Minorities ministry sharpens Muslim focus
In keeping with the Prime Minister’s “New 15-Point Programme for the Welfare of Minorities”, the Union ministry of minority affairs (MoMA) is busy chalking out strategy to help improve the condition of the country’s minorities. It is also focusing on the proper implementation of various schemes already introduced by it to help improve the lot of the country’s minorities, particularly Muslims.
The focus on the Muslim community, the largest minority in India, got a fillip following the report of the Sachar Committee, commissioned during the tenure of UPA-I, which highlighted the poor socio-economic and educational condition of the country’s Muslims.
With the PM’s new programme having among its objectives the goals of “enhancing opportunities for education”, the ministry, headed by Mr Salman Khurshid, is focusing on helping meritorious minority students pursue their education.
According to ministry officials, the scholarship schemes introduced by it, with a percentage ear-marked for Muslim girl students, have been evoking a good response. Apart from this, the Maulana Azad Education Foundation, a voluntary, non-profit society funded by the government, also had its corpus increased in recent years, they noted. At present its corpus is around `425 crores.
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