Houston: Ten Indian origin students have been named as 'Truman Scholars', the scholarship offered by the prestigious Truman Foundation, for the year 2004.

The Indian students - Swati M Saini, Biren A Bhatt, Jacqueline Chattopadhyay, Swati Mylavarapu, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Sunita Arora, Maya A Babu, Anjali Garg, Ravi Gupta and Menaka Kalaskar - were selected from among 77 students from 67 US Colleges and Universities.

The winners of this $ 2,000 scholarship will be travelling to William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri for a week long leadership development programme and will accept their awards in a special ceremony at the Truman Library in Independence on May 23, 2004, according to a press release issued by the foundation.

Candidates for the scholarship underwent a rigorous five-month-long application process in which they submitted a policy proposal and detailed their career aspirations. A total of 77 scholars were selected from a national pool of 609 applicants representing 300 colleges and universities nationwide.

This year, each Truman scholar will receive a $ 2,000 scholarship for their senior year in college, in addition to a $ 24,000 scholarship for their graduate education, it said.

Winners for this coveted fellowship, instituted in the name of former US President Harry S Truman, were selected on the basis of their leadership potential and intellectual ability, it said.