Updated on: Friday, October 29, 2010
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today announced a grant of five crore rupees to augment the Indian scholarship fund for ethnic Indians in Malaysia.
Singh, who is in Malaysia on a state visit, made the announcement while addressing the Indian community here.
The fund was set up in 1946 by former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to assist Malaysian-Indian students. With the new grant, the corpus of the fund will be 7.55 crore rupees.
Malaysian-Indians had requested Indian government to allot some quota for their students. Singh also announced 20 scholarships for Malaysian students to study traditional system of medicine in India.
Muslim-majority Malaysia's 27 million people are 25 per cent ethnic Chinese and eight per cent ethnic Indians, who are mostly Hindus from Tamil Nad