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A Continuation of Discrimination
The discontinuation of the MANF discriminates against researchers from minority communities.
The Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF), a scheme started during the tenure of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2009 for the benefit of research scholars belonging to minority communities, will be discontinued from 2023. It offered financial aid over a five-year period to MPhil and PhD students from six minority communities, namely Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims, Parsis, and Sikhs.
The union minister of minority affairs announced the total scrapping of this scheme altogether in response to a question in the Lok Sabha. The response came as a shocker because the question to the minister concerned the inordinate delays in the disbursal of scholarships under the MANF. The minister argued that the MANF overlaps with other scholarship schemes that are implemented by the University Grants Commission (UGC), further stating that all students, including minority students, are eligible for such scholarships.
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