Malala scholarship approved by US panel

A US Congressional panel approved a proposal to increase the number of the country's scholarships available to women in Pakistan under the Malala Yousafzai Act, reports IANS  quoting Dawn online on Tuesday.

The legislation named after Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai was voted by the full House of Representatives during consideration of the measure by the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington on Monday.

The legislation seeks to increase the number of college scholarships for economically disadvantaged students from rural areas of Pakistan and aims to award 50% of them to females.

The scholarships are administered by the US Agency for International Development through the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Programme.

Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teen-ager from the Swat Valley, was shot in the head by the Taliban for opposing the Taliban's ban on education for females. After her recovery, she became an activist for women's education.