SC, ST and Minority researchers are facing the lack of scholarships

SC, ST and Minority researchers are facing the lack of scholarships

In the last two year, the University Grants Commission and concerned ministries have failed to release the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) and the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (RGNF) for minority students. Responding to the allegations, an official from Minority Affairs Ministry said that UGC had completed the selections for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 academic years and under the renewed guidelines the commission is expected to release the 2018-19 notification soon. "Selection process for two years was done in 2016-17 academic year. Later, the ministry had issued new guidelines for the selection process. Now, we have sent the minutes and guidelines to the UGC and a notification expected in two weeks," said the official. The official further told that the scholarship slots have been increased from 756 to 1000 now. An official from the UGC also confirmed that the process for the notification for the SC/ST students is in the pipeline and new notifications will be released soon. "In 2017, Ministry of Minority Affairs came up with a notification for using NET as criteria for Moulana Aazad National Fellowship. The UGC stopped notifying the call for application for the fellowship for the past 2 years as they do not know how to go about this new criterion suggested by Ministry," a student activist from JNU told. "For the past 2 years, 1500 scholarships have lapsed and if this continues another 1000 scholarship will also get lapsed in this academic year," he alleged. "It's very unfortunate that applications for research fellowships such as MANF, RJNF, and OBC Fellowship were not called for the last two years," complained a minority student who is pursuing research studies. The students also complained that the only notification regarding these fellowships was about the new criteria to be followed such requirement of NET for MANF scholarship.

source https://www.brainbuxa.com/education-news/sc-st-and-minority-researchers-are-facing-the-lack-of-scholarships-8868