New Delhi, Jul 28 (UNI) The Congress today made a veiled attack on former Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani and said unlike the past, lot of work is going on in the Ministry especially in the higher education sector under incumbent Prakash Javadekar now. "Earlier, it seems the Ministry was more into making news than working....Now lot of works are being done," Congress member Deepender Singh Hooda said in the Lok Sabha while participating in the discussion on The Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017. In the last few days, few HRD Ministry related Bills have been taken up by the Lok Sabha and passed. His party colleague Rajeev Satav also spoke in similar vein and said: "....perhaps it would have been better if you (Javadekar) was given the charge of the Ministry earlier". Mr Satav said establishing of IIM, Ahmedabad way back in 1961 by Pt Jawaharlal Nehru was in effect like laying the foundation of so called 'Gujarat Model'. Both the Congress Members supported the Bill. During the debate other Opposition Members including ET Mohammed Basheer supported the Bill and welcomed the provision especially related to non-interference of the Government in appointment of faculty members and deciding on day to day functioning. Mr Basheer also said that adequate steps should be taken vis-a-vis reservation for minorities as the percentage of minorities in higher education is much less. RSP member NK Premachandran also supported the Bill but said the Government should clarify how the governing body would be set up. Two BJP members Satya Pal Singh and Harish Meena said it was not fair to the students of Hindi medium and others that IIM as an institute should be left only as a domain for English medium. "Out of 20 IIMs, at least one IIM should be there exclusively for Hindi medium students," said Satya Pal Singh. The Baghpat MP, Mr Singh also said that often students undertaking studies in IIMs -- like in Kochi and in Shillong -- have committed suicide. "These are matter of concerns," he said and suggested that there should be also introduction of new syllabi and courses for 'conflict management', 'stress management' and 'knowledge management'. "This is an era of knowledge explosion and hence there should be a course for knowledge management also," he said. UNI DEVN RSA SNU 1657