Students from India will be included next year in a US scholarship programme that is currently available to Muslim students from Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Middle East and East Asia.
The State Department-funded scholarships provide for a year of study in American high schools under the Partnerships for Learning Youth Exchange and Study programme (P4L YES).
The US has this year provided scholarships to 424 Muslim high school students under the programme, which selects students from countries with significant Muslim populations, affording them the opportunity to live and study in the US for a full academic year.
The students would serve in future as cultural ambassadors for their own countries.
Those selected students live with families in the US and abide by the rules of the house including doing chores and abiding by curfew times, going on family vacations etc, the State Department said in one of its news bulletins.
"The American media only shows bombs and military forces, people fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they never show the beautiful places like heaven in Pakistan and Afghanistan.