“Minorities are completely safe here. India is heaven for minorities. Our neighbouring country Pakistan is hell,” Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Union Minister for Minority Affairs, said here on Saturday.
To a question whether minorities were feeling increasingly unsafe in the country, Mr. Naqvi said it was untrue. The Union government is committed to the development of minorities, he went on to add, arguing that India was the only country to provide constitutional protection for minorities to start educational institutions.
He claimed the widening of the scholarship programme by the Ministry of Minority Affairs had brought down the school dropout rate among girls from minority communities from about 70% to around 40%.
Education gap
Pointing out that there was a ‘very big gap’ between north and south India in terms of education, he said that prominent educational institutions from the south should open campuses in the north to address this gap.
Interacting with the media after delivering the convocation address at the B.S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute Of Science And Technology here, he said there was a significant gap in literacy rates between north and south India, and his Ministry and the Ministry of Human Resource Development would facilitate more educational institutions to come up in the north.
Michael Aaron N. N. Oquaye Esq (Jnr), High Commissioner of Ghana to India, was conferred Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) at the convocation. A total of 1,396 graduands received their degrees. Arif Buhari Rahman, Chancellor, BSARCIST, presided.
