How Will The Cancellation of Minority Scholarships in India Impact Students?

The government has discontinued MANF scheme on the ground that it overlaps with other similar schemes.

The Government of India announced the discontinuation of the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) — a fellowship for minority students in India pursuing an M.Phil or PhD, on 8 December.

Along with this, it also announced that the pre-matric scholarship for minority students will no longer be applicable to students from Classes 1 to 8. The move has led to student protests at universities across India, as well as sharp responses from other members of affected minority communities.

What did the Maulana Azad National Fellowship provide for minority students? Why has the fellowship been scrapped now? And how many students are likely to be affected because of the scholarship and fellowship's discontinuation?

WHY HAS THE FELLOWSHIP BEEN DISCONTINUED?

According to Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani, the MANF scheme is being discontinued because it "overlaps with various other fellowship schemes for higher education".

Additionally, the Centre added, the reason behind discontinuing the pre-matric scholarship for Classes 1 to 8 is that the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 makes it obligatory for the government to provide free and compulsory education to all children till Class 8.

The discontinuation of the schemes has led to backlash from students across India. Apart from protests at universities, many students also took to Twitter to condemn the Centre's move.

The demand to roll back the decision has also been made by various parliament members, including by the — Pritam Munde — the Bharatiya Janata Party's MP from Beed, Maharashtra.(TheQuint) Reports