Urging the minority educational institutions to make use of their rights, Justice M S A Siddiqui, chairman of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, has termed aggressive minoritism as harmful and said it should be shunned.
He was addressing a large gathering of representatives of various minority institutions at the state-level conference on ‘Rights and Opportunities for Minority Institutions’ on Saturday, hosted by the C Abdul Hakeem College in Melvisharam.
The conference was organised by the Federation of Muslim Educational Institutions of Vellore district in collaboration with the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions.
Explaining Articles 13, 29 and 30 of the Constitution and the various court rulings that gave rights and opportunities for minority communities, he pointed out that these rights were not to be compromised, but the government rules cannot be diluted by the commission. Underlining the importance of obtaining minority status certificates for the institutions, he said it felicitated such institutions to enjoy freedom to appoint staff and teachers as per the norms laid down by the government in the interest of academic excellence.
Siddique, while answering queries from the participants during the floor discussion, quoted a Madras High Court ruling that pointed out that the minority status certificate, once issued, need not be renewed as it had no validity period. He also handed over minority status certificate to Mohamed Hashim, chairman of KH Foundation that runs schools in Melvisharam.
In his address, M A Imam, director, Ministry of Minority Affairs, while giving details of the various schemes and programmes run by the ministry, pointed out that the government had decided to start six universities for the benefit of minority students this year and the locations for these universities were being finalised.
Around 750 blocks across the country have been identified as minority clusters that would be developed with a focus on overall development of the minority communities. The corpus fund for the Moulana Azad Education Foundation that supported education of the minority students, has been increased from Rs 750 crore to Rs 1,500 this year, he added.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service – Vellore / September 04th, 2013