on Thursday, helped by some firm US economic data, while Japan's currency was weighed down by political uncertainty amid media reports Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will step down. Benchmark Japanese government bond yields hovered just below the highest since 2008. Japan's broad Topix index, which had jumped more than 5 per cent over the previous two sessions to reach an all-time high, pulled back 0.7 per cent. The Nikkei slipped 0.5 per cent from Thursday's one-year high. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.5 per cent and mainland Chinese blue chips declined 0.2 per cent. Australia's equity benchmark declined 0.5 per cent. At the same time, US S&P 500 futures added 0.2 per cent, after the cash index edged up slightly to a new record closing high overnight, buoyed by robust earnings from Google parent Alphabet. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also marked a record high. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe edged down 0.1 per cent, but remained just below an all-time peak from Thursday. The index is on course for a 1.3 per cent weekly advance, buoyed in large part by optimism for US trade deals with the European Union and China, following an agreement with Japan this week. Next week, in the US alone, investors need to contend with Trump's August 1 deadline for trade deals, a Federal Reserve policy meeting, the closely watched monthly payrolls report, and earnings from the likes of Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. The Bank of Japan has its own policy announcement on Thursday, and Prime Minister Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party holds a meeting the same day. That's after the European Central Bank held rates steady on Thursday, pausing its easing campaign as it waits to assess any impact from US tariffs. The euro ended the session down 0.2 per cent against a buoyant dollar, and was little changed on Friday at $1.1743. The US currency advanced 0.3 per cent to 147.37 yen, adding to Thursday's 0.4 per cent gain. Trump kept the pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut rates after a rare presidential visit to the central bank on Thursday, although he said he did not intend to fire Powell, as he has frequently suggested he would. US 10-year Treasury yields edged down to 4.39 per cent on Friday, effectively erasing an advance on Thursday. [US/] Equivalent Japanese government bond yields eased 0.5 basis point to 1.595 per cent, just off this week's high of 1.6 per cent, a level last seen in October 2008. JGB yields have been rising on concerns the political scale is tilting more towards fiscal stimulus, after big gains for opposition parties backing consumption tax cuts in Sunday's upper house election. Pressure is building on the more fiscally hawkish Ishiba to quit after his coalition lost its majority in the vote, after doing the same in lower house elections last October. Gold was flat at around $3,368 per ounce, keeping it on course for a 0.5 per cent rise this week. Brent crude futures gained 0.3 per cent to $69.35 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures added 0.2 per cent to $66.18 per barrel. [O/R] (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
UGC, AICTE, NCTE to be scrapped: Will a new super-regulator end the chaos these three could never control?
India's higher education gears up for a major reset as the proposed Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) aims to replace decades-old regulators—UGC, AICTE, and NCTE—with a single, streamlined authority. India's higher education system—spread across 1,113 universities and 43,796 colleges, according to the AISHE 2021–22—is heading for what may be its most sweeping institutional overhaul since the university system was nationalised. The government has dusted off its reformist rhetoric to dismantle a decades-old triad of regulatory overlords: the University Grants Commission ( UGC ), the All India Council for Technical Education ( AICTE ), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). In their place, it proposes a singular body—the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI)—tasked with doing everything the other three were supposed to do, but better, faster, and without the administrative clumsiness. This wasn't a bolt from the blue. Policymakers had flagged the chaos earlier too. The National Knowledge Commission (2005–2009) warned of regulatory fragmentation and called for the dismantling of the UGC-AICTE-NCTE triad. It was followed by the Yash Pal Committee Report (2009), which made an even more urgent pitch: 'Multiplicity of regulatory agencies leads to lack of coordination and policy incoherence.' Neither report was fully acted upon. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Gentle Japanese hair growth method for men and women's scalp Hair's Rich Learn More Undo Successive governments chose to tinker, not transform. Then again in 2018, under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now renamed Ministry of Education), policymakers pitched HECI as a leaner and allegedly more autonomous alternative to the UGC. The concept matured in the National Education Policy 2020, which went a step further—recommending the merger of all three regulators into a single apex commission. One ring to rule them all. At first glance, it sounds like a long-overdue bureaucratic detox. But beneath the calls for efficiency and streamlining lies a deeper story—one of centralised control, collapsed specialisation, and the quiet possibility of academic overreach. Because whenever a government promises to fix complexity with centralisation, it's not just structure that gets rewritten. The soul of the system changes too. So the questions write themselves: Why now? Why one regulator? And who watches the one who watches everyone else? A legacy of silos and silence Historically, India's post-independence higher education system relied on a sector-specific regulatory structure, with different bodies overseeing different streams of education. The University Grants Commission (UGC), established in 1956, was responsible for regulating universities and general higher education institutions. It handled tasks such as funding allocations, curriculum development, and maintaining academic standards across disciplines like arts, science, and commerce. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), originally set up in 1945 and granted statutory status in 1987, was tasked with overseeing technical and professional education, including engineering, management, architecture, pharmacy, and hotel management. Meanwhile, the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), established in 1995, regulated teacher education programmes, setting norms, granting approvals, and monitoring institutions offering degrees such as and Each of these regulators operated in isolation, with distinct mandates and regulatory frameworks—a model that made sense when disciplines were neatly boxed, institutions were fewer, and regulation meant inspection rather than innovation. But the 21st-century Indian campus is anything but boxed. A single institution may today offer a in AI, a in science pedagogy, and a minor in ethics and literature—and find itself caught in a three-way tug-of-war between regulatory bodies who seldom talk to each other. The result? Not oversight, but overhead. Not accountability, but administrative fatigue. Where did things go wrong? On paper, the tripartite regulatory model—UGC for universities, AICTE for technical education, and NCTE for teacher training—was neat, logical, and compartmentalised. But by the late 2000s, the system began to unravel under the weight of its own silos. India's higher education was evolving, institutions were expanding, disciplines were blending—and the regulators stayed frozen in time. Overlapping jurisdictions, colliding mandates The first cracks appeared when colleges started breaking out of their traditional academic ghettos. A private university might now offer an integrated in Data Science with a liberal arts minor. An institute of education might pair a with environmental studies or STEM modules. Sounds progressive? Yes. But for the regulators, it triggered a turf war. In such cases, the institution had to seek separate approvals from UGC, AICTE, and NCTE—each with its own forms, deadlines, inspections, and (often contradictory) compliance requirements. What followed was: Duplication of compliance: One course. Three sets of paperwork. Dozens of inspections. Conflicting mandates: What AICTE allowed in the name of innovation, UGC might reject as non-conforming. Funding delays: Institutions caught in the crossfire often lost out on timely grants and accreditations. In short, the multi-regulator setup became less about quality assurance and more about bureaucratic endurance. Fragmented quality control While regulatory overlaps created confusion, quality control turned into a blindfolded relay race. All of the three bodies—UGC, AICTE, and NCTE—ran their own accreditation show. They used different metrics, had separate assessor pools, and often reached conflicting conclusions about the same institution. There was: No unified quality benchmark: What counted as 'excellent' for UGC might be sub-par by AICTE standards. Interdisciplinary blind spots: A university with strong arts and tech programmes might ace UGC review but stumble with AICTE red tape. Opaque student experience: For learners navigating cross-disciplinary degrees, the regulatory alphabet soup offered little clarity and even less consistency. At the heart of it, there was no single dashboard, no composite score, no common yardstick for institutional performance. Inefficient governance and regulatory fatigue Beyond structural flaws, each of the three regulators carried its own baggage. UGC, burdened with both funding and monitoring powers, often found itself in a conflicted dual role—allocating grants while also policing quality. This raised perennial questions about fairness, favouritism, and political influence. AICTE, though credited with standardising technical education, developed a reputation for rigidity and red tape. While industries moved toward emerging tech, AICTE's curriculum norms were often several updates behind. NCTE, perhaps the weakest of the three, became infamous for its inability to curb the proliferation of dubious teacher training colleges, especially in smaller towns. The result: thousands of 'recognised' institutes with questionable teaching capacity and negligible placements. What emerged was a governance model where no single body could be held fully accountable, and all three seemed to operate in parallel bureaucracies, rarely in sync, and often in conflict. Enter HECI: What it promises to fix U nlike its predecessors, HECI isn't a one-department show. It's structured around four autonomous verticals, each focused on a distinct function. NHERC: Regulation without redundancy The National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC) will be the front-facing gatekeeper—handling approvals, compliance, and the creation of academic norms. Its job is to bring clarity to the tangled web of regulations by becoming the single-window authority for all higher education institutions (except medical and legal). This means no more running from UGC to AICTE to NCTE for the same degree programme. NAC: Accreditation that speaks one language Accreditation duties will shift to the National Accreditation Council (NAC). Unlike today's fractured system where different bodies use different metrics, NAC is meant to apply a uniform, outcome-based framework for quality assurance. One council, one scale, one yardstick—for all institutions, regardless of discipline. HEGC: Funding that rewards merit The Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) will take over funding responsibilities from UGC—but with a twist. Instead of discretionary allocations and opaque grants, HEGC is expected to link funding to performance. Think academic outcomes, research impact, graduate employability—not just political connections or compliance checkboxes. GEC: Curriculum that reflects the present Lastly, the General Education Council (GEC) will steer the academic ship. It will define learning outcomes, curricular frameworks, and pedagogical standards across institutions. Its aim is to modernise what's taught and how, making sure Indian students aren't studying for yesterday's job market. What's the real pitch? At its core, HECI is being sold as a regulatory reset—streamlined, centralised, and outcomes-driven, replacing clutter with clarity. One regulator, less bureaucracy Perhaps the biggest headline is administrative simplicity. HECI's integrated model means institutions will no longer bounce between three regulatory bodies. Compliance processes are expected to be leaner, faster, and less redundant. One standard, clearer quality With NAC at the helm, the patchwork of quality assessments will be replaced with a single, transparent accreditation system. Students and parents may finally get a clear, comparable picture of institutional performance. One body, more accountability Instead of UGC blaming AICTE or NCTE washing its hands off quality lapses, HECI creates a unified command. With verticals working in tandem, there's less room for regulatory blame games and more space for system-wide accountability. From control to outcomes HECI is also being pitched as a philosophical shift—from an input-focused, micromanaging bureaucracy to an outcome-driven regulator. In theory, it will care more about results than rules, creating room for greater institutional autonomy. Money follows merit Under HEGC, public funding may finally move toward performance-linked models—rewarding institutions that innovate, publish, and place, rather than simply comply. The goal is to incentivise quality, not paperwork. But HECI isn't a silver bullet: The risks and red flags For all its ambition, HECI carries risks that policymakers cannot afford to ignore: Excessive centralisation Critics fear HECI could become a super-regulator with too much power concentrated at the Centre. If not insulated from political influence, it could be used to enforce ideological conformity across campuses. Loss of domain expertise AICTE and NCTE, for all their flaws, brought specialised understanding of engineering and teacher education. Merging everything under one roof may dilute this expertise unless HECI's verticals are empowered with expert teams. Academic autonomy at risk NEP 2020 advocates 'light but tight' regulation. But if HECI dictates curriculum frameworks, funding norms, and accreditation—all at once—autonomy could become a buzzword, not a reality. Bureaucratic bottlenecks A monolithic body may end up replicating the red tape of its predecessors. Institutional grievances could get lost in the system if not backed by robust grievance redressal mechanisms. So, will HECI deliver? The idea of HECI, on its own, is not the problem. In fact, it reads like a long-overdue footnote to a history of regulatory disarray—one that spans decades of overlapping jurisdictions, incoherent policy mandates, and watchdogs too exhausted to bark. As a concept, it echoes earlier reformist impulses—from the National Knowledge Commission's call for consolidation to the Yash Pal Committee's plea for coherence—both of which gathered dust in government archives while institutional entropy thrived. But as any student of policy will tell you, ideas don't govern—structures do, and structures are only as good as those who operate them. If executed with clarity, autonomy, and genuine insulation from political puppeteering, HECI could finally offer India what the UK has in the Office for Students, or Australia in TEQSA: a regulator that enforces standards without stifling thought, and funds institutions without measuring their worth in compliance checklists. But done badly—and that's not a hypothetical in Indian policy history—it could become yet another monolith with a new acronym and the same old reflexes: delay, dilution, and disinterest in outcomes. New gatekeepers, same revolving doors. As the draft bill inches closer to reality, the real question is not just what HECI abolishes, but what it institutionalises in its place. Because a unified regulator should never become a uniform regulator. And in a democracy that aspires to knowledge leadership, simplification must never come at the cost of dissent, complexity, or intellectual autonomy. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here . 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Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
"I think we understand each other well": UK PM Starmer, PM Modi share light moment at joint presser
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his UK counterpart Keir Starmer shared a light moment during their joint press statement on Thursday, as the two leaders addressed the media following their talks in London. As translations were being provided for questions and answers during the interaction, Prime Minister Modi, in a candid remark, said, "Don't bother, we can use English words in between. Don't worry about it." Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Project Management Leadership others Artificial Intelligence MBA CXO healthcare PGDM Finance Technology Operations Management Management Degree Public Policy Healthcare Data Analytics Digital Marketing Data Science Product Management Design Thinking MCA Others Cybersecurity Data Science Skills you'll gain: Portfolio Management Project Planning & Risk Analysis Strategic Project/Portfolio Selection Adaptive & Agile Project Management Duration: 6 Months IIT Delhi Certificate Programme in Project Management Starts on May 30, 2024 Get Details Skills you'll gain: Project Planning & Governance Agile Software Development Practices Project Management Tools & Software Techniques Scrum Framework Duration: 12 Weeks Indian School of Business Certificate Programme in IT Project Management Starts on Jun 20, 2024 Get Details UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded with a smile, saying, "I think we understand each other well." by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Gentle Japanese hair growth method for men and women's scalp Hair's Rich Learn More Undo The friendly exchange set the tone for the rest of the interaction, where Prime Minister Modi used a cricket analogy to describe the India-UK partnership. He said, "There may be a swing and a miss at times but we always play with a straight bat," adding that both countries are committed to building a high-scoring, solid partnership. PM Modi 's remarks, made during joint press statements with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, came as India and the UK signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and the two leaders endorsed India-UK Vision 2035 . Live Events The Indian Test cricket team is on a visit to England, and the series is seeing an intense struggle between bat and ball. "I would be remiss not to mention cricket when India and the UK are coming together, especially during a Test series. For both of us cricket is not just a game but a passion. And also, a great metaphor for our partnership," PM Modi said. "There may be a swing and a miss at times. But we always play with a straight bat. We are committed to building a high scoring solid partnership. The agreements concluded today, along with our Vision 2035, are milestones that carry forward this very spirit," he added. PM Modi, who was on a two-day visit to the UK, said that day marks a historic milestone in India-UK bilateral relations. "I am pleased that, after years of dedicated efforts, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between our two countries has been concluded today. This agreement is more than just an economic partnership; it is also a blueprint for shared prosperity. On the one hand, it paves the way for enhanced market access in the UK for Indian textiles, footwear, gems and jewellery, seafood, and engineering goods," he said. "It will also unlock new opportunities for India's agricultural produce and processed food industry. Above all, this agreement will be especially beneficial for India's youth, farmers, fishermen, and the MSME sector. On the other hand, UK-made products such as medical devices and aerospace components will become more accessible and affordable for Indian consumers and industries," he added. PM Modi said that alongside the trade agreement, a consensus has also been reached on the Double Contribution Convention. "This will inject new momentum into the service sectors of both countries, particularly in technology and finance. It will enhance the ease of doing business, reduce operational costs, and boost confidence of doing business. Additionally, the UK economy will benefit from access to skilled Indian talent," he said. "These agreements will boost bilateral investment and generate new employment opportunities in both countries. Moreover, these agreements between two vibrant democracies and major global economies, will also contribute to strengthening global stability and shared prosperity," he added.
