India, Oct. 1 -- Union minority affairs minister Kiren Rijiju traded some barbs on social media with AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi over pre-matric scholarships and other schemes for minority students' welfare.

Responding to Owaisi's criticism from Tuesday that the NDA government restricted scholarships to classes 9 and 10 even though dropouts among Muslims begin as early as class 5, Rijiju said in a post on X that the pre-matric scholarship has been restricted as the Right to Education (RTE) Act makes it obligatory to provide free and compulsory elementary education for students of classes 1 to 8 anyhow.

The union minister also said the Maulana Azad National Fellowship scheme has been discontinued as it overlaps with similar schemes ...