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October 19, 2012

EDUCATION LOAN SUBSIDY SCHEME FINALIZED


EDUCATION LOAN SUBSIDY SCHEME FINALIZED

To make education loans cheaper, a scheme was finalised Thursday to provide full interest subsidy on the loans taken by students with annual family income below Rs.4.5 lakh to pursue technical and professional courses.

The format for the scheme was finalised after a meeting between the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA).

"The scheme provides interest subvention to students for the period of their course. The interest for this period will be paid to the banks by the government," a ministry official said.

The Canara Bank was finalised as the nodal bank for IBA member banks to claim the subsidy amount reimbursement.

The scheme, which was approved by the cabinet last year, provides interest subvention to students with annual family income below Rs.4.5 lakh for the period till there course finishes. It will provide interest subvention from the academic year 2009-10.

"The moratorium period also covers the time taken by the student to get a job, or one year, whichever comes first," the official said.

The scheme will be valid for all loans from scheduled banks for pursuing courses in professional and technical streams from recognised institutes in India.

"All eligible students who wish to avail the benefits should approach the respective bank branch from where they availed of the education loan and complete the necessary formalities, including obtaining the certification in respect of annual family income from the competent authority at the local level," the official said.

The individual student accounts will then be credited with the interest due on the loan for the academic year 2009-10 onwards, the official added.

The scheme is effective for all IBA-approved educational loans.

October 13, 2012

White House struggles to contain new Libya storm

Mitt Romney has accused Vice President Joe Biden of “doubling down on denial” as the White House struggled to combat a growing storm over the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

The latest exchanges battered an administration repeatedly thrown onto the defensive by the political reverberations of the attack on September 11 which killed U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

White House spokesman Jay Carney was forced Friday to clarify remarks by Biden who appeared to contradict evidence that U.S. officials refused extra security for US posts in Libya prior to the Benghazi assault.

“The vice president was speaking about himself and the president and the White House. Obviously he wasn’t talking (about) the administration writ large,” Carney said.

Biden said in his campaign debate on Thursday with Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan that “we weren't told they wanted more security.”

Republican nominee Romney pounced on those remarks as he sought to splinter Obama's reputation as a strong commander-in-chief, 25 days from election day.

“He’s doubling down on denial,” Romney said in Virginia.

“When the Vice President of the United States directly contradicts the testimony -- sworn testimony -- of State Department officials, American citizens have a right to know just what's going on.”

Carney said the vice president was aware of the testimony by U.S. security officials at a congressional hearing on Wednesday that extra protection for the posts had been requested and then denied.

“Nowhere in those four hours of testimony was it suggested that those requests were made essentially to the White House because that is not how this works,” Carney said.

The lack of a direct tie so far between Obama and the security situation at the Benghazi post gives the White House a plausible defense, but has not stopped fierce Republican efforts to make the president pay a political price.

Protection issues related to Libya diplomatic posts and elsewhere were dealt with in the appropriate place -- at the State Department -- and not at the White House, Carney said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland agreed that generally, such issues were handled inside the State Department.

“I obviously don’t have any information to contradict what the vice president said, if that’s what you’re asking,” she told reporters.

The latest developments would be a headache at any time for the White House, but are especially nettlesome given Obama's looming date with voters on November 6.

The Obama campaign hit back, again accusing Romney of politicizing a national security crisis, with spokeswoman Lis Smith saying “the American people deserve more from someone who wants to be Commander-in-Chief.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also rode into the fray Friday amid Republican claims the administration was too slow to brand the attack as terrorism and has frequently changed its story on what happened.

“To this day, to this day ... we do not have a complete picture, we do not have all the answers,” Clinton said.

She also defended U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who had said on the Sunday after the attack that it appeared to be a “spontaneous” protest over an anti-Muslim film made on U.S. soil and posted on YouTube.

Subsequent evidence have suggested there was no major protest outside the consulate, and that the plot was planned by local militants, possibly with help from several outside extremists.

Clinton said that Rice was acting on the same intelligence assessments that every other government official had at the time.

“We can only tell you what we know based on our most current understanding of the attack, and what led up to it. Obviously we will know more as time goes by. And we will know even more than we did hours and days after the attack.”

Two U.S. officials testified on Wednesday that requests for extra support for U.S. posts in Tripoli and Benghazi had been refused.

“It was abundantly clear: We were not going to get resources until the aftermath of an incident,” regional security officer Eric Nordstrom told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.

Nordstrom said he sought to bolster security by asking for 12 more agents, but was told by a State Department regional director that he was asking for the “sun, moon and the stars.”

Late Friday, The New York Times reported that in the weeks leading up to the killings of Stevens and the other Americans, U.S. diplomats in Libya indeed sent out a stream of diplomatic cables, warning of a worsening threat from Islamic extremists and requesting that the teams of military personnel and security guards who were already on duty be kept in service.

But the requests -- ultimately denied -- were largely focused on extending the tours of security guards at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, not at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, the paper said.http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/10/13/243468.html

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