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Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has proposed a joint panel consisting of Muslim leaders and top intelligence and security officials to stop the harassment of young Muslims across India in the name of “fight against terrorism”. He was talking to leaders of India’s major Muslim organisations, recently which called on him to intervene, to end the harassment of Muslim youth. The delegation consisted of the leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, the Muslim Personal Law Board (MPLB) and the Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat. The leaders expressed their concern on the security of Muslims in India and complained of random arrests and media trials of Muslim youth. Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat President, Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan said the Prime Minister expressed sympathy towards the delegation members and proposed the joint mechanism. However, he was skeptical of the effectiveness of such a panel. Another member of the delegation, Dr. Qasim Rasool Ilyas, said the leaders presented detailed cases of such harassment at the hands of Indian intelligence agencies across the country. He said there were several cases when security agencies had asked the media to conduct media trials to influence the judiciary. Dr Ilyas, a spokesman of the Muslim Personal Law Board, said they had asked the PM to stop the “profiling of Muslims,” a project started by the Home Ministry. Something happens somewhere and it is linked to Islam and Muslims. Security agencies immediately arrest Muslim youth, torture them and then try them in the media, which builds up stories against them,” he added. He said the negative image portrayed by the media influenced the judiciary. The leaders also said that prejudice against Muslims was growing among police and security agencies.

The Government of India has announced pre-matric scholarship for students belonging to the minority community in large numbers for the year 2008-09. The scholarships would be available to all students belonging to Muslim, Christian, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh and Parsi communities from first standard to 10th standard. The scholarships will be available to all those whose household income does not exceed Rs. one lakh annually, and the students should not have secured less than 50 per cent marks. It will be available to a maximum of two students in each family. The assistance will be up to Rs. 350 per child towards tuition fee per month, Rs. 500 towards admission fee annually for the students in class six to 10 category. As for the class one to fifth category, the tuition fee would be Rs. 100 per month. The scholarship has provision for hostel residents too. Karnataka State alone has 16,000 such scholarships. The allocation has been made on the basis of the population of the minorities in each state.

Thirty per cent of the scholarships have been set apart for girl students. The continuance of scholarships will depend on securing 50 per cent marks by the student in the annual examination.

There is provision of maintenance allowance for the hostel residents too. However details are still awaited.

The scholarships have been allocated for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period (2007-12).

The students would be required to download the application forms from the website of the Ministry for Minority affairs in their states of residence or can procure it from the district offices of the Ministry.

The applicants would require to make a declaration about their family income on a non-judicial paper, produce study certificate from the school and a community certificate. Full details are yet to be made public. The members of the minority communities are advised to browse through the website of the Ministry of Minority affairs at the following site: http://minorityaffairs.gov.in