For the first time since the British left and India became a free country, its judicial system is being questioned, with opposition and civil society groups accusing the pro-Hindu ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using the judiciary for its own political purposes.
On April 21, seven opposition parties led by Congress met Vice-President Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu and handed him a notice to impeach Chief Justice Dipak Misra, accusing him of misbehavior and abuse of authority.
“We have mentioned in our notice how the chief justice is choosing to send sensitive matters to particular benches by misusing his authority as master of the roster with the likely intent to influence the outcome,” Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters in New Delhi.
Rights activist Ravi Nair says the judiciary is facing a serious threat. “Never in the past has it been tested on its loyalty to the Indian constitution and its adherence to due process of law as it is being done now,” said the executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre.
Rights groups and opposition politicians claim the ruling BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, influences courts for favorable judgments in cases where BJP members and Hindu groups are accused.
Nair said in several cases where Hindus were accused of cow-related lynchings of Muslims “courts have failed to prosecute the killers speedily.”
Violence linked with cows, a revered animal in Hinduism, has claimed at least 25 lives since 2010, and 21 of them were Muslims, according to a recent report by IndiaSpend, a data website. Most were based on rumors of them transporting or storing beef.
Judges trigger crisis
The crisis in the judiciary intensified in January when four senior Supreme Court judges went public to accuse the chief justice of partisan conduct.
The immediate trigger for the rebellion was a case related to the death of B.H. Loya, a Mumbai-based judge who reportedly died of a heart attack in 2
American voters of different partisan stripes don’t agree on much nowadays, but they can agree on this: most of them approve of US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, CNN reported last week.
President Donald Trump’s choice of an Indian-American as ambassador to the United Nations may have been his best decision yet as it relates to his national security team. According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, results of which were announced April 25, Haley scores way above the other members of Trump’s cabinet, for her work as the international envoy at the world body.
A broad 63% of American voters approve of her job performance vs. only 17% who say they disapprove in a new Quinnipiac University poll. Twenty percent had no opinion. Her approval spans party lines: 75% of Republicans, 63% of independents and even 55% of Democrats say they approve of how she’s handling her job.
Her support among Democrats is virtually identical to the share of Democrats who approve of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (56%) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (55%) in the same poll.
From April 20 – 24, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,193 voters nationwide, with a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points, including the design effect. Live interviewers called landlines and cell phones to determine opinions, the press release said.
In other results of the poll, American voters approve 52 – 42 percent of the way President Donald Trump is handling the nation’s policy toward North Korea, and support 61 – 30 percent the military action against Syria after the alleged use of chemical weapons.
As for the work of Congress, American voters disapproved of both parties’ accomplishments — 69 disapproval to 22 percent of the job Republicans in Congress are doing and 66 – 26 percent of the job Democrats in were doing.
Mona Das, an Indian American mortgage broker, announced on April 17 that she is running for a seat in the Washington state Senate, aiming to unset a moderate Republican.
Mona Das, a Democrat, said that she is running in the state’s 47th Legislative District, to unseat incumbent Sen. Joe Fain. In an interview April 16 with The Seattle Times, Das said she dropped her Congressional bid earlier this year after facing steep odds in a crowded primary field. But during that campaign, people suggested she consider running against Fain, she said.
Mona Das is a small business owner who has seen the effects of unaffordable housing firsthand. She is joining thousands of others across America who are responding to the call to serve their communities by running for public office.
“I am honored and excited to be running for State Senate as a Democrat. Sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option. It’s time we come together to chart a course for our future that is powerful and inclusive,” Das stated.
Das accused her opponent of voting for big property tax increases, and voted against legislation that would bring taxes down. “As a small business owner who works with families buying their first home, I have seen first-hand how big property tax increases are distressing many in our communities, even as our schools struggle to make ends meet,” said Das on her campaign Web site electmona.com.
“We can make this economy work better and make government work better for families. We can do more to create jobs, ease traffic congestion and make housing affordable,” said the Bihar native, who emigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was just eight months old.
In an interview with India-West last September, Das said she woke up Nov. 9, 2016, feeling a great deal of despair. It was the morning after a hugely unexpected presidential win by Donald Trump.
“I knew immediately that everything that was important to me and my community was under attack,” she said, noting that she was inspired to run for political office by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, the first Indian American woman elected to the House.
“So many of our voices are not being represented; our votes are being under-represented,” said Das, adding: “When I saw Pramila’s poster, I thought: ‘it has taken this long for people who look like us to be represented at the national level.’”
The founder of Moxy Mortgage attended the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University in 2015, which sparked her dreams of running for elected office.
Das is endorsed by King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht. “No matter how tough times had been, the residents of this region are filled with hope that positive change is possible and that our elected leaders can hold themselves to a higher standard, said Johanknecht in a press statement.
“That they can truly represent us, and listen to us, and bring our ideas and challenges and yes, our hope, to the tables where decisions are made,” said Johanknecht. “I firmly believe that Mona Das has what it takes to deliver on that hope.”
Democrats currently have a one-seat edge in the Senate and a two-seat majority in the state House. Das and other Democrats are hoping for a national electoral wave that could extend down to local races to solidify their control of the Legislature, reported The Seattle Times.
Das serves on several boards that promote women entrepreneurship. She also serves on the board of Social Ignition, which promotes entrepreneurship for former inmates.
The world’s nuclear proliferation watchdog has welcomed the announcement by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to suspend its nuclear and missile tests and shut down its Punggye-ri atomic test site.
It added that the move should lead to a “sure, definite” and “irreversible” commitment to ban nuclear testing. “Saying is one thing, but until we have a signature and the ratification by the DPRK, to basically solidify the verbal commitment already to cease testing and close the nuclear test site, I think nothing can be for sure, definite, or irreversible,” Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the UN-partner Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), told the media at a news briefing in Geneva today. “I can only welcome and hope for best.”
He also highlighted that the upcoming talks between United States President Donald Trump and DPRK Kim Jong-Un could present a unique opportunity for a lasting contribution to world peace. “It might be through this negotiation […] that we open up a situation where the DPRK ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.”
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, bans all nuclear explosions, by everyone, everywhere. It has not yet entered into force despite having been opened for signature and ratification over 21 years ago.
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996, the CTBT is nearly universal with 183 signatures and 166 ratifications. But 44 specific nuclear-capable nations need to ratify the Treaty before it enters into force. Of these, eight – China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, DPRK, Pakistan and the US – are still missing. The last country of the 44 to ratify this treaty was Indonesia, on 6 February, 2012.
Since the Treaty is not yet in force, the CTBTO is officially called the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization.Go to Original – news.un.org
“ Many of the Colonial Nations that gained independence from their Colonial masters faltered because they failed to build Institutions. However, India under the leadership Nehru, built institutions that provided security, safety, and justice for all its citizens” said George Abraham, Vice-Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress. He was addressing the All India Congress Committee Plenary session which was held in New Delhi in March 2018.
“Today, these revered Institutions are under growing threat, and it is time for us to wake up and deal with it. Freedom of Conscience is fundamental to all freedoms. It is innate and God-given; nobody has any right to trample it” he was alluding to the growing attacks on people of faith and other minorities in the country. “The NRI community is indeed concerned about these and other issues plaguing the country, and we will work together with AICC to coordinate our actions while working as goodwill ambassadors in the U.S. to help to forge stronger ties” added Mr. Abraham.
Abraham also thanked Soniaji for inaugurating the Overseas Congress in 2001 and applauded the appointment of Mr. Sam Pitroda as the Chairman of the newly created ‘Overseas Congress Department’ under AICC.
“In the Western imagination, India conjures up everything from saris and spices to turbans and, temples—and the pulsating energy of Bollywood movies,” the prestigious Smithsonian Institute stated recently. “But in America, India’s contributions stretch far beyond these stereotypes. From the builders of some of America’s earliest railroads and farms to Civil Rights pioneers to digital technology entrepreneurs, Indian Americans have long been an inextricable part of American life. Today, one out of every 100 Americans, from Silicon Valley to Small town, USA, traces his or her roots to India. Breakthroughs in business, the arts, medicine, science, and technology, and the flavorful food, flamboyant fashion and yoga of India have become a central part of our national culture.”
In 1997, when I had landed in Milwaukee, WI to pursue my journalism degree, it was rare to find Indian Americans in the city. Today, everywhere I go, at work, shopping malls, sports arena, theaters, churches, schools where my 3 daughters attend, and in my neighborhood where I live, there is a growing number of Indian Americans. There has been an influx of Indian Americans across the nation, especially in the past couple of decades.
According to The Economist, “Three-quarters of the Indian-born population in America today arrived in the last 25 years.” The present Indian population can be explained from the nearly 147,000 immigrants that India provides to the country on a yearly basis, reported Huffington Post.
In the early 20th century just a few hundred people emigrated from India to America each year and there were only about 5,000 people of Indian heritage living in the United States. Today Indian-born Americans number over 3.8 million and they are probably the most successful minority group in the country. Compared with all other big foreign-born groups, they are younger, richer and more likely to be married and supremely well educated.
The modern immigration wave from Asia is nearly a half century old and has pushed the total population of Asian Americans—foreign born and U.S born, adults and children—to a record 18.2 million in 2011, or 5.8% of the total U.S. population, up from less than 1% in 1965.
Pew Research study has found, “Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are more satisfied than the general public with their lives, finances and the direction of the country, and they place more value than other Americans do on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success.”
Indians have always been rising in America. As James Crabtree of Financial Times suggests, “More than any other group of outsiders, it was the Indians who figured out that, to make it in startup land, it helps to have a social network of your own.”
The less than four million Indian Americans appear to be gaining prominence and have come to be recognized as a force to reckon with in this land of opportunities that they have come to call as their adopted homeland. They are the most educated population in the United States, with more than 80 percent holding college or advanced degrees, as per a report by Pew Research Center. They have the highest income levels, earning $65,000 per year with a median household income of $88,000, far higher than the U.S. household average of 49,000, according to the survey.
Although disparities persist with nearly nine percent of Indian Americans live in poverty, they have made a mark in almost every field in the United States through their hard work, dedication and brilliance. Notching successes in fields as diverse as poetry and politics, the fast growing strong Indian American community packed more power and influence far beyond their numbers in the year gone by.
“While the Indian-American community has been the wealthiest, most-educated minority in the U.S. for some time now, they’re only more recently experiencing wide-scale recognition in public life,” Forbes magazine stated.
Indian Americans are just one percent of the American population, but 3 percent of its engineers, 7 percent of its IT force, and 8 percent of its physicians and surgeons. Some 10-20 percent of all tech start-ups have Indian founders. Indeed, a joint Duke University-UC Berkeley study revealed that between 1995-2005, Indian immigrants founded more engineering and technology companies than immigrants from countries like UK, China, Taiwan and Japan combined. They have risen to the top ranks in major companies like Satya Nadella in Microsoft, Sundar Pichai in Google and Indra Nooyi in Pepsico.
Indians for decades have been playing an important role in global technology landscape. Indians, especially in Silicon Valley, are growing in prominence, influence, and sheer population. The fact that Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and Nikesh Arora lead some of the most prominent tech world giants is an example of their importance to the larger world and the significant contributions they continue to make.
Rajeev Suri is leading Nokia. Hyderabad-born Shantanu Narayen is the leader of Adobe, while Sanjay Jha ids the CEO of Global Foundries. George Kurian became the CEO and president of storage and data management company NetApp in June 2015. Francisco D’Souza is the CEO, Cognizant, and Dinesh Paliwal is the president and CEO of Harman International, and Ashok Vemuri is the CEO, Conduent Inc, the Xerox’s sibling business services. These are only a few of the success stories of Indians in the US, leading the tech industry in the US.
The surge in Indians moving to America was intimately linked to the rise of the technology industry. In the 1980s India loosened its rules on private colleges, leading to a large expansion in the pool of engineering and science graduates. Fear of the “Y2K” bug in the late 1990s served as a catalyst for them to engage with the global economy, with armies of Indian engineers working remotely from the subcontinent, or travelling to America on workers’ visas.
Today a quarter or more of the Indian-born workforce is employed in the tech industry. In the Silicon Valley neighborhoods such as Fremont and Cupertino, people of Indian origin make up a fifth of the population. Some 10-20% of all tech start-ups have Indian founders; Indians have ascended to the heights of the biggest firms, too.
If Indians are a powerful force in the tech sector, they have also begun to show their power in the political arena. There have been several Indian Americans who have been elected and appointed to important positions at national, state and local level offices.
A record five Indian-Americans serve in the US Congress, scripting history for the minority ethnic community that comprises just one per cent of America’s population. Congressmen Ami Bera, Raja
Photo by: Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx 4/14/16 Dr. Vivek Murthy (U.S. Surgeon General) at The National Action Network Conference. (NYC)
Krishnamoorthy, Ro Khanna and Pramila Jayapal have been elected to the US Congress while Kamla Harris represents California in the US Senate.
Kamala Harris, a rising star, the first Indian American and first black senator from California, the Huffington Post has suggested Harris could be “the next best hope for shattering that glass ceiling=,” by becoming the first female President of the greatest democracy in the world. Pundits have compared her rise to that of former President Obama.
Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a fast-rising Democratic star, has featured in the Politico magazine’s “Power List for the year 2018” for having assumed the mantle of a House “leader of the resistance.”
Over the past several months, there have been a number of articles in the national press, speculating whether former South Carolina Governor and the current US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley might consider a presidential run in 2020. Some say her efforts and clear leadership as governor and ambassador to the United Nations have put her in a strong position to possibly become this nation’s first female president.
In the most recent elections, Indian Americans made huge victories across the nation. Last November, Indian American politician Ravinder Bhalla made news by being the first Sikh mayor of the New Jersey city of Hoboken, as well as one of the first public officials in the US to wear a turban. The occupational profile presented by the Asian Indian community today is one of increasing diversity. Although a large number of Asian Indians are professionals, others own small businesses or are employed as semi- or nonskilled workers.
Forbes wrote recently about the new additions to the Trump administration: “two Indian Americans, Raj Shah and Manisha Singh, the latest instance of a relatively new, larger trend: the growing participation — and success — of Indian Americans in public service.”
Trump appointed Raj Shah principal deputy press secretary — who also continues to hold his post as deputy assistant to the president. US assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, Manisha Singh, 45, is a noted lawyer from Florida.
As the chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission, accomplished attorney Ajit Pai works on a wide variety of regulatory and transactional matters involving the cable, internet, TV, radio and satellite industries.
A respected legal scholar, Neomi Rao is the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the White House. Seema Verma is the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Vishal Amin is Trump’s intellectual property enforcement coordinator. Neil Chatterjee is chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
While several Indian Americans are now key players in pushing the Trump White House’s conservative agenda, the Indian-American community in general has long leaned left. Politically, they are more Democratic leaning than any other group as a whole in the nation. A whopping 84 per cent Indian-Americans voted for President Barack Obama in the general election in 2012. Compared with other US Asian groups, Indian Americans are the most likely to identify with the Democratic Party; 65 percent are Democrats or lean to the Democrats, 18 percent are Republicans.
In the Obama era, they were recognized by the Democratic Party with important jobs in Washington, DC as never been before. “It is very exciting to serve in an Administration that has so many great Indian-Americans serving,” said Raj Shah, former Administrator of USIAD, the highest ranking Indian-American in the Obama Administration.
In 2012, a record 30 Indian Americans fought to win electoral battle with Republican Nikki Haley and Democrat Kamala Harris handily winning back their jobs as South Carolina governor and California’s attorney general respectively. Amiresh ‘Ami’ Bera, the lone Indian American in the US House of Representatives, repeated history by winning a tight California House race.
Dr. Vivek Verma won an uphill battle against the powerful Gun Lobby and won the majority support at the US Senate. President Barack Obama appointed Richard Rahul Verma as the first envoy from the NRI community to India. Nisha Desai Biswal was heading the State Department’s South Asia bureau. Puneet Talwar took over as assistant secretary for political-military affairs to serve as a bridge between the State and Defense departments, while Arun Madhavan Kumar became assistant secretary of commerce and director general of the US and Foreign Commercial Service.
Subra Suresh was inducted into the Institute of Medicine (IOM), making him the only university president to be elected to all three national academies, while Sujit Choudhry, a noted expert in comparative constitutional law, became the first Indian American dean of the University of California-Berkeley, School of Law, a top US law school. Sriram Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe won the Scripps National Spelling Bee contest after 52 years and for just the fourth time in the contest’s history. Indira Nooyi, another person of Indian origin has been leading as the CEO of Pepsi, one of the largest corporations.
Former US attorney Preet Bharara made history by going after small and big law breakers in the nation. Among many judges of Indian origin, Sri Srinivasan stole the headlines with his unanimous support from the US Senate to the US Federal Court in DC.
In the glamor world of the nation, Indian Americans are not far behind. Aziz Ansari, the Master of None star won the Golden Globe this year for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy. Several others have found leading roles in the highly competitive Hollywood movies and on TV.
Priyanka Chopra has been voted the “Sexiest Asian Woman” in the world in an annual UK poll released in London last week. From splashes of red and black to purple velvet, with models that defied tradition both in size and age, Indian-American fashion designers showed their metal at the New York Fashion Week that was held in New York City in February this year. They included Bibhu Mohapatra, Prabal Gurung, Misha Kaura, Naeem Khan, Sachin & Babi, and the MacDuggal brand.
Like all immigrant groups, Indians have found niches in America’s vast economy. Half of all motels are owned by Indians, mainly Gujaratis. Punjabis dominate the franchises for 7-Eleven stores and Subway sandwiches.
Ten richest of all Indian Americans have made it to the Forbes List 2018, The World’s Billionaires on March 6th. The richest Indian American on the list is Rakesh Gangwal, the co-founder of the airline Indigo and is worth $3.3 billion, after he made an extra $1.2 billion in the past year. Romesh T. Wadhwani, an IT entrepreneur and philanthropist, closely follows him, with a net worth of $3.1 billion, who ended up topping the list last year. Forbes list this year has a record of 2,208 members including two new Indian Americans, Niraj Shah who is worth $1.6 billion and Jayshree Ullal who is worth $1.3 billion. Shah is the CEO and co-founder of Wayfair while Ullal is the CEO of Arista Networks.
Again, quoting Pew Research, Indian Americans are the highest-income and best-educated people in the United States and the third largest among Asian Americans who have surpassed Latinos as the fastest-growing racial group, according to a new survey. Seven-in-ten (70 percent) Indian Americans ages 25 and older, have obtained at least a bachelor’s degree; this is higher than the Asian-American share (49 percent) and much higher than the national share (28 percent), the survey found.
Indian Americans generally are well-off. Median annual household income for Indian Americans in 2010 was $88,000, much higher than for all Asian Americans ($66,000) and all U.S. households ($49,800). In 2010, 28% of Indian American worked in science and engineering fields; according to the 2013 American Community Survey, more than two-thirds (69.3%) of Indian Americans 16 and older were in management, business, science and arts occupations.
They are the largest segment of any group that entered the country under the H1-B visa program, which allow highly skilled foreign workers in designated “specialty occupations” to work in the U.S. In 2011, for example, 72,438 Indians received H1-B visas, 56% of all such visas granted that year.
Indian Americans have quietly permeated many segments of the American economy and society while still retaining their Indian culture. Most Asian Indian families strive to preserve traditional Indian values and transmit these to their children. Offsprings are encouraged to marry within the community and maintain their Indian heritage.
Indian Americans stand out from most other US Asian groups in the personal importance they place on parenting; 78 percent of Indian Americans say being a good parent is one of the most important things to them personally. Indian Americans are among the most likely to say that the strength of family ties is better in their country of origin (69 percent) than in the US (8 percent).
Nearly nine-in-ten (87 percent) adult Indian Americans in the United States are foreign born, compared with about 74 percent of adult Asian Americans and 16 percent of the adult US population overall. More than half of Indian-American adults are US citizens (56 percent), lower than the share among overall adult Asian population (70 percent) as well as the national share (91 percent).
More than three-quarters of Indian Americans (76 percent) speak English proficiently, compared with 63 percent of all Asian Americans and 90 percent of the US population overall. The median age of adult Indian Americans is 37, lower than for adult Asian Americans (41) and the national median (45).
Although over four fifths of Indians belong to Hindu religion in India, only about half (51%) of Indian Americans are Hindu, while nearly all Asian-American Hindus (93%) trace their heritage to India. 18% of Indian Americans identified themselves as Christians; 10% said they were Muslim.
More than seven-in-ten (71 percent) adult Indian Americans are married, a share significantly higher than for all Asian Americans (59 percent) and for the nation (51 percent). The share of unmarried mothers was much lower among Indian Americans (2.3 percent) than among all Asian Americans (15 percent) and the population overall (37 percent).
The first Asian Indians or Indian Americans, as they are also known, arrived in America as early as the middle of the nineteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, about 2,000 Indians, most of them Sikhs (a religious minority from India’s Punjab region), settled on the west coast of the United States, having come in search of economic opportunity. Other Asian Indians came as merchants and traders; many worked in lumber mills and logging camps in the western states of Oregon, Washington, and California, where they rented bunkhouses, acquired knowledge of English, and assumed Western dress.
Between 1910 and 1920, as agricultural work in California began to become more abundant and better paying, many Indian immigrants turned to the fields and orchards for employment. For many of the immigrants who had come from villages in rural India, farming was both familiar and preferable. Some Indians eventually settled permanently in the California valleys where they worked. Because there was virtually no immigration by Indian women during this time, it was not unheard of for Indian males to marry Mexican women and raise families.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, about 100 Indian students also studied in universities across America. A small group of Indian immigrants also came to America as political refugees from British rule. The immigration of Indians to America was tightly controlled by the American government during this time, and Indians applying for visas to travel to the United States were often rejected by U.S. diplomats in major Indian cities like Bombay and Calcutta. The Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL) was organized in 1907 to encourage the expulsion of Asian workers, including Indians.
In July 1946, Congress passed a bill allowing naturalization for Indians and, in 1957, the first Asian Indian Congressman, Dalip Saund, was elected to Congress. Like many early Indian immigrants, Saund came to the United States from Punjab and had worked in the fields and farms of California. He had also earned a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. While more educated and professional Indians began to enter America, immigration restrictions and tight quotas ensured that only small numbers of Indians entered the country prior to 1965. Overall, approximately 6,000 Asian Indians immigrated to the United States between 1947 and 1965.
From 1965 onward, a wave of Indian immigration began, spurred by a change in U.S. immigration law that lifted prior quotas and restrictions and allowed significant numbers of Asians to immigrate. Between 1965 and 1974, Indian immigration to the United States increased at a rate greater than that from almost any other country.
This wave of immigrants was very different from the earliest Indian immigrants—Indians that emigrated after 1965 were overwhelmingly urban, professional, and highly educated and quickly engaged in gainful employment in many U.S. cities. Many had prior exposure to Western society and education and their transition to the United States was therefore relatively smooth. More than 100,000 such professionals and their families entered the U.S. in the decade after 1965.
Almost 40 percent of all Indian immigrants who entered the United States in the decades after 1965 arrived on student or exchange visitor visas, in some cases with their spouses and dependents. Most of the students pursued graduate degrees in a variety of disciplines. They were often able to find promising jobs and prosper economically, and many became permanent residents and then citizens.
The 1990 U.S. census reported 570,000 Asian Indians in America. In general, the Asian Indian community has preferred to settle in the larger American cities rather than smaller towns, especially in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. This appears to be a reflection of both the availability of jobs in larger cities, and the personal preference of being a part of an urban, ethnically diverse environment, one which is evocative of the Indian cities that many of the post-1965 immigrants came from.
Indian Americans are more evenly spread out than other Asian Americans. About 24 percent of adult Indian Americans live in the West, compared with 47 percent of Asian Americans and 23 percent of the US population overall. More than three-in-ten (31 percent) Indian Americans live in the Northeast, 29 percent live in the South, and the rest (17 percent) live in the Midwest.
Despite their successes, they have been also subjected to discrimination and racist attacks. According to a recent report called “Communities on Fire” by the Washington, DC-based group South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), hate crimes against Indian Americans and other South Asian Americans surged 45% from November 8, 2016, to November 7, 2017. The group recorded 302 incidents during that period, 213 of them being direct physical or verbal assaults
The Indian American community continues to play an important role in shaping the relationship between India, the largest democracy and the US, the greatest democracy in the world. “The model minority stereotype stems from the “non-threatening nature” of the Indian immigrant — a label bestowed by the white counterpart. The Indian American community is seen as “successful” – a prototype to be followed by fellow minorities,” Huffington Post wrote.
“Indian-Americans are tremendously important and we hope they would be increasingly visible not only in the government, but also in all parts of American life,” said Maya Kassandra Soetoro-Ng, maternal half-sister of Obama, adding that the President was very proud of the community. “It is certainly a reflection of how important India is and how important Indian-Americans are to the fabric of the nation. I would just like to celebrate all of the contribution artistic, political and so much more of the community. It is time we come to recognize fully the contribution of the Indian-American community here,” said Maya.
Arizona’s 8th congressional district hasn’t had a U.S. representative since December – but that will change after an April special election. Republican Debbie Lesko, a former state lawmaker, is facing off with Democrat Dr. Hiral Tipirneni, a cancer research advocate, to represent the district. The seat was left empty after Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican, resigned in disgrace on Dec. 8, 2017, following reports of sexual misconduct. Franks reportedly discussed surrogacy issues with female aides. The special election, will be held on April 24th.
A recent poll of district voters by Emerson College shows Tipirneni leading Lesko by a 46-45 margin, according to a NYmag.com report. Previous polls of the race had Lesko leading by double digits, it said.
A former emergency room physician, Dr. Hiral Tipirneni has dedicated her career to cancer research after the death of her mother and nephew. And it’s the skills she developed as a doctor – working together with a group of diverse people with different perspectives to help patients – that she wants to take to Washington.
Tipirneni knows that she is running as a Democrat in a conservative district, but she doesn’t dwell on that. For her, it’s not about a political party so much as it is about representing the district.
“One of the big reasons I decided to run is I’m so frustrated by the lack of forward progress, divisiveness and standing solely on a partisan [ground],” Tipirneni told Fox News.
“I’m looking to bring people together to the table to have a conversation,” she continued. “A lot of folks feel alienated. I would fight on their behalf and not fight about ideology.”
Her campaign website pushes for more bipartisan solutions to hot-button issues. For example, on the Second Amendment, Tipirneni says she supports the rights of “law-abiding Americans to obtain firearms through legal channels to protect their homes, themselves and their families, and for hunting and sport.” But she also supports “commonsense gun reform,” such as eliminating certain background check loopholes.
The top of the Second Amendment section on Tipirneni’s site declares: “When progressives and conservatives work together, we can accomplish great things.”
While Tipirneni has volunteered on other campaigns, this is her first foray into politics. She said she isn’t “looking to build [her] political resume” but just wants to help those in her district.
“The reason I’m doing this is because I am a constituent as well in this district, and I’ve spent many years frustrated, feeling that I don’t have a voice in D.C.,” she said.
Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval announced his addition to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)’s Red to Blue list March 22, according to a press release.
As the first Democratic Hamilton County Clerk of Courts in over 100 years, Pureval faces a tough road ahead against Steve Chabot (R-OH), the current representative of Ohio’s 1st Congressional District. The Republican incumbent has represented the district since 2011, having previously done so between 1995 and 2009.
The DCCC, which targets highly competitive campaigns, chose 33 races nationwide to prioritize this election cycle. Pureval is the only candidate in Ohio to be added to the committee’s list.
As a result, the DCCC will provide resources for Pureval, including fundraising support and assistance in recruiting staff and volunteers for his campaign.
Following his candidacy announcement in January, Pureval captured the committee’s attention after mobilizing a sizable grassroots fundraising effort. The DCCC added him to their list of “Candidates Leading the Charge” in February, recognizing his former work as an antitrust litigator for the international law firm White & Case LLP.
Pureval later moved back to Hamilton Country, where he worked as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Department of Justice. He then became an in-house counsel at the Cincinnati-based consumer good corporation Proctor & Gamble.
As part of Pureval’s platform, he reiterates his commitment to “defending women who have been hurt and abused and fight for equality for all.” Economically, he plans to “take on patronage, government waste and save taxpayers money.”
Additionally, Pureval voiced his intent to protect Social Security and work on rebuilding the Western Hills Viaduct to create more job opportunities.
Chabot, his opponent, is also committed to revitalizing the economy, controlling government spending and protecting Social Security. Chabot’s specific interests include health care reformation and expanding veterans’ aid.
Though many Democrats are hopeful that Pureval will emerge victorious on Election Day, Chabot has proven his ability to be re-elected for decades, having secured nearly 60 percent of the vote in the 2016 election.
Like most political races, there has been some tension between the two frontrunners. Chabot’s campaign spokesman criticized Pureval’s residence, saying he “lives in a $400,000 mansion in Hyde Park, which isn’t even in the district,” USA Today reported. By contrast, Chabot lives in Westwood on the west side of Cincinnati.
The Hamilton County auditor listed Pureval’s 2,277 square-foot home at $414,250 in 2015. Chabot’s 3,078 square-foot home, by comparison, was estimated at $111,280.
“Steve Chabot and Donald Trump have pursued a reckless agenda to throw millions of Americans off health care and add 1.5 trillion to the deficit,” Pureval said of Chabot in a press release. The statement suggests ties between the president and Chabot, whom Pureval said supported Trump’s efforts in legislature.
Though Pureval’s campaign has picked up steam in recent months, the road ahead is far from ending. Before Chabot and Pureval can go head-to-head, Pureval must win the upcoming Democratic primary on May 8.
Pureval, 35-year-old son of an India-born father and Tibet-born mother, made a name for himself in 2016 when he pulled off a surprising upset in Hamilton County, winning the county’s clerk of courts seat. The Indian American officially announced his plan to run for Congress Jan. 31 at Avondale, the Ohio-based urban agriculture nonprofit Gabriel’s Place.
The incumbent Chabot, 65, has served as the 1st Congressional District representative for 20 years. He was first elected in 1994 and was unseated in 2008 but won the seat back in 2010 thanks to redistricting which put GOP-leaning Warren County into the 1st District.
Pureval said at his campaign launching announcement that he intends to paint Chabot as a rubber stamp for President Donald Trump, according to a WVXU.org report.
The Ohio-born Pureval earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Ohio State University. During his time at OSU, he served as student body president. Later, Pureval earned his law degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Law.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley fired back last week against a Trump administration official who said she was suffering from “momentary confusion” when she announced new sanctions against Russia were imminent, saying, “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”
A striking intra-administration quarrel splayed out in public when National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told reporters during a briefing in Florida that Haley “got ahead of the curve” when she said the U.S. would be slapping new sanctions on Russia on Monday in retaliation for the country’s support for Syria’s Assad government after its latest suspected chemical attack.
Kudlow said additional sanctions are under consideration but have yet to be implemented and said of Haley: “There might have been some momentary confusion about that.”
The feud appeared to quiet down after the economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, called the Indian American diplomat to apologize April 17 afternoon, a White House official said. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.
Haley had said, the U.S. would be slapping new sanctions on Russia April 16 in retaliation for the country’s support for Syria’s Assad government after its latest suspected chemical attack.
Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, said additional sanctions are under consideration but have yet to be implemented. Of Haley, he said, “There might have been some momentary confusion about that.” Haley then issued a terse statement to Fox News: “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”
The White House had been struggling to explain Haley’s remarks amid reports that President Donald Trump put the brakes on the new sanctions. Several administration officials have disputed that characterization, saying Haley was out of the loop. Three senior administration officials said there were several attempts to get Haley to back off or clarify her comments, but she refused.
The officials said that, under the plan conceived last week, the sanctions would have been announced April 13, at the same time U.S., French, and British forces launched a missile strike on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons facilities. But the sanctions were not ready in time for Trump’s statement, so they were delayed.
The officials said a decision was then made to announce the sanctions as an answer to Russia’s response to the strikes. But that plan was re-evaluated and then put on hold over the weekend as it became clear that Russia’s response was less robust than anticipated. The officials were not authorized to discuss private administration deliberations publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
A National Security Council memorandum sent overnight April 13 said the new sanctions would be announced soon, but it did not specify a date. Over the next 36 hours, officials began to delve deeper into the proposed sanctions and decided to hold off on anything imminent, but Haley was unaware, the officials said.
On April 16, a new memo went out from the NSC saying that additional sanctions were under consideration, but no decision had been made. In the face of Haley’s refusal to clarify her April 15 remarks, draft language was sent to her suggesting again that she do so, the officials said.
Haley and her office ignored that, so the White House decided to push back, the officials said. The New York Times reports that Trump was annoyed with Haley for getting out in front of the policy, according to a White House official, and the president’s decision to reject sanctions left her hanging in public with her credibility on the line.
Haley has been one of the strongest critics in the administration of Russia’s behavior around the world, often speaking far more harshly than Trump would, but she has rarely been reined in publicly this way, reported the Times.
Trump has grown suspicious of her ambition, convinced that she had been angling for former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s position and increasingly wondering whether she wants his own job,” the Times noted April 17, adding, ”Republicans close to the White House whisper about the prospect of an alliance between Haley and Vice President Mike Pence, possibly to run as a ticket in 2020.”
Months away from the next round of national elections to the US Congress and many state level elections, a political action committee is focusing on the potential Indian American candidates, who could possibly win elections across the nation.
In a bid to expand and increase the potential number of Indian-Americans in local and state offices around the country, the Indian-American Impact Fund, which is tracking more than 80 Indian-Americans running for office in 2018, announced April 19, it was backing another round of state and local candidates for the Nov. 6 general elections.
“From coast to coast, Indian Americans are stepping up to run for office and serve their fellow Americans,” Deepak Raj, co-founder of Impact Project, and chair of the Impact Fund is quoted saying in the press release. “These five candidates represent the breadth and depth of talent in our community, and Impact Fund is proud to stand with them.”
The latest round of endorsements includes Josh Kaul, a former federal prosecutor running for Wisconsin Attorney General, whose campaign focuses on addressing the opioid epidemic, ending the backlog of untested rape kits, protecting Wisconsin families from consumer fraud and polluters; Padma Kuppa, an engineer, mother, and activist, running for Michigan State House from District 41, who has garnered significant support from local elected officials in a district with a large Indian-American population where the most spoken minority language is Telugu, her mother tongue, notes Impact Fund.
The other three candidates endorsed are, Samir Paul for Maryland House of Delegates, from District 16, a Harvard graduate, working at IBM and for the 2012 Obama re-election campaign, listed as Montgomery County’s 2016 Rising Star Teacher of the Year; Ashwani Jain for Montgomery County (Maryland) Council, At-Large. The son of small business owners, 15 year cancer survivor, and alum of the Obama White House, Jain is positioned to be the youngest person, the first Asian American, and first Indian American to ever serve on the Council if elected; and Susheela Jayapal, an attorney running for Multnomah County (Oregon) Commission, from District 2. A community advocate for more than 15 years, Jayapal previously served as General Counsel of Adidas America, and in the government, as well as provided free legal services to people seeking asylum, the Impact Fund said.
“As a former state legislator, I know firsthand that state and local elected officials can have a powerful impact on the lives of their constituents,” Raj Goyle, co-founder of Impact and a former member of the Kansas House of Representatives, is quoted saying in the press release. “Supporting talented down-ballot candidates like these doesn’t just lead to good policy; it’s also good politics. This is how we build a bench of future national leaders.”
President Donald Trump has continued with the India policy of his predecessor Barack Obama and the support for the Indo-US relationship transcends political parties here, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, an influential Indian-American lawmaker has said.
“I think that his India policy so far has been somewhat of a continuation of what President Barack Obama did and, before President Obama, what President Bush had done,” Democratic Congressman, a vocal critic of the foreign policy of Trump, said.
At a time when several issues beset the U.S.-India relationship, including the H-1B visa and trade matters, Rep. Krishnamoorthi, D-Illinois, says he will work with U.S. lawmakers to ensure the bilateral relationship is strengthened.
He issued a statement to that effect following on his April 6th meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi where he said he discussed the special relationship between the United States and India.
The formal talks were conducted as part of a high-level delegation of American Congressional leaders meeting with their Indian counterparts to discuss trade, strategic partnerships, and security coordination, which his office told News India Times, was hosted by India’s External Affairs Ministry. The other lawmakers in the bipartisan U.S. delegation included another Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera, D-California, as well as Reps. Dave Schweikert, R- Arizona, Tom Suozzi, D-NY, Terri Sewell, D -AL, Dina Titus, D – NV, Drew Ferguson, R – GA, and Pete Olson, R-TX.
“I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in Congress to ensure that the United States and India are able to continue their partnership on peace and security in an uncertain world,” Krishnamoorthi is quoted saying in a press release. Calling it an honor to meet Modi to discuss the further strengthening of the “special relationship,” Krishnamoorthi described India as the “linchpin of security” in the Indo-Pacific region, which the Trump administration has made one of its foreign policy priorities.
“This week’s talks have been instrumental in ensuring that the United States and India continue to build on our security partnerships and promote peace and stability in the region and across the world,” Krishnamoorthi said about the discussions held with counterparts and officials. “The meeting with the Prime Minister only underscored that at the heart of our friendship with India are the values that we share: a commitment to freedom, democracy, and the rule of law,” the Congressman said.
“US-India relationship is a special partnership, so we have to do everything we can to enhance this partnership and to make sure that the great progress that we’ve already seen continues and that it remains mutually beneficial to both countries. I personally believe that it will continue to do so,” he told PTI.
Krishnamoorthi said he had a wide ranging talk with the prime minister.
“It was a formal meeting where we talked everything from, ‘How do we strengthen our relationship between the US and India’ to the fact that the relationship really transcends political parties at this point, really, on both sides, but especially here in the US,” he said on his return from his maiden India trip as a US lawmaker.
New Delhi-born Krishnamoorthi, 44, this year was sworn in as a member of the US House of Representatives.
“I think that both Republic and Democratic administrations have now successfully continued to build the relationship across a range of sectors,” he said.
“Everything from our security partnership to expanding commercial ties, to bolstering our cultural exchanges and so forth. That’s a very positive development, and I told him that I was committed to doing everything I could to continue that work in the US Congress,” he said.
“I also mentioned to him (prime minister Modi) that the relationship is broadening, deepening, and growing across a number of areas and, just as India is keen to attract US investment, we in the United States are very keen to attract Indian investment, especially in places like my own fine congressional district in the Chicago area,” Krishnamoorthi said.
In the year since the 2016 presidential election, one in five perpetrators of hate violence in the United States against various South Asian and Middle Eastern communities invoked President Donald Trump’s name, his administration’s policies or his campaign slogan during the attacks, a new report found.
The nonprofit group South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) released the report last week, which detailed increasing instances of hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric from Election Day 2016 to Election Day 2017. The group documented more than 300 reported incidents targeting South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern and Arab communities during that period.
“It’s heartbreaking.” Suman Raghunathan, executive director of SAALT, told HuffPost. “When you have people literally saying or leveraging the ‘Make America Great Again’ campaign slogan as they are violently assaulting our community members ― that for me draws a direct connection in a way that could not be clearer.”
SAALT documented 213 incidents of hate violence ― a more than 45 percent increase compared to the year leading up to the 2016 presidential election. The levels of violence mirror those seen the year after the 9/11 attacks, with 82 percent of the hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric now motivated by Islamophobia, the group said.
“The 2016 United States presidential election cycle and ultimately the inauguration of President Donald Trump amplified a wave of hate violence against South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab communities to heights not seen since the year after the attacks of September 11, 2001,” it said.
The report noted that “Islamophobia and hate violence in the United States predate the September 11th era and have continued to escalate since.” It also said that “the dramatic surge in rhetoric rooted in anti-Black, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant sentiment in 2016 and 2017 has fueled a palpable and unparalleled atmosphere of hate and suspicion.”
The report said that Trump’s first year in office built on the “already disturbing surge in hate violence” documented in SAALT’s 2017 report “Power, Pain, Potential.” That report had documented 207 incidents of hate violence and xenophobic rhetoric aimed at South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab communities during the 2016 election cycle from Nov. 1, 2015 to Election Day on Nov. 8,2016.
SAALT’s most recent report covers the period Nov. 9, 2016 to Nov. 7, 2017. In the first year after the presidential election, SAALT documented 302 incidents and hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric, “aimed at our communities.” SAALT said it was an increase of more than 45 percent from its previous analysis.
SAALT said violence against South Asian communities “is informed by the stated and implicit goals of the current administration, and is also the product of the longstanding and systemic injustice that underpins many of our nation’s systems and institutions.”
The report was funded by the Ford Foundation, Four Freedoms Fund, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, NOVO Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Proteus Fund, and the Voqal Fund.
There is a direct relationship between the advancement of a political agenda and the rise of hate and bigotry in America, according to Sen. Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, who keynoted a Capitol Hill briefing hosted by South Asians Leading Together (SAALT). The March 22 briefing coincided with the civil rights organization’s release of a report on hate violence.
“We see a rise of nationalism -good people who will go towards a nationalist candidate or government that says it’s our time and try to grow a moat” around people seen as “the other” in the country, he said. Cardin said this had alarming consequences because it gives political strength to policies that encourage bigotry and hate. He said a strong rise of anti-immigrant fervor and “the politics of that” becomes increasingly challenging. “We see the rise of violent acts and the number of crimes that are committed based upon hate,” he said.
The Maryland lawmaker said that for the first time since World War II governments contain elements that pursue these policies. And while hate crimes have occurred in the past, he said “we’ve never seen political support for policies that support” these kinds of hate and bigotry. “We are now seeing leaders of democratic countries that run on a nationalistic platform that encourage these activities. So, this is extremely alarming and very serious.”
Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), one of the congressional cosponsors of the SAALT Capitol Hill briefing, stressed the importance of holding elected officials and equality for all,” said Suman Raghunathan, executive director of SAALT.
Raghunathan led a panel discussion that included Sim J. Singh, national advocacy manager of The Sikh Coalition; Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute; Becky Monroe, director of the Stop Hate Project, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights; and Darakshan Raja, co-founder of Justice for Muslims Collective. She said “our nation has now become a melting pot of hate stirred by a raft of divisive and destructive policies and political rhetoric” and this was a critical moment. “The White House bully pulpit has had a devastating impact, sometimes with fatal consequences to our communities,” she said.
A new legislation to combat a widespread telephone scam that has adversely affected the Indian American community has been signed into law, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens, NY) who introduced the Bill, has announced.
The legislation would crack down on criminals who engage in spoofing, a scheme in which criminals disguise their caller ID to make it appear that they’re calling from a financial institution, police department or government agency, especially the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), falsely claiming to victims that they are from one of these official entities and end up stealing their money by convincing them to wire cash or provide bank account or personal information, according to a press release.
The legislation would make spoofing attempts from abroad a criminal act since currently it is not against the law to defraud Americans through calls from outside the U.S.
Her measure would also expand spoofing protections to cover text messaging and internet-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services that enable individuals to make calls from computers and tablets.
“Spoofing has been one of the fastest growing forms of fraud in America, but the enactment of my Anti-Spoofing Act will provide new and critical tools to stop those who perpetrate this deceitful and malicious crime. Finally, we can fight back against these unconscionable thieves who for too long have preyed on unwitting consumers including the most vulnerable in our society such as immigrants and the elderly,” said Meng, in a statement.
“Enactment of this legislation has been a long time coming. Spoofing is an issue that I began to tackle during my first term in Congress. My bill passed the House several times but the Senate refused to act. I kept up the fight though and continuously pushed for this legislation to become law. I thank Reps. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Leonard Lance (R-NJ) who, from the beginning, partnered with me on this measure, and I thank everybody who supported this bipartisan and common-sense effort. I am proud to have championed this legislation and I’m extremely pleased that it is now the law of the land,” she added.
In addition, the legislation would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to regularly update education materials that help consumers identify and protect themselves from caller ID scams.
Meng first sponsored anti-spoofing legislation after receiving spoofing complaints from local seniors and the “Communities of Maspeth and Elmhurst Together (COMET),” a civic organization in her district in Queens, New York.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott met with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, in New Delhi, March 28. During the meeting, Governor Abbott thanked the Prime Minister for his hospitality and spoke on the importance of continuing to grow Texas-India relations both economically and culturally. This marks the first time the Prime Minister has met with a United States Governor, according to a press release from the governor’s office.
“Texas is continuing to grow relations with India both economically & culturally. A productive meeting today in New Delhi with Prime Minister @narendramodi,” Gov. Abbott tweeted a few hours after the meeting. According to the Governor’s office, Texas is 2nd among all U.S. states for exports to India with exports valued at nearly $3.4 billion in 2017.
“I am extremely grateful to Prime Minister Modi for welcoming me to his country and for the opportunity to discuss the meaningful relationship between Texas and India,” Abbott is quoted saying in the release. “While Texas and India have long maintained an important economic relationship, this trip has also highlighted our commonly shared values of family, faith, community and hard work. These are the bonds that we will continue to build on, and I look forward to growing this partnership even more after this successful trip,” the Governor added.
The meeting which took place at the Prime Minister’s residence, lasted more than an hour. Among the topics the two leaders discussed were Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, the Indian-American community in Texas, healthcare, defense, their respective economies, and energy. The The Governor talked about how productive his trip has been and the potential it will have in creating more jobs and investment for the people of Texas.
The Governor and Prime Minister spoke on how they can continue to strengthen the strong bond between Texas and India and reaffirmed their commitment to continuing the successful partnership, the press release said.
The Governor also met with India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu the same day. “Texas is working to establish a direct flight from Texas to India,” and the meeting was held to further that goal, the Governor’s Facebook page said. The two also discussed mutually beneficial trade.
On March 26, while in Mumbai, Gov. Abbott closed a deal with JSW Steel to expand its operations in Baytown, Texas, that the governor’s office said, will create 500 new jobs and expand economic growth in Texas.
“The Memorandum signed by Greg Abbott and JSW USA is part of our long term strategy to enhance our U.S. footprint,” Parth Jindal of JSW Group is quoted saying in a press release. “It reiterates our commitment to stay invested and grow in the U.S. market. It also provides JSW USA an opportunity to participate in USA’s infrastructure development and job creation priorities,” Jindal added. “Access to natural gas at extremely economical prices and the abundant availability of scrap steel in Texas make conditions very conducive for manufacturing through the Electric Arc Furnace route,” Jindal said.
Earlier, on March 25, Gov. Abbott addressed the Rotary Club of Bombay, touting the Texas economy and the importance of strengthening the bond between India and Texas.
Governor Abbott also emphasized the importance of trade with India, noting that Texas is the 2nd largest exporter to India in the U.S., and the 4th largest importer of Indian goods in the U.S., a press release from his office said.
“It’s not just the exchange of goods that connects the people of India and Texas,” Abbott is quoted saying at the Rotary meeting. “The values that we share are founded on family, faith, commitment to our communities, and hard work.”
Following his address, the Governor participated in a question and answer session with members of the Rotary Club of Bombay which is one of the oldest rotaries in India founded in 1929.
Dallas News, which accompanied the Governor and his delegation to India, reported Abbott has 15 Texans in his delegation, including “some Indian American businessmen who have flown to India at their own expense to accompany him for part of his nine-day jaunt.”
The governor also visited the headquarters of the multinational Mahindra & Mahindra in south Mumbai, where he praised the company and its operations in Texas. Mahindra North America. donated $1.5 million in cash and kind after the disastrous Hurricane Harvey last September, according to Dallas News. “That shows us that you’re more than just a business operating in Texas. You are a genuine part of our community,” the Governor is quoted saying in the Dallas News report. He also praised Indian immigrants in Texas, describing them as “very productive, very hard-working, very committed to the ideals that … underlie both America and the American dream,” the news report stated.
“I am really very concerned. I think we are coming to a situation that is similar, to a large extent, to what we lived during the Cold War but with two very important differences,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in response to questions by reporters on the US announcement to expel Russian UN diplomats and could a new Cold War be developing.
UN chief expressed his concerns of the world heading to a time reminiscent of the Cold war era in the wake of the tensions between US and Russia and called for putting precautions in place to guarantee effective communication and prevent escalation.
His comments came after the Trump administration this week ordered the expulsion of 60 Russians from the US over the alleged poisoning of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK on March 4.
Of the 60 expelled, 12 are intelligence operatives from the Russian Mission to the UN who have been accused of abusing their privilege of residence in the United States. Guterres said in the Cold War, there were clearly two superpowers with a complete control of the situation of two areas in the world.
“Now, we have many other actors that are relatively independent and with an important role in many of the conflicts that we are witnessing, with risks of escalation that are well known,” he said.
He pointed out that during the Cold War, there were mechanisms of communication and control in place to avoid the escalation of incidents and to make sure that things would not get out of control when tensions would rise.
But with those mechanisms now dismantlement, it is time “for precautions of this sort, guaranteeing effective communication, guaranteeing capacity to prevent escalation. I do believe that mechanisms of this sort are necessary again.” On how optimistic is he over the summit between South Korea and North Korea, the Secretary General said he is “very encouraged” by the announcement of the inter-Korean summit.
He said he is “very happy” that it was possible in the visit to North Korea by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman for the UN to make very clearly the case that a resumption of dialogues between the North and the South of the Peninsula was needed to reach the peaceful denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
The UN chief had met in PyeongChang both the North Korean delegation and as well as South Korean President Moon Jae In and had encouraged them as much as possible to move in these two directions.
“I was extremely encouraged by the recent visit of the leader of the North Korea to China, and I think China is, of course, a very important contributor to a solution in this region,” he said referring to the surprise visit by Kim Jong-un to Beijing this week.
“I believe that, in this world where, unfortunately, so many problems seem not to have a solution, I think there is here an opportunity for a peaceful solution to something that, a few months ago, was haunting us as the biggest danger we were facing,” he said, a reference to the escalation of tensions over North Korea’s nuclear programme.
There are several hopefuls who want to beat Trump in the next presidential elections, but one of the leading candidates is none other than, a first-term U.S. Senator from California, considered a rising star, hoping to lead the party in the 2020 presidential race. The newly-minted California senator is avoiding any talk about her future ambitions. But her history-making Senate bid — she’s the first Indian American and first black senator from California — and the state’s size and massive Democratic dominance makes her appealing, CNN commented last month.
She is Kamala Harris who, according to her Senate bio, “was the first African-American and first woman to serve as Attorney General of California and the second African-American woman to be elected to the United States Senate in history.”
And in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s failure to become the first female president, the Huffington Post has suggested Harris could be “the next best hope for shattering that glass ceiling.” Both outlets compared her rise to that of former President Obama who also ran with just one Senate term under his belt.
Kamala Harris, the first Indian-American to be elected to the US Senate, is a potential Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 elections, Washington Post, a leading American newspaper stated last week. Harris, 51, whose mother was from Chennai and father from Jamaica, is one among the six Democratic leaders, whom The Washington Post said are the top contenders to bag the party’s nomination for the 2020 presidential elections.
Interestingly four of these are women. The other three being outgoing First Lady Michelle Obama, Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York. Other two potential Democratic presidential candidates according to the US daily are Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey and Governor John Hickenlooper from Colorado.
“Harris will not officially become a US senator from California for more than a month, but she is already regarded as national-candidate material in four years,” Washington Post columnist Chris Cillizza had written in his article last year.
“It is not hard to see why. She is the first African American woman elected to the Senate since Carol Moseley Braun in 1992. Harris also represents the largest and most Democratic state in the country, a huge financial launchpad to a presidential bid,” he said, noting that through mid-October, she had raised more than $13 million for her Senate candidacy.
“Her law-and-order background – she was elected and reelected attorney general in California – also will appeal to many Democrats. Whether Harris wants to – or will be ready to run for national office so soon after being elected to the Senate remains to be seen,” Cillizza said.
Harris is a two-term popular Attorney General of California. She was elected to the United States Senate from California in a landslide. She was endorsed by outgoing US President Barack Obama, in her Senate race.
“No matter how many people said I couldn’t do it, I won my races for District Attorney and Attorney General,” Harris said. “I’m a fighter – I’ve fought for the people of California, especially those most in need. This campaign for Senate has ended, but the work is just beginning. And now I’m ready to take that fight to Washington.” For now, Senator-elect Kamala Harris will take the oath of office as the US Senator representing California on January 3, 2017.
There are over two years and the 2020 presidential election. But, with Donald Trump in the White House, Democratic politicians are already eagerly jockeying for position with the expectation that the party’s nominee will have a very good chance of ousting the incumbent — if his poll numbers stay anywhere as low as they are at the moment.
While she has denied interest in running in 2020, she appears to making the moves that a potential candidate would, including speaking to key groups and on high-profile panels, fundraising for fellow Democrats, and connecting with journalists.
As Democratic political adviser Bob Shrum told the news outlet, “From everything I’ve seen of her she’d be an attractive candidate, she could be a compelling candidate, and I think she’d have a lot of appeal for primary voters.” Others have agreed, with the Washington Post calling her “formidable” due to her “California fundraising and activist base coupled with her historic status in the party…”
Even if she decides to join the race in 2020, she may have some tough competition for the Democratic nomination in the form of former Vice President Joe Biden, Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Andrew Cuomo, a two-term governor of New York with a record of liberal accomplishments and a famous last name.
However, when the Los Angeles Times‘ Patt Morrison asked her about running for the top job a few months ago, Harris deflected the question, saying, “I don’t know why my name is in that context. I’m focused on being the junior senator from California and very proud to be representing our beautiful state.”
Over the past several months, there have been a number of articles in the national press, including The New York Times and Newsweek, speculating whether former South Carolina Governor and the current US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley might consider a presidential run in 2020. Some say her efforts and clear leadership as governor and ambassador to the United Nations have put her in a strong position to possibly become this nation’s first female president.
“Nikki Haley may end up as our first female president,” Fox News’ strategic analyst Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters recently commended current U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Haley is definitely solidifying her foreign-policy resume and is earning a reputation as a tough ambassador. Newsweek even pointed out that Haley has had a higher profile than even Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, especially earlier in the administration.
Also, the recently-released book penned by Michael Wolff, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which was released on January 5th, claims that Nikki Haley is considering a presidential run. The Indian American aspiring leader and ambassador had no response publicly to the book.
Haley, in her time since taking over her new post, to which she was appointed by Trump, has emerged as a close confident of Trump and has been strongly pushing for Trump’s foreign policy agenda at the United Nations, attracting frequent praise from Trump himself.
However, the book portrays Haley in somewhat of a negative light saying that she has presidential ambitions and does not have a good view of Trump. “By October, however, many on the president’s staff took particular notice of one of the few remaining Trump opportunists: Nikki Haley, the U.N. ambassador,” the book said.
“I work with the president and speak with him multiple times a week; this is a man, he didn’t become the president by accident,” Haley was quoted to have said. “We need to be realistic at the fact that every person, regardless of race, religion, or party, who loves the country, should support this president. It’s that important.”
Entering American politics in 2004, Ambassador Haley assumed office as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from the 87th district and was elected chair of freshman caucus and majority whip in the South Carolina General Assembly. She was successfully re-elected in 2006 and 2008.
Being a Republican, Ambassador Haley holds on to the fiscally conservative viewpoint on taxation, which advocates for lower taxes and deregulation of the economy. Being a daughter of Sikh immigrants, she believes immigration laws should be enforced thereby ensuring that immigrants follow legal procedures, which led her to support legislative reforms to address issues of illegal immigration. As a pro-life advocate, she voted for the Penalties for Harming an Unborn Child/Fetus law in 2006 and supported the Pre-Abortion Ultrasound law in 2007.
Ambassador Haley was elected governor of South Carolina in 2010; her election made her the second Indian-American, the first woman and youngest person in U.S. history to serve as governor in the United States. Haley said, “it was a shock to the people of South Carolina. One, I was the first minority [elected in South Carolina]. Two, I was the youngest governor in the country. And three, oh my God she’s a girl.”
In June 2015 her empathetic response to the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina states grounds after the Charleston Massacre, garnered her praise during her governorship. “What I realized now more than ever is people were driving by and felt hurt and pain. No one should feel pain,” said Haley.
Though her governorship of South Carolina is surely commendable, she has flourished in her new role as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, despite criticisms of her lack of experience in foreign relations and diplomacy. In November 2016, president-elect Donald Trump recommended the former governor as a “proven dealmaker,” adding that “we look forward to making plenty of deals and she will be a great leader representing us on the world stage.”
Even though Ambassador Haley supports President Trump today, she still holds true to her own beliefs. For example, by encouraging women everywhere to come forward with their traumatic, sexual harassment experiences. “I know he was elected, but women should always feel comfortable coming forward and we should all be willing to listen to them.”
A popular twice-elected governor of South Carolina, she’s an experienced GOP politician in an administration packed with outsiders. As the daughter of Indian immigrants, she stands out in an administration run chiefly by white men. Telegenic and poised, she has a knack for the limelight that stands in sharp contrast to the administration’s tendencies toward the rumpled (former press secretary Sean Spicer) or reclusive (Tillerson).
But in her first seven months at the helm of the US mission to the UN, Haley’s differences have gone far beyond optics. Trump campaigned on a foreign policy platform of “America first” — the idea that the US should avoid getting involved in unnecessary conflicts overseas and focus narrowly on national security interests over promotion of democracy and human rights abroad.
But Haley has pursued the opposite course. From her stern criticism of Moscow to her championing of human rights to her calls for Syrian regime change, she’s routinely diverged from, or outright contradicted, Trump’s stance on the biggest foreign policy issues of the day.
As Politico first reported, the Democratic National Committee is already digging into the pasts of Haley, Vice President Mike Pence, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse – Republicans at the center of Washington speculation as presidential contenders if Trump isn’t on the ballot for some reason in 2020.
Haley told CNN’s Jamie Gangel, she “can’t imagine running for the White House.” During our interview, she deflected questions about her future in or out of the Trump administration and said she’s concentrating on “making the American
Democracies across the world, including the US and India, are at a crossroads and there was a need to stand up against the chaos to protect democracy, Hillary Rodham Clinton has said. Speaking at the concluding session of the India Today Conclave 2018, the former US Secretary of State said never before did the world need India’s energy like now to speak against sexism, racism and stand up at this crossroad moment. “Don’t give way to anger, resentment and disappointment. Stay engaged, speak out,” Clinton said. Both the US and India were facing serious undercurrents threatening to strike at the roots of democracy, warning that US President Donald Trump “will damage it”.
Talking at length about the state of affairs in the U.S. since the 2016 presidential elections, which she lost to real-estate tycoon Trump, Clinton said she did not have a problem with power differences, but worried that there were fewer debates on pertinent issues, which could move the country towards one-party dominance.
“That is the situation in Washington at present.” She said it was “the first-ever reality TV election” in U.S. history. “Reality TV because a person who is the most outrageous and prone to say incorrect things gets away with it, drawing big rankings. Many people were, unfortunately, attracted to such diatribes.”
Clinton counted the reaction against immigrants as one of the reasons for Trump’s win. She said the U.S. was home to hard-working, law-abiding immigrants from around the world, including Latin America, India and China, and that Trump’s campaign of ‘Make America Great Again’ was backward. “I won from the places which has two-thirds share in the gross domestic product.”
She also said a smear campaign and threats from Trump to put her in jail damaged her chances. “That stopped my momentum and decreased my votes.” The Associated Press adds that Clinton told her audience at the India Today Conclave 2018 that the U.S. did not “deserve” Donald Trump’s presidency and these are “perilous times.”
Clinton said the Republican president has “quite an affinity for dictators” and said Trump “really likes their authoritarian posturing and behavior.” But she said she thinks it’s “more than that” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia.
Clinton was critical of Trump’s reality campaign tactics and questioned whether she should have provided more entertainment to voters who responded to Trump’s brash style. She also believes former FBI director James Comey’s Oct. 28, 2016, letter to Congress about her private email server cost her support from white women voters.
Congressman Ami Bera, a Democrat in his third term from California’s District 7 and New Jersey’s District 7, held by long-time Republican Leonard Lance, which is being challenged in the upcoming Nov. 6 elections, by two Indian-American Democrats, Peter Jacob and Goutam Jois, are reported by the bipartisan rating agency, Politico, that evaluates various electoral races nationwide and is considered reliable in calculating the odds of victory.
In its most recent assessment, “Competitive Races,” Politico has shifted its assessment of 9 House races, two of which could potentially affect the political fortunes of Indian-American candidates positively.
Cook Political Report says Ami Bera to be having an easier time getting re-elected. Bera won his first election in 2012. In his 2014 election he won with 50.4 percent of the vote and a lead of just 1,455 votes. In 2016, he won by a larger margin of 51.2 percent and 6,965 votes. This time round, Cook has classified District 7 as “likely Democrat” from the earlier “lean Democrat” category (cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings).
The District 7 race has been one of the most expensive in the country targeted unsuccessfully so far by Republicans. Currently, Bera’s fundraising prowess (Cash on hand $829,319) has far outstripped his two main Republican opponents Andrew Grant and Yona Barash, according to Ballotpedia. District 7 in California covers central California including much of Sacramento County and its open primaries are scheduled for June 5.
In the other seat reclassified by Cook, in New Jersey’s District 7, Democratic candidate Lisa Mandelblatt has so far raised the most in the race in which 6 Democrats are vying for their party’s endorsement in the June 5 primaries. Cook had described NJ-7 as a Republican leaning seat, but has now put it in the “toss-up” column. Ballotpedia also describes this District as a “race to watch” in 2018. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has also targeted it hoping to flip the seat from red to blue. District 7 in New Jersey covers the northwestern portion of the state and encompasses Hunterdon County and parts of Essex, Morris, Somerset, Union, and Warren counties.
After a year of threats and diatribes, U.S. President Donald Trump and third-generation North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have agreed to meet face-to-face for talks in May this year about the North Korea’s nuclear program. Trump and Kim prompted jitters around the world last year as they exchanged bellicose insults over the North’s attempts to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States. Pyongyang has pursued its nuclear program in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
“A meeting is being planned,” Trump said on Twitter after accepting an invitation to meet from Kim. There is no date or venue yet for the meeting although it could take place in May. A senior State Department official said the talks would likely only be a preliminary discussion about holding future negotiations. “The expectation is that the talks would lead to a discussion around a conclusion that we’re ready to engage in negotiations,” the official said.
The head of South Korea’s National Security Office, Chung Eui-yong, speaking in Washington, said Trump had agreed to meet the North Korean leader by May in response to Kim’s invitation. Kim had “committed to denuclearization” and to suspending nuclear and missile tests, Chung said.
U.S.-based experts say North Korea appeared to show last November that it has succeeded in developing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon anywhere in the United States. Trump has derided Kim as a “maniac,” referred to him as “little rocket man” and threatened in a speech last year to “totally destroy” North Korea, a country of 26 million people, if it attacked the United States or one of its allies. Kim responded by calling Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”
The Trump administration has led a worldwide push to tighten international sanctions on North Korea to choke off resources needed for its weapons programs. U.S. officials say the moves, which include restrictions on fuel supplies to North Korea, on its key coal exports, and to cut revenues it has received from tens of thousands of workers overseas, have begun to show signs of working.
It remains to be seen whether a summit, if it takes place, could lead to any meaningful breakthrough after an unusually provocative year. North Korea tested its most powerful nuclear weapon to date and test-launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles theoretically capable of striking the U.S. mainland.
The entire world is awaiting with caution, while several world leaders welcomed prospects for a possible thaw in the long standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program on Friday, March 9th after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was prepared to hold an unprecedented meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The invitation letter sent by Kim Jong Un and the immediate acceptance by Trump has taken the world by surprise. Successive American administrations have spent years on cautious, painstaking diplomacy with the Kim family dynasty, backed by a judicious mix of sanctions and bribes. After each deal was reached the North Koreans pocketed the aid and concessions on offer, broke their word and returned to their decades-long quest to develop nuclear weapons. At best, all that expertise and patience might have slowed North Korea’s path to a bomb by a few years.
But tension eased around last month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, laying the groundwork for what would be the first meeting between leaders from North Korea and the United States, and the biggest foreign policy gamble for Trump since he took office in January last year.
News of the planned meeting was welcomed by China, which is North Korea’s largest trading partner and its sole major ally, though overall trade has fallen in recent months as U.N. economic sanctions take effect. President Xi Jinping told Trump in a phone call on Friday that he appreciates his desire to resolve the North Korea issue politically, Chinese state media said. Xi “hopes the United States and North Korea start contacts and dialogue as soon as possible and strive to reach positive results,” the report added.
Neutral Switzerland, which often hosts summits, said it was ready to facilitate the meeting. Sweden could also play a role. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho will visit Sweden in the near future, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported on Friday, quoting sources. The Swedish foreign ministry declined comment. Sweden’s embassy in Pyongyang represents U.S. interests, in the absence of U.S. diplomatic relations.
North Korea sees a Trump meeting as a chance to win relief from the sanctions as well as an opportunity to earn the international legitimacy that it seeks, the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank said.
“For Kim, the prospect of an early summit with Trump provides the best prospect of removing international sanctions pressure while giving Kim room for maneuver to possibly keep his nuclear deterrent in place,” it said.
Vice President Mike Pence said the United States had made “zero concessions” and had “consistently increased the pressure” on North Korea. Some U.S. officials and experts worry North Korea could buy time to build up and refine its nuclear arsenal if it drags out talks with Washington.
The government of Japan remained cautious about the talks. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump, in a phone call, promised to continue to enforce sanctions until Pyongyang took “tangible steps … toward denuclearization,” the White House said in a statement.
Trump had agreed to meet Kim without any preconditions, a South Korean official said. “Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze,” Trump said on Twitter on Thursday night. “Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached.”
James Clapper, a career military intelligence officer who rose to become Director of National Intelligence during Barack Obama’s presidency, cautiously welcomed talk of a Trump-Kim summit. If still in office, he would recommend that the president go, he said. “But I would advise that he do something that doesn’t come easily to Donald Trump, which is to listen. We need to hear from Kim Jong Un himself what it would take for him to feel secure,” General Clapper told this blogger In 2014 the general was sent to Pyongyang on a secret mission to bring back two Americans being held in North Korea. While there, he recalled, the North Koreans had stressed their desire for a full-scale peace treaty with America, to replace the ceasefire that ended the Korean war. Yes, the former spy chief conceded, the North Koreans have ambitions to push American forces out of their region. But that is no reason not to talk. “I think they may be feeling confident now that whatever they have is enough that they would not be meeting the president as a supplicant.”
North and South Korea, where the United Sates stations 28,500 troops, are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a ceasefire, not a truce.
Analysts say Trump’s decision to accept Kim’s invitation for a summit and to do it by May could be linked in part to a desire to claim a significant achievement in his most difficult foreign policy challenge before the U.S. midterm elections in November.
Kim, on the other hand, seems desperate to save a sanctions-battered North Korean economy. Both leaders have interests in striking a big deal, said Cheong Seong-Chang, a senior analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute. Should it happen, the May summit between Trump and Kim will come shortly after a planned April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. It’s likely that North Korea will also push for summits with China, Russia and Japan later in the year to further break out of its isolation, Cheong said.
The 2018 nation-wide primaries leading to the general election began with the first primaries being held in the state of Texas on March 6ht. There were several Indian American candidates who had their names on the ballot.
The lone Indian American political candidate who had success in the March 6 primary elections throughout Texas, Sri Kulkarni. Seeking the Democratic nomination, he advanced to a May 22 runoff after earning 31.8 percent of the vote in Texas’ 22nd Congressional District. He will face Letitia Plummer, who finished second with 24.3 percent. There were five candidates in the race.
According to Texas election law, if a candidate does not get more than 50 percent of the votes, there will be a runoff between the top two finishers. If Kulkarni emerges as a winner in the runoff, he will run against the incumbent Republican representative Pete Olson.
If elected, Sri will become the first Indian American congressman from the state of Texas. He is one of the nearly two-dozen Indian Americans who are running for Congress this year.
Sri, who raised more than USD 96,000 in campaign donations, is hoping that the demographic diversity of the district it is a majority minority district will favour him. He told PTI that he was running because of the anti- American policies of the Trump administration.
“We are all grateful and could not have done this without y’all. Over 9,000 voters came out to support us and we are all truly humbled. When I began this journey, I aimed to bring reason, compassion and decency into our government. People said it was impossible. Many said it was risky. Others said it was pointless, but I knew I had to do something,” Kulkarni said in a Facebook post after the results came out.
“I resigned as a diplomat in the U.S. State Department, where I had served our country for 14 years. I met with and listen to thousands of people in District 22 on how to make that much needed change possible. We stand proud and celebrate the beautiful diversity of our unique neighborhoods. We have shown we can bridge our communities and have our voices represented,” he added.
According to his campaign website Kulkarni “is a proven leader who has been serving his family, community and country for his entire life” and while in Congress will focus on universal healthcare, veterans and national defense, climate change, gun violence, education, economic inequality, disaster relief, criminal justice reform and immigration reform.
“When I began this journey, I aimed to bring reason, compassion and decency into our government. People said it was impossible. Many said it was risky. Others said it was pointless, but I knew I had to do something,” he added. “I resigned as a diplomat in the U.S. State Department, where I had served our country for 14 years. I met with and listen to thousands of people in District 22 on how to make that much needed change possible. “We stand proud and celebrate the beautiful diversity of our unique neighborhoods. We have shown we can bridge our communities and have our voices represented,” he said.
Other Indian Americans and South Asian Americans were running for lower level offices. Juli Mathew advanced running unopposed for the Fort Bend County Court-at-Law No. 3 judge position.
Syed S. Ali moved on by running unopposed in the state’s 131st Legislative District for state representative on the GOP side. In the 93rd District, Nisha Mathews came up short in the Democratic primary for state representative, falling to Nancy Bean. Dinesh Mali failed to earn the Republican nomination for state representative in the 105th District, falling short to Rodney Anderson.
Goutam Jois, an Indian American attorney and activist, running for New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, wants to fix shared values. “Washington is broken, and our shared values are under assault. As an attorney and an activist, I’ve fought to uphold those values – justice, fairness, and dignity – and won,” Jois says as reasons for wanting to represent the Congressional district from the Garden State, which has a sizable South Asian American population.
According to Jois, “I represented a young, unarmed, African-American man who was shot by police, and won at the Supreme Court. I secured asylum for a gay man from Jamaica, won a major First Amendment case for a police officer, and obtained landmark relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. I’ve organized national youth political conventions and was the Youth Governor of New Jersey. And I’ve worked with the family business, seeing firsthand what it takes to create jobs in the construction and infrastructure fields. If elected to represent New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, I will bring that experience to Washington and work to expand opportunity, improve security, and strengthen our communities.”
Jois added that hard-working families need to know that the government will stand by its end of the social contract, speaking of security. He said he will fight for universal healthcare and policies to support working families, including paid family leave and raising the minimum wage.
And he added about strengthening the community that “we cannot allow anyone, least of all the president (Donald Trump), to divide us by race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, immigration status or anything else.”
Among his platform issues include the economy and jobs, women’s rights, the environment, education, civil rights, immigration, LGBTQ issues, veterans’ issues and data privacy.Jois said democracy is being skewed for three reasons.
In addition to successfully litigating police brutality, First Amendment and civil rights cases in the Supreme Court, the Harvard-trained lawyer has been a football coach and a stand-up comedian.
The son of Indian immigrants from Bangalore recently threw his hat into the ring, hoping to revive the democracy so treasured in the U.S. The Summit resident, the married father of two children, has hopes for the balloting on June 5.
“I would not say I was bitten by the political bug early in my life, but I can tell you I have always believed in democracy and its values and fought for them whether organizing student-centric activities in school, college or grad school. At every point, I have believed in the values of democracy and the hope that it generates. That is what I have been fighting for in my life, including now in the context of an electoral campaign,” Jois said.
The primary race for the 7th Congressional District in New Jersey is April 2. Other candidates outside of Jois in the Democratic Party field include Indian American Peter Jacob, who ran unsuccessfully in the 2016 election for the same seat; Tom Malinowski, Kurt Perhach, David Pringle and Linda Weber. The Republican incumbent Leonard Lance will be challenged by Lindsay Brown in the GOP primary with the winners moving on to the November general election.
Chicago IL: Press Conference for media was held On behalf of United States Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, at Mysore Woodlands on 2548 W. Devon Ave. Chicago, IL. At this press conference Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi covered a wide range of significant topics including his legislative accomplishments, future legislation agenda and other relevant current topics.
Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois has urged suburban Chicago residents to vote for Illinois primary election. “As I have said many times, if you don’t have a seat at the table, then you are on the menu. Registering to vote and voting ensures at your voice is heard and you have a proverbial seat at the table when important decisions are made affecting you.”
“Indian-Americans and all suburban Chicago residents must register to vote to allow their voices to be heard,” he said and added, “As I have said many times, if you don’t have a seat at the table, then you are on the menu. Registering to vote and voting ensures that your voice is heard and you have a proverbial seat at the table when important decisions are made affecting you.”
Volunteers and friends of Krishnamoorthi helped register voters at the Itasca temple last week. The efforts at the event will be replicated by him elsewhere to help increase the number of registered voters in the Indian-American community.
Meanwhile, Raja Krishnamoorthi continued his incredible fundraising success by bringing in more than $650,000 in the 4th quarter of 2017. The first-term Member of Congress from the 8th District of Illinois that includes Chicago’s west and northwest suburbs has more than $3.31 million cash on hand to begin his re-election campaign as of the end of the fourth fundraising quarter that ended December 31.
“My constituents sent me to Washington to work every day on growing and strengthening the middle class, and that’s what we’ve done,” Krishnamoorthi said. “These resources will help us amplify that message to continue our important work in Congress. Krishnamoorthi and Republican Congressman Glenn “GT” Thompson of Pennsylvania are the two lead sponsors of bipartisan legislation that passed the House of Representatives unanimously to improve career and technical education, as well as to help give Americans the skills they need to compete for in-demand jobs.
The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 2353) reauthorizes the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act and is the first major overhaul of the program since 2006.
“As President Trump said in his State of the Union speech, career and technical education is going to be a critical part of our country’s economy, and this legislation will help strengthen and modernize it,” Krishnamoorthi said. “The bill works to close the skills gap by pairing businesses and educators together to establish training programs to prepare students for in-demand careers.” The son of immigrants, Krishnamoorthi was elected to Congress in November 2016 with nearly 60 percent of the vote against his Republican opponent.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted to approve President Donald Trump’s four nominees to the Federal Trade Commission, who included Indian American Rohit Chopra, a spokeswoman for the committee said on February 28th.
The panel approved the nominations of Chopra, a Democrat; as well as antitrust lawyer Joe Simons, who will chair the commission; and Republicans Christine Wilson and Noah Phillips.
It was not immediately clear when the full Senate would vote on the nominations. Trump has been slow in filling the FTC posts, leaving the agency in the hands of two Obama appointees for more than a year into his term, according to a Reuters report.
The FTC works with the U.S. Justice Department to enforce antitrust law and investigates companies accused of deceptive advertising.
The FTC has been sharply criticized for settling with Google in early 2013 after a lengthy investigation into whether the company had manipulated search results to hurt rivals, among other offenses, the report said.
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer has recommended that the White House nominate one of his top aides, Rebecca Slaughter, to the second Democratic seat, it added.
Chopra is a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America. His work there has focused on consumer protection issues facing young people and military families. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the student loan market. (See earlier India-West story here.)
He previously served as assistant director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he oversaw the agency’s work on behalf of students and young consumers. He was also named by the Secretary of the Treasury to serve as the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman. Chopra later served as Special Adviser to the Secretary of Education to seek enhancements to student loan servicing and to develop stronger consumer protection standards.
Britain will raise the issue of alleged persecution of Christians and Sikhs in India during the April meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London and Windsor, following demands by MPs to take it up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
During a lengthy debate at the Westminster Hall of the House of Commons on ‘Freedom of religion or belief’ last week, MPs cited details of alleged persecution in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere, and demanded that ministers discuss it when Commonwealth leaders are here for CHOGM.
A ministry of external affairs officer in India said the ministry would need to see the transcript of the debate before making any comments on the issue.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party) mentioned the detention in Punjab of his constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal, allegedly without charge, and claimed that “members of the Sikh community across the UK have become gravely concerned that they, too, may be detained on the simple premise of being a member of the Sikh faith”.
Fabian Hamilton (Labour) raised the issue of alleged persecution of Christians. Hamilton, who visited Kerala recently, recalled the ancient roots of Christianity in India, “Kerala is home to the largest minority of Christians in India; many are from a Catholic background.” He mentioned reports alleging that India was now one of the most dangerous countries to practise Christianity.
Foreign Office minister for Asia, Mark Field, said “some profound points about Prime Minister Modi and about Christian and Sikh minorities in India” were made by the MPs. “We will do our best to raise some of those in an appropriate manner at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in mid-April, to ensure that Parliament’s voice is properly heard,” adding that Modi “will appreciate that diplomacy sometimes needs to be done behind closed doors, rather than with megaphones”.
Modi is scheduled to attend the CHOGM, when the United Kingdom, as the chair of the group for the next two years, is likely to task New Delhi with a greater role, particularly in the area of trade and business. A regional trade hub is likely to be set up in India.
As the largest country by population in the Commonwealth, India, which has played a key role in the group since its founding in 1949, is seen as vital to London’s plans to enhance trade revenue when the UK loses access to the European Single Market after Brexit in March 2019.
Bilateral meetings are also expected to be held between Modi and British Prime Minister Theresa May when he is in London for the CHOGM from April 16 to 20. It will be his second visit to London as prime minister after the first in November 2015.
US President Donald Trump called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “fantastic” and “beautiful” man but ratcheted up the rhetoric on bilateral trade, saying he wasn’t impressed by the recent cuts in tariff on Harley-Davidson motorbikes sold in India.
“Now, the prime minister, who I think is a fantastic man, called me the other day. He said, ‘We are lowering it (the tariff on Harley-Davidson) to 50%.’ I said, ‘Okay, but so far we’re getting nothing.’ So we get nothing, he gets 50 (percent), and they think we’re doing — like they’re doing us a favour,” Trump said at a meeting with state governors at the White House.“
“He (Modi) said it so beautifully. He’s a beautiful man. And he said, ‘I just want to inform you that we have reduced it to 75, but we have further reduced it to 50.’ And I said, ‘Huh.’ What do I say? Am I supposed to be thrilled?”
Trump was referring to a phone conversation he had had with Modi on February 8, in which they had discussed Maldives, Afghanistan and a whole range of bilateral issues, including trade. India earlier used to levy a 100% tariff on motorcycles larger than 800cc, but as of this month, the rates have dropped down to a flat 50%. But the duty on Indian motorbikes sold in the US is 0%.
According to reports, Harley-Davidson India has an annual sale of 3,700, but Trump’s claims that Indian motorcycles sell by the “thousands and thousands” in the United States has been called an exaggeration — the US is not among major importers of Indian bikes.
Trump has publicly litigated his case against tariff rates on Harley-Davidsons and his despite his glowing references to Modi, his tone has grown sharper, even as his administration presses India to lower tariff on other goods and remove non-tariff trade barriers.
“So they have a motorcycle or a motorbike that comes into our country — the number is zero. We get zero. They get 100%, brought down to 75; brought down, now, to 50. Okay,” Trump told his governors.
Trump and Modi share a good working relationship, according to officials on both sides, but the US leader is not known to pass up an opportunity to speak his mind. He also likes to quote Modi’s remarks about Afghanistan — the Indian leader, visiting the White House last June, told him that “never has a country given so much away for so little in return” as the United States had in Afghanistan.
On February 26, both Iowa State Senate and House of Representatives in Des Moines started their respective sessions with Hindu prayers, containing verses from world’s oldest existing scripture.
Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed delivered the invocations from ancient Sanskrit scriptures before the Senate and House. After Sanskrit delivery, he then read the English interpretation of the prayers. Sanskrit is considered a sacred language in Hinduism and root language of Indo-European languages.
Zed, who is the President of Universal Society of Hinduism, recited from Rig-Veda, the oldest scripture of the world still in common use; besides lines from Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord), both ancient Hindu scriptures. He started and ended the prayers with “Om”, the mystical syllable containing the universe, which in Hinduism is used to introduce and conclude religious work.
Wearing saffron colored attire, a ruddraksh mala (rosary), and traditional sandalpaste tilak (religious mark) on the forehead; Rajan Zed sprinkled few drops of water from river Ganga of India, considered holy by Hindus, in the Senate before the prayer; where Senate President Jack Whitver introduced him. Senate adjusted its start time by few minutes so that Zed could pray in both House and Senate.
Reciting from Brahadaranyakopanishad, Zed said “Asato ma sad gamaya, Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya, Mrtyor mamrtam gamaya”, which he then interpreted as “Lead us from the unreal to the real, Lead us from darkness to light, and Lead us from death to immortality.” Reciting from Bhagavad-Gita, he urged Senators and Representatives to keep the welfare of others always in mind.
Rajan Zed is a global Hindu and interfaith leader, who besides taking up the cause of religion worldwide, has also raised huge voice against the apartheid faced by about 15-million Roma (Gypsies) in Europe. Bestowed with World Interfaith Leader Award; Zed is Senior Fellow and Religious Advisor to Foundation for Religious Diplomacy, Spiritual Advisor to National Association of Interchurch & Interfaith Families, on the Advisory Board of The Interfaith Peace Project, etc. He has been panelist for “On Faith”, a prestigious interactive conversation on religion produced by The Washington Post; and leads a weekly interfaith panel “Faith Forum” in a Gannett publication for over seven years.
Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about 1.1 billion adherents and moksh (liberation) is its ultimate goal. There are about three million Hindus in USA. Linda L. Upmeyer is Speaker of Iowa House of Representatives, which has 100 members; while Iowa Senate has 50 members. Iowa, also known as Hawkeye State and whose flag states “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain”, is said to one of the safest states to live. Bordered by Mississippi, Missouri and Big Sioux rivers; its top exports include corn, tractors and soybeans. US President Herbert Hoover, actor John Wayne, Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, football player Kurt Warner and Olympian artistic gymnast Shawn Johnson—all hail from Iowa. Kim Reynolds is the Governor.
Indian American physician Hiral Tipirneni defeated her Democratic rival Brianna Westbrook in Tuesday’s closely watched special 8th Congressional District primary on February 27th. Tipirneni, an emergency-room physician, and Westbrook, a progressive activist, were battling for the chance to take on the winner of the Republican primary in the April 24 special general election.
Republican Debbie Lesko won the GOP primary. The special election will settle who finishes the current two-year term for Trent Franks, who resigned in December after being accused of sexual misconduct. Elected leaders, activists, and fundraisers in the Indian-American community are celebrating the victory of an Arizona physician in that state’s 8th Congressional District Democratic primary.
“Thank you to everyone who knocked on a door, picked up a phone, & helped to spread our message through #AZ08! #grassroots,” said Dr. Hiral Tipirneni. She now has to defeat the Republican primary winner Debbie Lesko to possibly become the second Indian-American woman lawmaker on Capitol Hill.
The AAPI Victory Fund, a political action committee founded by an Indian-American Shekar Narasimhan, tweeted out immediately upon Tipirneni’s victory “Congratulations @Hiral4Congress #Mineta11 Candidate for winning Democratic Congressional District 8 primaryhttps://t.co/7aS1ZNsTzI via @azcentral #AAPIPower” The organization has endorsed her and is raising funds for her campaign.
Arizona’s 8th District is among the state’s most conservative, suggesting that whoever emerges from the Republican primary Tuesday is considered the favorite to head to Washington. But Democrats have fared better in federal elections across the country since 2016, suggesting the party will make a more competitive showing in the district than typically seen.
The New York Times does not give Tipirneni much of a chance at winning the seat describing District 8 as safely in Republican hands. Past elections results show Franks won 68.5 percent of the vote in the 2016 elections and almost 76 percent in 2014. However, it was a seat that was held by Democrat Gabby Giffords back in 2010. Giffords had to leave after being shot while addressing constituents. Giffords endorsed Tipirneni during the primaries.
The Arizona Democratic Party Chair Felecia Rotellini issued a statement congratulating Tipirneni, describing it as a hard-fought campaign. “She ran an incredible campaign focused on improving the lives of Arizonans in the Eighth Congressional District by offering real solutions for them. This is in direct contrast to the chaos Arizonans have seen on their television screens by the Arizona Republican Party,” Rotellini said, adding, ‘“The Eighth Congressional District deserves a representative that work to get things done for them – like safeguarding Social Security and Arizona’s AHCCCS while making sure their hard-earned tax dollars don’t go to waste in Washington. Dr. Hiral Tipirneni will do exactly that.”
“I think we won because our message was really connecting with voters, resonating,” a triumphant Tipirneni told The Arizona Republic. “I think they are looking for someone who brings something like my skill set to the table, somebody who is ready to work with people from all backgrounds and really focus on solving the problems at hand.”
Judge Ravi K. Sandill is running for the Supreme Court of Texas, Place 4, to bring balance to the institution that is” increasingly out of touch with the needs of everyday Texans,” he says. “After nearly a quarter century of one-party rule, our state Supreme Court increasingly caters to an extreme, special interest agenda and is ignoring its duty to the nearly 28 million Texans it is elected to serve,” Sandill said on his site. “On issues from public school finance to equal protection under the law, the court has failed to do its job. It is time for a change.”
On his website, he says that after nearly a quarter century of one-party rule, “our state Supreme Court increasingly caters to an extreme, special interest agenda and is ignoring its duty to the nearly 28 million Texans it is elected to serve.
On issues from public school finance to equal protection under the law, the court has failed to do its job.” He says he is running “to restore an independent voice to our state’s highest judicial body and to focus on the rule of law, rather than a fringe ideological agenda.”
Sandill who describes himself as a Texan, husband, dad and cancer survivor, grew up on military bases throughout Texas, attended college in Austin, and graduated from law school in Houston. He has served as judge of the 127th Civil District Court in Harris County since 2009 and, according to his website, is the first district court judge in Texas of South Asian descent.
After graduating law school, Sandill worked as a briefing attorney for Murry Cohen, senior justice on Texas’s First District Court of Appeals. He then went into private practice in Houston, where he focused on commercial, appellate, and trade secret litigation for a number of years. Sandill first ran for judge in 2008 and since then has presided over more than 225 civil trials and has adjudicated over 15,000 matters.
As a young attorney and just two months before he was to marry his law school classmate, Sandill was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a cancer of the blood cells. He got married while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, but the cancer returned just six months later, requiring him to undergo a stem-cell transplant at age 27. Sandill has been cancer-free for more than 13 years.
He and his wife Kelly, a partner at the law firm of Andrews Kurth Kenyon LLP, and their son Asher live in central Houston. The Indian American is from a military family and learned the value of service at a young age, he said. His father, Retired Lt. Col. Brij Sandill, served in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force for a combined 28 years. The judge spent most of his childhood at Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen, Texas, and Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, later moving with his family to Royal Air Force Station Lakenheath, England.
Sandill won the 127th district court seat in 2008, defeating a nearly three-decades long incumbent to claim the seat. Since taking over the seat, the Indian American judge has presided over more than 225 civil trials and has adjudicated over 15,000 matters. He was elected to a third term as judge in November 2016.
Sandill serves on the board of directors of the Garland R. Walker American Inn of Court, an organization dedicated to improving the skills, professionalism and ethics of lawyers, and is a frequent speaker on legal topics throughout Texas and the nation.
Indian American Hirsh Singh announced on Tuesday, Feb. 27 that he will be running for Congress in New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District, according to the Press of Atlantic City. Sing will be seeking to replace Republican Frank LoBiondo, who is not seeking re-election.
Singh, a Republican, said in a statement he wants to represent the district as a conservative and work to protect President Donald Trump’s agenda. “South Jersey deserves a conservative champion in Congress — someone who will defend the president’s agenda, fight to bring our fair share of tax dollars back to South Jersey, and stand up to Nancy Pelosi and the radical left,” Singh said. “The president’s agenda of slashing regulations, cutting taxes and returning decision-making to state and local governments is working to grow the economy and must be supported.”
In his statement Singh said that he plans to go against President Donald Trump’s agenda and protect his district from its effects. “The president’s agenda of slashing regulations, cutting taxes and returning decision-making to state and local governments is working to grow the economy and must be supported,” he added.
Singh had previously run for governor of New Jersey last year. However, he ended up losing the primary to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. Singh earned his engineering degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and has worked with NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Pentagon and the United States military where he worked on missile defense systems, satellite navigation, drones, electronic warfare and aircraft safety.
“In the coming weeks, I look forward to meeting with the residents of the 2nd Congressional District, listening to their concerns and sharing my vision for a stronger and more prosperous South Jersey. We need a new voice in Washington who will fight for all of the residents of South Jersey,” Singh said in a statement.
One cannot imagine what was going through the mind of the sad teen who stood holding up the lighted candle mourning her best friend, with her mother Shweta Kapa by her side. It was only 24 hours since Nikolas Kraus, 19, now charged with premeditated murder, went on a rampage armed with a weapons grade assault rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed the teen’s friend, leaving 15 students and 2 teachers dead. Meanwhile, an Indian-American teacher is being hailed as a hero for protecting her students in the face of terror.
Among the victims was, an Indian-American child, who suffered minor injuries in the shooting according to a Press Trust of India report. The ninth grade student sustained minor injuries after he was hit by splinters, and is being treated at a hospital, according to a PTI report.
There were no other known casualties from the community. But Indian-Americans are traumatized with their children undergoing the ordeal at school and their friends and neighbors suffering deaths. But they can take heart from the bravery of Shanthi Viswanathan, the algebra teacher who acted so quickly to save the children. According to reports in Miami Herald, the Sun Sentinel, and Orlando Sentinel, “Mrs. V” rushed her students to a corner of the classroom, “moments before” Cruz began shooting
“Mrs. V” knew something wasn’t right when the second fire alarm of the day sounded shortly before classes were to end at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Parkland, FL.
Rather than let her Algebra II students out, Shanthi Viswanathan made them get on the floor in the corner of the room. But first she put paper over the window in the class door so no one could see in.
Her actions probably saved her students, said Dawn Jarboe, whose son Brian was in the class. “She was quick on her feet. She used her knowledge. She saved a lot of kids,” Dawn Jarboe said.
Even when the SWAT team arrived and the police were saying to open up, Viswanathan took no chance that it wasn’t a trick by the gunman to get in. “She said, ‘Knock it down or open it with a key. I’m not opening the door,’” Jarboe said.
And that’s what they did. “Some SWAT guy took out the window and cleared our room,” Brian texted his mom.
“This is a sad day for the country and the community. We all Indian Americans are praying for the victims,” Shekar Reddy, whose friend’s son was among those injured in the mass shooting, told PTI. The school reportedly has quite a few students from the Indian American community. The FBI is assisting local officials in the investigation.
The shooter, who was equipped with a gas mask and smoke grenades, set off a fire alarm to draw students out of classrooms shortly before the day ended at one of the state’s largest schools, officials said.
Students who knew the shooter, identified as Nikolas Cruz, described a volatile teenager whose strange behavior had caused others to end friendships with him, particularly after the fight that led to his expulsion.
“It’s catastrophic. There really are no words,” Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters. The attacker used the fire alarm “so the kids would come pouring out of the classrooms into the hall,” Sen. Bill Nelson told CNN. “And there the carnage began,” said Nelson, who said he was briefed by the FBI.
A law enforcement official said the former student posted highly disturbing material on social media before the shooting rampage. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Feb. 14 investigators are dissecting the suspect’s social media posts and found material that is “very, very disturbing.” He didn’t elaborate.
Considered an affluent community with a state of the art school like Stoneman Douglas, the city has attracted more Indian families looking for a good education for their children. In the entire Broward County, where Parkland is located, the Asian Indian population is 22,600 according tostatisticalatlas.com. Parkland, population 31,507, was considered the safest city in Florida in 2017 with just 7 violent crimes, a CNN report quoting the National Council for Home Safety and Security, said.
The Association of Indians in America, South Florida chapter President Kavita Deshpande, told the media that people are “very badly” affected. In a formal statement AIA said, “The Indian American community, both in Parkland as well as in greater South Florida, grieves along with the parents who have lost their children in yesterday’s horrific shooting. We stand together, now and always.”
The Hindu American Foundation spent the better part of Feb. 14, tracking its members in the Parkland-Coral Springs area to check on them, Suhag Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the organization, told this correspondent.
Minakshi De, an artist from Vero Beach, said she had many friends in the area where Cruz wreaked havoc. “There’s a huge Indian community there and we hold the biggest Durga Puja celebration there. They are scared.”
“One of our member’s business partner’s son went into surgery but has come out okay,” Shukla said with relief. “This sort of violence is not random. And it is avoidable,” she added. “There’s absolutely no reason why ordinary citizens carry assault weapons.”
Shukla has a son in his sophomore year in New Jersey and worries for him as well. Asked if she knew whether active shooter drills were carried out at his school, she said she had not heard of any.
The tragedy this month in Florida leads all to ponder on a bigger problem — frequent shootings at schools — almost one gun incident every month — remain a nightmare for children and parents even if most have few fatalities or only injuries. Some recent horrific incidents stand out: Columbine High School, Colorado, where 15 were killed in 1999; Red Lake Senior High School, Minnesota in 2005 with 10 fatalities; and Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut, in 2012 with 28 dead.
The US, the most advanced nation has the most number of deaths due to gun violence. For Indian-Americans, who come from a country without a gun culture, the contrast between India and the United States in firearms ownership and gun deaths is often shocking. GunPolicy.org that is hosted by the Sydney School of Public Health, the University of Sydney, gathered data that showed that there were 3,655 total gun deaths in 2014 in India which has a population of 1.3 billion, or three gun deaths per million people showing a decline from a total of 12,147 or 12.3 per million in 1999.
In contrast, there were 33,599 gun deaths in the U.S. in 2014, nine times more than in India. The United States tops the world in the number of guns owned by civilians, with 310 million. That amounts to 101.05 guns for every hundred people in the U.S., giving it the top rank in the rate of gun ownership, while India which ranked next after U.S. in number of guns owned by civilians at 40 million, had just 3.36 guns for every hundred people, because its population is about times bigger than the U.S.
Against this backdrop, the Indian-American community is looking at the gun control issue, which has again risen as a topic of national discussion because of the Parkland shooting. These incidents have changed life in schools and the lives of millions of people across the great nation, the United States.
Columbus, OH – February 18, 2018: “The 36th Annual Convention & Scientific Assembly of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) will be held at the at Columbus Convention Center, OH July 4-8, 2018,” Dr. Gautam Samadder, President of AAPI, announced here. “The 2018 AAPI Convention offers an rare platform to interact with leading physicians, health professionals, academicians, and scientists of Indian origin,” he added .
Ambassador Nikki Haley, the top American diplomat and US Ambassador to the United Nations, and Ambassador Navtej Singh Sarna, an Indian author-columnist, diplomat and current Indian Ambassador to the US, have agreed to attend the AAPI convention and address the delegates, Dr. Samadder announced. He had met with the top-diplomats of Indian origin recently at the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC and had won their formal acceptance to be part of the convention.
AAPI‘s mission is to provide a forum to facilitate and enable Indian American physicians to excel in patient care, teaching and research, and to pursue their aspirations in professional and community affairs. For 36 years, the AAPI Convention has provided a venue for medical education programs and symposia with world renowned physicians on the cutting edge of medicine.
The annual convention this year is being organized by the Ohio Chapter and is led by Convention Chair, Dr. John A. Johnson, a physician, business executive, private equity/venture capital investor, and philanthropist. A pool of dedicated AAPI leaders are working hard to make the Convention a unique event for all the participants.
“We have been working hard to put together an attractive program for our annual get together, educational activity and family enjoyment. I and the Co-Chairs are fortunate to have a dedicated team of convention committee members from the Tri-State region helping us. We are expecting a record turnout and hence I would encourage early registration to avoid later disappointment,” Dr. Johnson said.
The 2018 AAPI Annual Convention & Scientific Assembly offers an exciting venue to interact with leading physicians, health professionals, academicians, and scientists of Indian origin. Physicians and healthcare professionals from across the country will convene and participate in the scholarly exchange of medical advances, to develop health policy agendas, and to encourage legislative priorities in the coming year. The AAPI convention will also offer 8-12 hours of CME credits. Scientific presentations, exhibits, and product theater presentations will highlight the newest advances in patient care, medical technology, and practice management issues across multiple medical specialties.
“AAPI members represent a variety of important medical specialties. Sponsors will be able to take advantage of the many sponsorship packages at the 34th annual convention, creating high-powered exposure to the highly coveted demographic of AAPI‘s membership,” Dr. Naresh Parikh, President-Elect, said. A pool of dedicated AAPI leaders are working hard to make the Convention a unique event for all the participants, he added.
“The preliminary program is in place, the major attractions include 12 hours of cutting-edge CME with renowned speakers, CEO Forum, Innovation Forum, Entrepreneur Forum, Women’s Forum, Men’s Forum, and Product Theaters to highlight the newest advances in patient care and medical technology. Alumni meetings for networking, also an AAPI-India Strategic Engagement Forum to showcase the AAPI initiatives in India like Trauma Brain Injury Guidelines, MoU on TB Eradication in India and recognition of AAPI Award winners will make this Convention unique,” Dr. Ashok Jain,Chair, Board of Trustees, said.
“Many of the physicians who will attend this convention have excelled in different specialties and subspecialties and occupy high positions as faculty members of medical schools, heads of departments, and executives of hospital staff. The AAPI Convention offers an opportunity to meet directly with these physicians who are leaders in their fields and play an integral part in the decision-making process regarding new products and services,” Dr. Yashwant Reddy, Treasurer of AAPI Convention 2018, said.
In addition to the exhibition hall featuring large exhibit booth spaces in which the healthcare industry will have the opportunity to engage, inform and educate the physicians directly through one on one, hands on product demonstrations and discussions, there will be focused group and specialty Product Theater, Interactive Medical Device Trade Show, and special exhibition area for new innovations by young physicians.
Physicians of Indian origin are well known around the world for their compassion, passion for patient care, medical skills, research, and leadership. Not satisfied with their own professional growth and the service they provide to their patients around the world, they are in the forefront, sharing their knowledge and expertise with others, especially those physicians and leaders in the medical field from India.
Representing the interests of the over 100,000 physicians of Indian origin, leaders of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), the largest ethnic organization of physicians, for 36 years, AAPI Convention has provided a venue for medical education programs and symposia with world renowned physicians on the cutting edge of medicine.
AAPI is an umbrella organization which has nearly 90 local chapters, specialty societies and alumni organizations. Almost 10%-12% of medical students entering US schools are of Indian origin. AAPI represents the interests of over 60,000 physicians and 25,000medical students and residents of Indian heritage in the United States. AAPI, the largest ethnic medical organization in the nation, and serves as an umbrella organization.
The AAPI Convention offers an opportunity to meet directly with these physicians who are leaders in their fields and play an integral part in the decision-making process regarding new products and services.
“Physicians and healthcare professionals from across the country and internationally will convene and participate in the scholarly exchange of medical advances, to develop health policy agendas, and to encourage legislative priorities in the coming year. We look forward to seeing you in Columbus, OHIO!” said Dr. Gautam Samadder. For more details, and sponsorship opportunities, please visit: www.aapiconvention.org and www.aapiusa.org
There are two Indian American candidates in the running to occupy the governor’s mansion in the state of Connecticut. Mudita ‘Dita’ Bharagava of Greenwich, Connecticut, a Democrat, had announced her intention to run for governor of the state back in October, while another Indian-American, state legislator Dr. Prasad Srinivasan, a Republican, is already registered to run for the Aug. 14 primaries in the Constitution state. The deadline for filing is June 12, and Bhargava has yet to file her papers to run for Governor.
Connecticut’s unpopular Governor, incumbent Dan Malloy, a Democrat, announced last April that he would not seek a third term. That has led to a slew of Democratic and Republican candidates rushing to fill the gap. At least 8 Democrats and 14 Republicans have filed their paperwork.
Bhargava is facing some headwinds from her own Democratic colleagues, according to a news report by the The New Haven Register, which in its online edition indicated there was talk among rival Democrats that Bhargava should run for some other office. The report did not identify anyone by name, saying only that, “State treasurer is one that the former hedge fund portfolio manager’s name has been linked to by some rival Democrats.”
Bhargava responded that all her life she had been used to people pigeonholing her. I’m used to people telling me I don’t belong somewhere,” the nhregister.com report quoted Bhargava saying. Bhargava told the paper she had faced sexual harassment in the workplace during her life.
“Yeah, absolutely. It was the 1990s. At that time, you either took it and continued to work hard toward your goals or you left. Leaving was not a choice for me,” said the potential gubernatorial candidate who has worked at Royal Bank of Scotland in New York, been a Wall Street trader as well as a portfolio manager at Bear Stearns, Citadel Investment Group, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Dillon Read Capital Management. Bhargava told nhregister.com “she hasn’t ruled out anything, including switching her exploratory committee to a candidate committee for governor,” the news outlet said in a Feb. 12 report. The Democratic gubernatorial hopeful said at the time of her initial announcement that she was a “different kind” of Democrat because she was not a politician and is pro-business. In later interviews she has fleshed out her ideas about public-private partnership for the economic development of the state.
Dr. Srinivasan is currently serving his fourth term as the State Representative from Glastonbury. He is the Assistant Republican Leader and is the Ranking member of the Public Health Committee. He also serves in the Environment and Judiciary Committees. He serves on the Health Information Technology Council and as Co-Chair of the National Health Policy Council. A. medical practitioner in the Greater Hartford area since 1980, Dr. Srinivasan was named “Top Doctor” by Connecticut Magazine, eighth year in a row. Connecticut’s Fairfield Medical County Association established a Prasad Srinivasan Award for medical advocacy.
In terms of community involvement, Dr. Srinivasan had established the Prasad Family Foundation in 1999 to promote Education and donates Legislative Salary for worthy causes. He also serves as Ambassador of Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and as a Corporator for Hartford Hospital.
A physician by profession, Srinivasan opposed the legalization of cannabis for medical use in 2012, saying he believed in its efficacy, but was troubled by questions of practicality. But he relented in 2016 and voted to expand the law to allow the limited use of cannabis to treat children with conditions not treatable by conventional means.
He voted against repeal of the death penalty in 2012. He supported passage of the sweeping gun-control law passed in 2013 in response to the Sandy Hook School shooting of 26 children and staff. “I am old enough,” he said, “and I am young enough.”
An eloquent speaker and totally committed to high ideals in public and private life, Dr. Srinivasan has been serving as the Assistant Republican leader in the House, a Ranking member of the Public Health Committee, and a National Co-Chair of the Health Policy Council. He has been presented with numerous awards for his legislative leadership. He was the Top Doctor 7th year in a row by Connecticut Magazine.
Prasad Srinivasan is married to Mrs. Kala Prasad, a professional musician for over 30 years. Their two children graduated from Glastonbury High school. Son, Sashank Prasad, M.D., is Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. Sashank’s wife, Kerry, is a high school teacher by profession, currently a stay home mom taking care of their two children. Daughter, Anusha Prasad-Rodriguez is the Head of Alternate Investments at Oppenheimer. Her husband, Paul, is a manager at Analysis Group, Inc. They have two daughters.
The Indian American Impact Fund, a recently launched political action committee, announced Feb. 8, that it has endorsed two candidates for the U.S. Congress, whose races will be watched closely in the run-up to the November elections, as well as an Indian-American running for the state senate.
Maryland State Delegate Aruna Miller is running from Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, currently represented by Rep. John Delaney, a Democrat, who declared he will not run for re-election. Miller, who has the most cash-on-hand of the five Democratic candidates vying for their party’s endorsement in teh June 26 primary. An engineer by trade, Miller has served in the Maryland State House since 2010 where her focus has been in STEM education, streamlining the regulatory process for small businesses, and bringing 21st century jobs to Maryland. Miller has been endorsed by EMILY’s List, 314 Action, all four sitting Indian American members of the House of Representatives, and a number of state and local elected officials. If elected, Miller will be the second Indian-American woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives.
The second candidate Impact is endorsing is Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval in Ohio, who recently announced his run for the U.S. Congress from the 1st District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Steve Chabot. Pureval will have to defeat Laura Ann Weaver, in the May 8 Democratic primary, before going on to challenge Chabot. Ballotpedia lists this as a ‘safe Republican’ seat. Democrats are banking of Pureval’s past performance. In 2016, Pureval won an upset victory, defeating an incumbent who had a storied family name. The seat had been held by Republicans for a 100 years, Impact noted. A former federal prosecutor and attorney for Procter & Gamble, Pureval, is credited with overhauling the Hamilton County Courts website, expanding its hours, opening a legal help center, and streamlining operations in order to return over $800,000 to the county’s general fund, Impact said.
Ram Villivalam is making his bid for Illinois 8th State Senate District. The open primary is on March 20. Villivalam takes on incumbent State Senator Ira Silverstein, a Democrat. The 8th State Senate District has the highest percentage of Asian Americans in the state of Illinois, according to Impact. According to Ballotpedia, another Indian-American, Zehra Quadri, is running for the same seat. Villivalam has earned the endorsements of several members Congress, Impact says, including U.S. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Illinois, and U.S. Congressman Ro Khanna, D-California, as well as constituency groups such as the Sierra Club and Equality Illinois PAC. If elected, Villivalam would be the first Indian-American ever elected to the Illinois state legislature.
“Not only do these individuals showcase the talent and patriotism of the Indian American community, they also represent the next generation of American political leadership,” Deepak Raj, co-founder of Impact and chair of the Impact Fund is quoted saying in the press release. “Voters are hungry for fresh faces and new ideas. These candidates are well-positioned to be part of a new wave of national and state leaders who will help fight back against xenophobic rhetoric and regressive policies and fight for economic opportunity and a stronger, fairer economy.”
In addition, Impact Fund has endorsed for re-election all four Indian American Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: Ami Bera, D-California; Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington; Krishnamoorthi; and Khanna, who are due for re-lection this November.
Indian American activist Sameena Mustafa is running for Congress in Illinois’ 5th Congressional District, vying for the Democratic nomination in the March 20 primary. Mustafa is among four Democrats running in the primary, including incumbent Rep. Mike Quigley, who has held the seat since he was elected in 2009. The other candidates in the primary are Steve Schwartzberg and Benjamin Thomas Wolf.
Sameena’s story is the story of the American Dream. The story of opportunity, hard work and dedication to service. “I’m Sameena Mustafa. My background is I’ve worked in business, non-profit and the arts. Most recently I was a commercial real estate tenant advocate for 13 years representing groups, non-profits, small business that represent the most marginalized in our community, so women and girls, the LBT community, immigrants and refugees, and that has been my life’s work. I’ve been on boards, I’ve been a volunteer for domestic violence shelters, it is my passion to work for the community, and this is a continuation of that,” she told The Sun Times recently.
Mustafa, the daughter of Muslim immigrants from India who has lived in the 5th Congressional District of Illinois for three decades, has worked in business, the non-profit sector and the arts.
Sameena was born in Evanston, IL to Indian Muslim immigrant parents and grew up in the Edgebrook neighborhood of Chicago. Her father worked as an engineer at O’Hare, and her mother as a pediatrician at the Uptown Board of Health Clinic. Sameena attended Chicago Public Schools, Regina Dominican H.S., and graduated from Northwestern University.
After graduation, she managed a Planned Parenthood clinic, and for the past decade has worked in real estate as a tenant advocate for small businesses and community nonprofits serving women, immigrants, refugees, LGBTQ, and sexual assault survivors.
Sameena has lived in the 5th District for 30 years and currently resides in the North Center neighborhood with her husband, Talha.
Sameena has been a leader in the business, arts, and nonprofit communities for 25 years. For over a decade she has counseled and negotiated on behalf of small businesses and nonprofits against landlords and financial institutions as a real estate tenant representative and advocate for organizations such as Upwardly Global, Instituto del Progreso Latino, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, Rape Victim Advocates, Chicago Women’s Health Center and the Chicago Foundation for Women.
As a former Planned Parenthood manager, she is the only candidate in the race with direct healthcare experience in a federally-funded clinic.
In Congress, Mustafa said she will fight for economic justice, human rights and political reform to show that the 5th District stands for bold, progressive and inclusive leadership. Mustafa’s priorities include reproductive choice for women, Medicare for all, pushing for a living wage and empowering workers, ensuring rights and protections for all people, providing a path to citizenship to immigrants regardless of status, fighting voter suppression, rolling back the systemic architecture of mass incarceration, revamping the corporate and individual tax system, campaign finance reform, combating climate change, and protecting net neutrality, her site said.
“I will fight for the causes that are important to the people of the 5th District and work to resolve the issues that affect the American people most,” she said in a Chicago Sun-Times report. “We are living in a critical time in our history and the need for representatives who are not beholden to corporate donors and lobbyists has never been greater. This is why I will push for a constitutional amendment to ensure free and fair elections to address the corrosive effect of money in politics.”
The people who created Facebook and Google must be smart. They’re billionaires, their companies are worth multi-multi billions, their programs are used by billions around the world.
But all these smart people, because of Congressional pressure, have swallowed the stories about “fake news”. Facebook hired a very large staff of people to read everything posted by users to weed out the fake stuff. That didn’t last too long at all before the company announced that it wasn’t “comfortable” deciding which news sources are the most trustworthy in a “world with so much division”. We all could have told them that, couldn’t we?
Facebook’s previous efforts to ask its users to determine the accuracy of news did not turn out any better. Last year, the company launched a feature that allowed users to flag news stories they felt were inaccurate. The experiment was shuttered after nine months.
“Fake news”, however, is not the problem. News found in the mainstream media is rarely fake; i.e., actual lies made from whole cloth, totally manufactured. This was, however, a common practice of the CIA during the first Cold War. The Agency wrote editorials and phony news stories to be knowingly published by Latin American media with no indication of CIA authorship or CIA payment to the particular media. The propaganda value of such a “news” item might be multiplied by being picked up by other CIA stations in Latin America who would disseminate it through a CIA-owned news agency or a CIA-owned radio station. Some of these stories made their way back to the United States to be read or heard by unknowing North Americans.
Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” in 2003 is another valid example of “fake news”, but like the CIA material this was more a government invention than a media creation.
The main problem with the media today, as earlier, is what is left out of articles dealing with controversial issues. For example, the very common practice during the first Cold War of condemning the Soviet Union for taking over much of Eastern Europe after the Second World War. This takeover is certainly based on fact. But the condemnation is very much misapplied if no mention is made of the fact that Eastern Europe became communist because Hitler, with the approval of the West, used it as a highway to reach the Soviet Union to wipe out Bolshevism once and for all; the Russians in World Wars I and II lost about 40 million people because the West had twice used this highway to invade Russia. It should not be surprising that after World War II the Soviets were determined to close down the highway. It was not simply “communist expansion”.
Or the case of Moammar Gaddafi. In the Western media he is invariably referred to as “the Libyan dictator”. Period. And he certainly was a dictator. But he also did many marvelous things for the people of Libya (like the highest standard of living in Africa) and for the continent of Africa (like creating the African Union).
Or the case of Vladimir Putin. The Western media never tires of reminding its audience that Putin was once a KGB lieutenant colonel – wink, wink, we all know what that means, chuckle, chuckle. But do they ever remind us with a wink or chuckle that US President George H.W. Bush was once – not merely a CIA officer, but the fucking Director of the CIA!
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg now says: “We decided that having the community determine which sources are broadly trusted would be most objective”; “broadly trusted” sources being those that are “affirmed by a significant cross-section of users”.
Right, a significant cross-section of users – Will that include me? Highly unlikely. Broadly trusted sources – Will that include media like my Anti-Empire Report? Just as unlikely. Anything close? Maybe a single token leftist website amongst a large list, I’d guess. And a single token rightist website. Zuckerberg and his ilk probably think that the likes of NBC, NPR and CNN are very objective and are to be trusted when it comes to US foreign-policy issues or capitalism-vs-socialism issues.
On January 19 Google announced that it would cancel a two-month old experiment, called Knowledge Panel, which informed its users that a news article had been disputed by “independent fact-checking organizations”. Conservatives had complained that the feature unfairly targeted a right-leaning outlet.
Imagine that. It’s almost like people have political biases. Both Facebook and Google are still experimenting, trying to find a solution that I do not think exists. My solution is to leave it as it is. There’s no automated way to remove bias or slant or judgment from writing or from those persons assigned to evaluate such.
“I’m happy to have a president that will bluntly speak the truth in negotiations,” Eric Prince commented on Breitbart News. “If the president says some places are shitholes, he’s accurate.” Thus did Mr. Eric Prince pay homage to Mr. Donald Trump. Prince of course being the renowned founder of Blackwater, the private army which in September 2007 opened fire in a crowded square in Baghdad, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and seriously wounding 20 more.
Speaking of Haiti and other “shitholes”, Prince declared: “It’s a sad characterization of many of these places. It’s not based on race. It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with corrupt incompetent governments that abuse their citizens, and that results in completely absent infrastructure to include open sewers, and unclean water, and crime. It’s everything we don’t want in America.”
Like the US media, Prince failed to point out that on two occasions in the recent past when Haiti had a decent government, led by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which was motivated to improve conditions, the United States was instrumental in nullifying its effect. This was in addition to fully supporting the Duvalier dictatorship for nearly 30 years prior to Aristide.
Aristide, a reformist priest, was elected to the presidency in 1991 but was ousted eight months later in a military coup. The 1993 Clinton White House thus found itself in the awkward position of having to pretend – because of all their rhetoric about “democracy” – that they supported the democratically-elected Aristide’s return to power from his exile in he US. After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that he would not help the poor at the expense of the rich – literally! – and that he would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving starvation wages, literally! If Aristide had thoughts about breaking the agreement forced upon him, he had only to look out his window – US troops were stationed in Haiti for the remainder of his term.
In 2004, with Aristide once again the elected president, the United States staged one of its most blatant coups ever. On February 28, 2004, American military and diplomatic personnel arrived at Aristide’s home to inform him that his private American security agents must either leave immediately to return to the US or fight and die; that the remaining 25 of the American security agents hired by the Haitian government, who were to arrive the next day, had been blocked by the United States from coming; that foreign and Haitian rebels were nearby, heavily armed, determined and ready to kill thousands of people in a bloodbath. Aristide was pressured to sign a “letter of resignation” before he was flown into exile by the United States.
And then US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the sincerest voice he could muster, told the world that Aristide “was not kidnapped. We did not force him onto the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly. And that’s the truth.” Powell sounded as sincere as he had sounded a year earlier when he gave the UN a detailed (albeit imaginary) inventory of the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq, shortly before the US invasion.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was on record, by word and deed, as not being a great lover of globalization or capitalism. This was not the kind of man the imperial mafia wanted in charge of the Western Hemisphere’s assembly plant. It was only a matter of time before they took action.
It should be noted that the United States also kept progressives out of power in El Salvador, another of Trump’s “shithole” countries.
On January 24 I went to the Washington, DC bookstore Politics & Prose to hear David Cay Johnston, author of “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America”. To my surprise he repeatedly said negative things about Russia, and in the Q&A session I politely asked him about this. He did not take kindly to that and after a very brief exchange cut me off by asking for the next person in line to ask a question.
That was the end of our exchange. No one in the large audience came to my defense or followed up with a question in the same vein; i.e., the author as cold warrior. The only person who spoke to me afterwards had only this to say as he passed me by: “Putin kills people”. Putin had not been mentioned. I should have asked him: “Which government never kills anyone?”
Politics & Prose is a very liberal bookstore. (Amongst many authors of the left, I’ve spoken there twice.) Its patrons are largely liberal. But liberals these days are largely cold warriors it appears. Even though the great majority of them can’t stand Trump they have swallowed the anti-Russia line of his administration and the media, perhaps because of the belief that “Russian meddling” in the election led to dear Hillary’s defeat, the proof of which seems more non-existent with each passing day.
Sam Smith (who puts out the Progressive Review in Maine) has written about Hillary’s husband: “A major decline of progressive America occurred during the Clinton years as many liberals and their organizations accepted the presence of a Democratic president as an adequate substitute for the things liberals once believed in. Liberalism and a social democratic spirit painfully grown over the previous 60 years withered during the Clinton administration.”
And shortly afterward came Barack Obama, not only a Democrat but an African-American, the perfect setup for a lot more withering, health care being a good example. The single-payer movement was regularly gaining momentum when Obama took office; it seemed like America was finally going to join the modern advanced world. But Mr. O put a definitive end to that. Profit – even of the type Mr. Trump idealizes – would still determine who is to live and who is to die, just like Jews intone during Rosh Hashanah.
Poor America. It can travel to other planets, create a military force powerful enough to conquer the world ten times over, invent the Internet and a thousand other things … but it can’t provide medical care for all its people.
Now, three of the richest men in the world, the heads of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase, which collectively employ more than a million people, have announced they are partnering to create an independent company aimed at reining in ever-increasing health-care costs for companies and employees alike. The three men will pursue this objective through a company whose initial focus will be on technology solutions that will provide US employees and their families with simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost. Almost no details were made available on how they plan to do this, but I predict that whatever they do will fail. They have lots of models to emulate – in Canada, Europe, Cuba and elsewhere – but to an American nostril these examples all suffer from the same unpleasant odor, the smell of socialism.
I say this even though their announcement states that the new company will be “free from profit-making incentives and constraints”. And Warren Buffet, head of Berkshire Hathaway, is cited on CNN as follows: “Warren Buffett says America is ready for single-payer health care. The billionaire investor tells PBS NewsHour that government-run health insurance ‘probably is the best system’ because it would control escalating costs. ‘We are such a rich country. In a sense, we can afford to do it.’” Of course the US could have afforded to do it 50 years ago. I really hope that my cynicism is misplaced.
Repeatedly, President Trump and his supporters have bragged about the “booming” stock market, attributing it to the administration’s marvelous economic policies and the great public confidence in those policies. Like much of what comes out of the Donald’s mouth … this is simply nonsense.
The stock market is, and always has been, just a gambling casino, a glorified Las Vegas. Every day a bunch of people, (gamblers) buy and/or sell one stock or another; sometimes they sell the same stock they bought the day before; or the hour before; or the minute before; the next day they may well do the exact reverse. All depending on the latest news headline, or what a corporation has done to elicit attention, or what a friend just told them, or a fortune teller, or that day’s horoscope, or just a good ol’ hunch. Or they make up a reason; anything to avoid thinking that they’re just pulling the lever of a slot machine.
And many people buy certain stocks because other people are buying it. This is what stock market analysts call a speculative bubble. Prick the confidence and the bubble bursts. “The stock market,” Naomi Klein has observed, “has the temperament of an overindulged 2-year-old, who can throw one of its world-shaking tantrums.”
Walter Winchell, the 1960-70s powerful and widely-syndicated gossip columnist of the New York Daily News, famously wrote that he lost his faith in the stock market when he saw that a stock could jump sharply in price simply because he happened to mention something related to the company in his column.
And all this occurs even when the stock market is operating in the supposedly honest way it was designed to operate. What are we to make of it when sophisticated investors devise a computer scam for instantaneous buying and selling, as has happened several times in recent years?
Yet President Trump and his fans would have us believe that the big jump in stock prices of the past year is testimony to his sterling leadership and oh-so-wise policies. What will they say when the market crashes? As Trump himself will crash.
Yes, that’s what they’re thinking of next. Among other things these cars will be able to catch speeders and issue tickets. But here’s the real test of the system’s Artificial Intelligence – Can the police car be taught how to recognize a young black man, drive to within a few feet of him, and fire a gun at his head?
In an on-going sign of growing partnership, the United States has announced that the inaugural “2+2” ministerial dialogue between its defense and state department secretaries and their Indian counterparts will take place in Washington. The dialogue is expected to be held on April 18 or 19.
“We expect to launch our inaugural 2+2 dialogue with India in Washington this spring, when secretary (Rex) Tillerson and secretary (James) Mattis will meet with their Indian counterparts to further deepen our security ties,” state department deputy secretary John Sullivan said during a senate hearing on the Trump administration’s Afghanistan-centric South Asia strategy.
The launch of the dialogue was announced in August last year. The White House had said in a statement, “establishing a new 2-by-2 ministerial dialogue … will elevate their (the two countries’) strategic consultations”.
While secretaries Mattis and Tillerson have met their Indian counterparts Nirmala Sitharaman and Sushma Swaraj before, this will be the first meeting in a 2+2 (or 2 by 2) format of simultaneous meeting.
This 2+2 replaces the strategic and commercial 2+2 that India and the US had been holding for a few years earlier, involving the defence and commerce ministries in discussions focussed on expanding defence and bilateral trade ties.
At the hearing, Sullivan spoke also of India’s involvement in Afghanistan in the context of President Trump’s south Asia strategy, which accords a larger role to India. “The United States and India share economic and humanitarian interests in Afghanistan,” he said.
“India has allocated more than $3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since 2001. India further strengthened ties with Afghanistan with the signing of a development partnership agreement. We appreciate these contributions and will continue to look for more ways to work with India to promote economic growth …”
While Trump administration is going on with its plan to slash or do away with the H-!B, highly skilled workers visas, Americans want the number of H-0! B visas issued per year to be increased from its current 85,000.
Some 400 hiring managers in the science and tech fields say by a ratio of nearly six to one that they will be looking for foreign talent this year. According to a survey by Chicago-based Envoy Global, an immigration services firm, 59% of respondents said they would be hiring more foreign employees at their U.S. offices, up from 50% who said so in 2017 and 34% in 2016.
“The survey respondents tell us they need higher skilled immigrants and think Washington should increase the cap for the H-1B,” says Richard Burke, Envoy’s CEO. The survey was released on Wednesday.
Seven in 10 employers said that having a global workforce was “very” or “extremely important” to their talent strategy (up from 63% last year). Some 77% cited the need to fill a skills gap for looking abroad. Almost 100% of human resource managers surveyed said that their companies changed their green card policy over the past year, with 31% saying they are sponsoring green cards faster.
H-!B is not exactly an immigrant visa, though it does allow for foreigners to work legally in the United States for at least two years. But it is one of the most controversial immigration topics after building a wall and the “Dreamers.”
The H-1B visa, dominated by the big three Indian outsourcers, is in more demand this year than last. Demand is nearly double where it was in 2016. The visa program has been roundly criticized by American tech workers who have been replaced by foreign workers, or feel their salaries have stalled out due to imported, skilled labor.
The U.S. issues 85,000 new H-1B visas annually, including 20,000 that go to foreign nationals graduating from Masters or Ph.D. programs in the U.S. A similar number of H-1B visas get renewed each year. “We asked if human resources executives would prefer a merit-based immigration system and 77% of them said yes,” Burke says.
A new H-1B reform bill by Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and Jeff Flake introduced legislation that aims to increase the annual quota of H-1B visas to around 100,000 and lift the cap on the 20,000 visas going to recent graduates of U.S. schools if the employer agrees to sponsor them for a green card. The bill also would allow spouses of H-1B holders a special visa to work.
Some politicians want to see minimum pay stretched out from $60,000 for basic computer software engineers to $100,000. The U.S.-centric tech companies think that will pull some of the visas away from the big Indian firms that dominate the visa program. Roughly 60% of those visas go to Indian nationals working for the big three.
Although the numbers are low in terms of the overall new immigration population here, the H-1B has run into public relations problems due to lawsuits against a number of companies, including India IT outsourcer Infosys.
60 Minutes did a special on the H-1B visa program, with workers citing abuses of the program by their American employer. But immigration policy changes in Washington are making the process of bringing in foreigners slower, with more rings of fire to jump through.
“Trump’s immigration enforcement push is making it harder,” says Burke, citing survey data. “Requests for applications go through slower, site visits are up from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and requests for evidence on applicants is increasing.”
After years of decline, the number of arrests made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) climbed to a three-year high in fiscal 2017, according to data from the agency. The biggest percentage increases were in Florida, northern Texas and Oklahoma.
ICE made a total of 143,470 arrests in fiscal 2017, a 30% rise from fiscal 2016. The surge began after President Donald Trump took office in late January: From his Jan. 20 inauguration to the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, ICE made 110,568 arrests, 42% more than in the same time period in 2016.
Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 25 that expanded ICE’s enforcement focus to most immigrants in the U.S. without authorization, regardless of whether they have a criminal record. Under President Barack Obama, by contrast, ICE focused its enforcement efforts more narrowly, such as by prioritizing the arrests of those convicted of serious crimes.
Despite the overall rise in arrests in 2017, ICE made about twice as many arrests in fiscal 2009, the year Obama came into office (297,898). This total generally declined in subsequent years.
ICE reports arrests geographically by “areas of responsibility.” Although they are named for field offices in major cities, these areas can encompass large regions of the U.S., with some covering four or more states. The Miami area of responsibility, which covers all of Florida, saw the largest percentage increase in ICE arrests between 2016 and 2017 (76%). Next were the Dallas and St. Paul regions (up 71% and 67%, respectively). Arrests increased by more than 50% in the New Orleans, Atlanta, Boston and Detroit regions as well.
Other ICE regions, including those on the U.S.-Mexico border, saw relatively little change in arrests compared with the 30% increase nationally. The Phoenix and El Paso areas, for example, rose around 20% each. The San Antonio and Houston areas in particular saw almost no growth from 2016 to 2017 (up 1% and 5%, respectively). No region reported a decrease in arrests.
The overall number of immigration arrests made by ICE in 2017 varied around the U.S., and the most arrests did not always occur in areas close to the U.S.-Mexico border or in places with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations (such as the New York and Los Angeles metro areas).
ICE arrests were highest in the agency’s Dallas area (16,520), which also saw the largest increase in absolute numbers between 2016 and 2017 (up 6,886). The Houston and Atlanta areas had the second- and third-highest totals in 2017 (each around 13,500), followed by the Chicago, San Antonio and Los Angeles areas (each with roughly 8,500 arrests).
The Dallas area led the nation in ICE arrests last year for the first time during the period analyzed (fiscal 2009-2017). In more recent years, areas closer to the Texas-Mexico border (including Houston and San Antonio) topped the list for arrests. However, the El Paso area, which is also located on the country’s southern border, had among the fewest ICE arrests in the nation in 2017, with fewer than 2,000 – just slightly more than in the Baltimore and Buffalo areas.
Despite a 39% increase in arrests, the New York area of responsibility had among the fewest total ICE arrests in 2017 (roughly 2,600), even though it includes the New York City metro area – home to one of the nation’s largest unauthorized immigrant populations, according to Pew Research Center estimates. The city itself has recently gained attention for its limited cooperation with federal immigration procedures and attempts to boost its “sanctuary city” status by expanding protections for unauthorized immigrants. New York was among several jurisdictions cited by ICE as having policies that restrict cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Jurisdictions within the Baltimore, Buffalo and El Paso areas also made the list. (Many of these policies were enacted long before Trump took office.)
Recent immigration arrest patterns demonstrate a growing emphasis by federal authorities on interior enforcement efforts. While ICE arrests went up significantly between 2016 and 2017, arrests made by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – the federal agency responsible for enforcing U.S. immigration laws on the border – have declined. CBP agents made 310,531 apprehensions in 2017, down 25% from 2016 and the lowest total in over 45 years. Despite this decrease, CBP apprehensions still far outnumber arrests by ICE.
The Coalition of Indian Organizations of Long Island celebrated the 69th Republic Day of India on Wednesday, Jan. 31 at Clinton G. Martin Hall in New Hyde Park, NY. The celebration was attended by Consul General of India in New York Ambassador Sandeep Chakravorty, judges of the New York Supreme Court, public officials at the local and state level and other prominent members of the Indian American community in Long Island.
The event, organized by the Chairman of the Indian American Voters Forum Varinder Bhalla, brought 14 Indian organizations of Long Island under one umbrella as well as the largest gathering of the American dignitaries.
The organizations that were present include: Dr. Urmilesh Arya and Gobind Munjal of the Association of Indians in America; Arya Veer Mukhi of the Samaj of Long Island; Gobind Bathija of Asa Mai Temple; Anjani Persaud of the Brahmakumaris of Long Island; Thomas Oommen of the Federation of Malayalee Associations; Minesh Patel of the Gujrati Samaj of New York; Dr. Rakesh Dua and Dr. Ajay Lodha of the Indian American Physicians of Long Island; Gunjan Rastogi of the India Association of Long Island; Varinder Bhalla of the Indian American Voters Forum; Dr. Rajinder Uppal of the International Punjabi Society; Dr. Ajey Jain of the Rajasthan Association of North America; Dr. Himanshu Pandya of SPARK Youth Club of New York; Rakesh Bhargava of World Spiritual Awareness Forum Inc.; and Koshy Oommen of the World Malayalee Association.
New York Supreme Court Justices Denise Sher and Ruth Balkin were present to represent the judiciary while New York Senator Elaine Phillips presented a Senate Proclamation to Ambassador Chakravorty.
Legislature Majority Leader Rich Nicolello and Legislator Tom McKevitt were there to represent Nassau County as well as Nassau County Comptroller Jack Schnirman. Hempstead Township was represented by its Town Clerk Sylvia Cabana and Supervisor Laura Gillen, who hoisted the Indian flag at Town Hall on Jan. 26.
Gillen also presented a Citation to Ambassador Chakravorty honoring the 69th anniversary of the India Republic Day and another Republic Day Citation was also presented to the Ambassador on behalf of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino.
Niketa Bhatia, who successfully petitioned the Syosset School District to have Diwali be designated as an official holiday, was honored with a Citation from the Oyster Bay Township. Many Indian American children performed in the cultural show whose highlight was a performance by the artists of the Surati for Performing Arts, a nationally acclaimed group which has performed at the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center and the United Nations, among others.
The pageantry of the Republic Day event was enhanced by bagpipers of Nassau County Firefighters Band who has also played at President Donald Trump’s Inauguration in Washington D.C. and in Europe on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
Indian Overseas Congress (IOC, USA) expresses grave concern over the tone and content of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the Parliament denigrating the legacy of Nehru and attacking the Nehru-Gandhi family that includes the two who have even sacrificed their lives in serving the nation. “It is unfortunate that the leader of the ruling party was engaged in a tirade against history instead of dealing with the current economic downturn caused by the errant policy implementations of this administration,” said George Abraham, Vice-Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, USA.
“Ever since Narendra Modi came to the office of Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru became his favorite punching bag with a deliberate effort and calculated campaign to tarnish his legacy and diminish his accomplishments. It is very consistent with a pattern of behavior from his ruling party to rewrite history and misinform the public to further its political ends” Mr. Abraham added.
IOC, USA understands the frustration of Mr. Modi after having promised to create 10 million jobs a month and improve the lives of those rural folks, not only that he failed on both of those scores, but the country has also been witnessing a depressed job market in the IT sector and increased farmer suicides.
Modi’s speech in Parliament where he conveniently twisted history when he said that had Sardar Patel been the first PM, all Kashmir would have been ours. All available facts of history disprove Modi’s theory in this regard, and he may probably need a history lesson to refresh his memory. Rajmohan Gandhi in his biography “Patel: A Life (Page 407-8,438)” talks about Patel’s thinking of an ideal bargain: if Jinna let India have Junagadh and Hyderabad, Patel would not object to Kashmir acceding to Pakistan.
Moreover, it is not only the Separatists in Muslim League that drove India to the tragedy of partition but also Hindutva zealots who demanded a Hindu State to replace a secular India. RSS rejected the whole concept of a composite nation and made it easy for the British Colonialists to drive the final nail of their divide and rule strategy on an emerging free country.
Instead of addressing serious problems at hand, Modi’s whole exercise in the Parliament has been an attempt to smear the opposition and divert attention away from his failure to keep his promises to the voters that he made in 2014. IOC requests the Prime Minister to respond to the questions raised by the President of the Congress party and the nation is eagerly waiting!
India has launched one of the world’s largest health insurance programs that expects to cover 100 million families or an estimated 500 million people, at an annual estimated cost of some $1.7 billion.
India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced the ambitious plan on Feb. 1 as part of the 2018-2019 Budget, saying in parliament, that “This will be the world’s largest government-funded health-care program.”
It also includes the setting up of wellness centers around the country on an unprecedented scale. While the U.S. is moving away from Obamacare, the program dubbed ‘Modicare ‘by Indian media, will be covering more than one and a half times the size of the U.S. population, akin to the U.S. Medicaid program which provides coverage for the poor, but focused on catastrophic illnesses.
The government plan will cover close to 500,000 Rupees, or roughly little less than $8,000 in expenses for serious illnesses requiring hospitalization. The government is budgeting $188 million for wellness centers to expand accessibility at local levels, especially for the poor who otherwise have to travel long distances to avail of modern healthcare.
Revenues raised from a 1 percent health access — an add-on to income taxes — is expected to go partway in financing the new deal, with national insurance companies as well as states chipping in to share the cost. The government hopes that as enrollment grows, the program will begin to pay for itself.
The need for universal health care is necessary in India, says Indian-American physician and Padma Shri Dr. Sudhir Parikh, founder of the Parikh Foundation for India’s Global Development. “It is a great initiative which will, according to the government, cover 40 percent of the needy population (in India),” said Parikh, who is also the joint secretary of the Global Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (GAPIO), as well as past-president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian origin (AAPI). He called it an “long overdue” measure, that would help people access state-of-the-art health services. While the life expectancy in India has risen to 68.3, and infant mortality has dropped from 83 per 1000 live births in 1990 to 34 per 1000 live births in 2016 according to government statistics, and maternal mortality rates have declined, India still has to go a long way improving the health of its citizens.
The program “will be a game changer”, Prathap Reddy, chairman of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd., and founder president and emeritus advisor of GAPIO, is quoted saying in a Reuters report Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman of NITI Aayog, (National Institute for Transforming India) the premier government think tank, told Bloomberg News, “If we roll this out enough within this calendar year it will be an absolute game changer,” adding, “It’s a new India that we are giving birth to.” Kumar also said funding of nearly $2 billion a year to meet the expense of health insurance for the poor, would not be hard to meet as more people enrolled in the service.
But Kumar did sound a note of caution, speculating whether state governments would work in concert with the center to make the plan a reality.
Doctors look at the ultrasound scan of a patient at Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital in New Delhi, January 19, 2015. Reuters/Adnan Abidi. In 2014, according to the World Health Organization, India spent some 4.5 percent of its GDP on health for a population of 1.3 billion. Meanwhile, data compiled by NITIAayog, shows significant drops in infant mortality in almost every state between 2002 and 2016. However, while India has made significant advances in its health system in the last few decades, the WHO notes that India accounts for 21% of the world’s global burden of disease; the greatest burden of maternal, newborn and child deaths in the world, Key challenges the WHO identifies in India’s health situation include the need to expedite progress in child health, under nutrition and gender equity problems; High burden of disease (BoD), even though important progress has been achieved with some diseases; and dealing with the emergence of maladies like cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, metabolic diseases, cancer and mental illnesses, as well as tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, water-borne diseases and sexually transmitted diseases.
NITI Aayog data also reveals the need for more healthcare centers in line with the plan outlined by the government. In 2005, there were 146,026 health “Sub-centers” around the country, rising to 153,655 in 2016; The number of Primary Health Centers rose from a mere 23,236 in 2005 to just 25,308 in 2015; And Community Health Centers rose from just 3,346 around the country in 2005,to 5,396 in 2015, inadequate by a long margin for the population of the country, and it is hoped the $188 million allocated for building Wellness Centers will meet part of the dire health infrastructure needs.
India has a patchwork of health insurance programmes — a network of private health insurance companies that provide private sector employees and individuals, government programs for its employees, Employees State Insurance that covers some workers in the organised sector and programs of some state governments, but the new program put the country on a path to universal coverage by insuring the poor across the country who have no other access to health insurance.
Anup Karan, associate professor at the Public Health Foundation of India, speaking to News India Times via Skype, said India has tried government health insurance in various forms since the middle of the last decade, and noted that there are both concerns as well as positives about the latest initiative. While the history of state-level and national health service efforts is checkered, the new initiative will have to take into account that 60 percent of health issues in India are treated in outpatient care, according to Karan’s findings, and the new insurance program covers only hospitalization.
Karan noted the “huge success” of the 2007 “pioneering” effort by Andhra Pradesh’s state funded wellness plan, Rajiv Arogyasri; the 2008 Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana which saw very low enrollment ratios and huge operational issues; and the 2010 launch of state-level health insurance by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Maharashtra covering only tertiary and surgical conditions, with mixed results, where Tamil Nadu experienced “very great success.”
“The new scheme announced February 1, is an enhanced version of the National Health Protection Scheme launched in 2016, in terms of coverage and funding,” says Karan. He worries that because poor people use mainly outpatient care, the new program’s hospitalization coverage may not help them as much; in addition, he worries that when the poor did access the new plan, healthcare providers may tend to “overprescribe and overtreat” the poor who may not be adequately informed about the details of the coverage.
“But at least there is a scheme and maybe gradually these points will be considered as it matures and outpatient healthcare will get covered,” Karan said. He hopes to see results by the second or third year of implementation.
Vinay Aggarwal, former president of the Indian Medical Association, gave a positive reading to The Washington Post, saying, “Before this, hardly 5 percent of Indians were covered by health insurance. If you take into account private health care, it’s hardly 10 percent. Now we’re addressing 45 percent.”
Parikh said, “On behalf of AAPI and GAPIO, I want to congratulate the Prime Minister on this initiative and hope it will be successful and eventually lead to universal healthcare,” an objective Jaitley says is achievable if the new initiative goes according to plan.
In the US, people of Indian origin are among the strongest supporters of the country’s Democratic Party, a recent study showed. In the past decade, the number of Asian-American voters nearly doubled to 3.9 million in 2012 from 2 million, making them among the fastest growing groups of voters in the U.S., according to the survey.
The researchers asked Indian-Americans how they would vote in the 2016 Presidential elections. Close to 60% of Indian-Americans polled said they viewed the Republican Party unfavorably. Only 17% said viewed Republican party hopeful Donald Trump’s party favorably. The remaining 24% said they didn’t have an opinion.
An impressive 84% of the 2.85 million-strong Indian-American community voted for Barack Obama in 2008, second perhaps only to African-Americans as a minority group. According to a Pew Research Center survey, of all the Asian American groups surveyed, Indian-Americans were the most Democratic-leaning, again at 65%. Only 18% favored Republicans.
However, since President Trump assumed office as the President of the United States, Indian Americans have been on his administration in record numbers. For the first time ever, an Indian American, Nikki Haley, was elevated to the Cabinet level position. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, is thought to bethe first Indian-American woman appointed to a cabinet-level position. Other than Haley, there are currently only three other people of color in the Trump administration’s 24 cabinet or cabinet-level positions.
Trump, keeping his promise at the campaign, gave India a “leadership role” in Washington’s global strategy across a broad geographic swath. “I am thrilled to salute you, Prime Minister Modi, and the Indian people for all you are accomplishing together,” Trump told the Indian premier last June. “We welcome India’s emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and defence partner,” said his national strategy unveiled last month.
Indian-Americans appear to be disproportionately represented in Trump’s nominations compared to other minority groups, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political science professor at the University of California, Riverside, who researches Asian Americans’ civic participation.
But Ramakrishnan suggests that the appointments don’t seem to be a conscious attempt on the White House’s part to diversify its ranks. Rather, the choices appear to be about filling vacancies with experienced and highly connected individuals who are ideologically aligned with the Trump administration ― some of whom just happen to be of Indian descent.
“As far as we can tell, the Trump administration is not taking race or ethnicity into account much, if at all, in terms of appointments, unlike the Obama administration, which was trying to have as diverse set of appointments as possible,” Ramakrishnan said. “I think it’s almost incidental that these people happen to be Indian-American. The fact that they’re Indian-American [doesn’t appear] to make any difference over and beyond what their prior background or political orientation is.”
Trump appointed Ajit Pai as the Chairman of the Federal Communication Commission, a position with a vast portfolio overseeing of the Internet, mobile phones, airwaves, broadcast and communications. Raj Shah serves as his deputy adviser and principal deputy press secretary. Uttam Dhillon, another deputy adviser, is also his deputy counsel.
Seema Verma serves as the administrator of the health insurance programs for seniors and the poor. Trump also tapped Vishal J. Amin, a senior counsel on the House Judiciary Committee, as the White House’s new intellectual property enforcement coordinator, and Neil Chatterjee, an energy adviser for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as a member of the federal energy regulatory commission. Krishna R. Urs, a career member of the Foreign Service, was nominated to be the ambassador to Peru.
These prominent Indian-Americans are now helping the Trump White House push its conservative agenda on everything fromrepealing the Affordable Care Act to overhauling government regulations and scrapping net neutrality rules.
While Ajit Pai has been in the news for his controversial move to do away with net neutrality, as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Verma hasemerged as a key player in Republicans’ controversial quest to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. She is a health policy expert from Indiana who crafted an alternative to Medicaid in her state that won the approval of conservatives.
“I think Indian-Americans and certainly the Indian immigrant press certainly takes notice when people get appointed, and there’s a little bit of ethnic pride knowing there are Indian-Americans in powerful positions, regardless of the administration,” Ramakrishnan said. “But I don’t think Trump is making inroads with the Indian-American community based on the appointments he has made.Policies like the immigration ban, anti-immigrant rhetoric, the Affordable Care Act, are issues that Indian Americans care about. [Trump’s positions] are opposed to the way the vast majority of Indian-Americans stand.”
Immigrants from India first arrived in the United States in small numbers during the early 19th century, primarily as low-skilled farm laborers. In recent decades the population has grown substantially, with 2.4 million Indian immigrants resident in the United States as of 2015. This makes the foreign born from India the second-largest immigrant group after Mexicans, accounting for almost 6 percent of the 43.3 million foreign-born population.
In 1960, just 12,000 Indian immigrants lived in the United States, representing less than 0.5 percent of the 9.7 million overall immigrant population. Migration from India swelled between 1965 and 1990 as a series of legislative changes removed national-origin quotas, introduced temporary skilled worker programs, and created employment-based permanent visas. In 2016, Indians were the top recipients of high-skilled H-1B temporary visas and were the second-largest group of international students in the United States.
Today, the majority of Indian immigrants are young and highly educated, and have strong English skills. Many work in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. From 1980 to 2010, the population grew more than eleven-fold, roughly doubling every decade (see Figure 1). In 2013, India and China supplanted Mexico as the top sources of newly arriving immigrants in the United States.
Along with the success stories in the academic, business and high-skilled jobs along with one of the highest income groups, Indian Americans have come to celebrate, the unprecedented successes in the recent elections, specifically the November 2017 polls, a group of Indian American philanthropists, community leaders, and political operatives have come together to formally launch initiatives to keep things headed in the right direction.
The group has launched the Indian American Impact Project and the Indian American Impact Fund — collectively known as “Impact” — to build a nationwide pipeline of Indian American leaders in politics, policy and government
Impact, co-founded by Raj Goyle, chief executive officer of Bodhala and former member of the Kansas state House, and Deepak Raj, chairman of Pratham USA and founder of the Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia University, the new initiatives will help talented and patriotic Indian Americans run for office, win and lead, it said.
“Despite rapid growth and professional success, for too long Indian Americans have been underrepresented in elected office from state capitols to the U.S. Congress,” said Goyle in a statement. “As a result, our needs, concerns, and priorities often go unheard in the halls of power. At a time when our community and our values are under attack by xenophobic rhetoric and regressive policies, it is more critical than ever that Indian Americans build and wield political power to fight back.”
The Impact Project and Impact Fund was formally launched Jan. 17. It is based in Washington, D.C. and is co-founded by former Kansas Democratic State lawmaker Raj Goyle, currently the CEO of Bodhala, a company that helps the legal community optimize operations, and Deepak Raj, chairman of the well-known non-profit Pratham USA and founder of the Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia University.
Both initiatives are led by Gautam Raghavan, who previously served as vice president of policy for the Gill Foundation, as an Advisor in the Obama White House, and in various roles for the 2008 Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee.
“Despite rapid growth and professional success, for too long Indian Americans have been underrepresented in elected office from state capitols to the U.S. Congress,” Goyle is quoted saying in the press release. “As a result, our needs, concerns, and priorities often go unheard in the halls of power. At a time when our community and our values are under attack by xenophobic rhetoric and regressive policies, it is more critical than ever that Indian Americans build and wield political power to fight back,” he added.
As of January 2018, five Indian Americans currently serve in the United States Congress: Senator Kamala Harris, D-California; and Representatives Ami Bera, D-California, Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, Ro Khanna, D-California, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Illinois.
Impact said it is also tracking an additional 60 Indian-Americans currently serving in state and local office as state legislators, mayors, city council members, judges, and other elected positions.
The Impact Project Board of Directors includes Priya Dayananda, managing director of Federal Government Affairs for KPMG LLP, Vinai Thummalapally, former U.S. Ambassador to Belize and former executive director of SelectUSA, and Mini Timmaraju, executive director of External Affairs at Comcast and former National Women’s Vote Director for Hillary for America.
The Impact Fund Board of Directors includes Ravi Akhoury, former chairman and CEO of MacKay Shields LLC, and Raghu Devaguptapu, partner at Left Hook Strategies and former political director for the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC). Vikas Raj, managing director of Accion Venture Lab, will serve as a non-voting observer on both boards.
“This is our time,” said Raj. “Across the country, a record number of Indian Americans are running for office. We can’t leave it to chance that they will win on their own. We owe them our support — and we have a plan to help them run, win, and lead.”
Indiaspora, another grp with similar objectives, is one of the most influential Indian American organizations in recent years. It has announced the appointment of Mumbai-born Sanjeev Joshipura, 42, as executive director. Joshipura previously served as director of the group founded and chaired by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and community activist M.R. Rangaswami.
Indiaspora is a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan nonprofit organization which says it serves as “a platform to facilitate U.S.-India bilateral relations and trilateral ties with select countries, increasing Indian-American community engagement, and redefining philanthropy among Indian Americans.” It provides a network of Indian-Americans and Indian leaders.
“It is my privilege to work for this organization, whose mission and values I truly believe in, and whose members I enjoy interacting with daily,” said Joshipura. “Indiaspora has achieved a lot since its inception in 2012, and I look forward eagerly to working with and leading the team to even greater heights moving forward.”
“I can guarantee that you will not see MR on a golf course anytime soon,” Joshipura said. “He is far too passionate about the causes he is involved with to hang up his boots just yet.” He said his priorities in 2018 are in two areas. “First, fostering closer trilateral relationships among prominent Indian-Americans, Indians and leaders from third countries which have a large Indian diaspora, and/or have tremendous potential for collaboration in specific fields of activity. And, second, being a catalyst for effective philanthropy,” he said.
In 2017, the organization held a second gala to celebrate five Indian Americans who were elected to the House and Senate: Reps. Ami Bera and Ro Khanna, D-California; Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington; Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Illinois; and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California. The organization has raised more than $500,000 to bring two additional staffers on board, in addition to Joishipura, and Mansi Patel, who serves as marketing manager.
The organization is also launching a broad philanthropy study to determine how Indian Americans give back to India. Indiaspora is working with several NGOs to “better tell the India story, with the aim of getting more donor dollars to India,” said Rangaswami.
“There are not enough resources for anybody who happens to be Indian-American to win. There needs to be obviously criteria and we have that. And, in having people like Raghu [Devaguptapu], Mini [Timmaraju], Priya [Dayananda], Gautam [Raghavan] and obviously myself, we have a considerable amount of people of political talent and expertise associated with the organization.”
He called running for office “a brave and difficult thing to do. So we applaud anyone who is willing to step up and give it a shot. However, we also want to help prospective candidates think strategically about when, how, where, and why they are running for office so they are best positioned to win.”
Omar Vaid, the son of immigrant parents of Gujarati Indian heritage, growing up Muslim in Illinois and Florida, embraced his family’s rich cultural heritage, as well as that of his schoolmates and friends. This background is one of the reasons Omar feels compelled to run in 2018. As a member of the Democratic Party he believes diversity is an asset and that all voices must be included.
Indian American Omar Vaid is running for the 11th Congressional District seat which is currently being held by Rep. Dan Donovan (R-Staten Island, Southern Brooklyn), and has been gaining a lot of attention on social media, according to Voices of NY.
After attending UCF and completing his bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Omar moved to Brooklyn in 2006, and started his career in the movie industry. Omar moved to Bay Ridge in 2008, and remembers fondly the many nights he spent at a local Turkish restaurant eating adana kebab and drinking laziza. In 2009 he joined the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 52. In the same year, Omar left Bay Ridge due to prolonged problems with the R train. This is one reason that improving transportation is so important to Omar.
Now, Vaid works with props and set decoration for New York productions, along with working on the TV shows “Luke Cage” and “The Get Down.” According to his website, Vaid has also spent the “last decade directly working with teamsters, welders, electricians, carpenters, mechanics and manufacturers to make sets and scenes possible. He votes with his dollars and for this reason, buys largely from a network of local business owners and small suppliers and believes that ‘Made in America’ and strong allied trades are key to our future prosperity and the perseverance of the American Dream” and believes that “diversity is an asset and that all voices must be included.”
Vaid believes that immigrants and unions make America stronger. Becoming part of the IATSE Local 52 mirrored what his father did decades earlier, he noted. After coming to the U.S. in the early 1970s on a student visa, the elder Vaid gained citizenship and became one of the first Indian American union workers at Light Metals Factory in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“I believe in a free-market system, regulated to protect the average citizen from corporate overreach and abuse,” Omar says. “It is no secret that today in America the top .1% own as much as the bottom 90%. To make matters worse, 99% of new income goes to the .1%. People rightfully feel the economy is rigged, jobs don’t pay what they used to and unionizing efforts are in decline. It’s time for the billionaires to pay their fair share.
“We have the power to change all of this. Will you join me in taking on the most powerful people in the world in an effort to reduce their influence on Washington? I don’t believe there is any other way forward. We must recalibrate our economy, so the pie begins to grow for everyone. Unity is our way forward. America is the greatest nation on Earth. I’m asking you to join me in the fight to make our democracy serve everyone equally.”
Indian American Beej Das of Massachusetts, a 3rd Congressional District candidate minced no words when asked for specific opinions on politics and policy. Das sat down with The Sun’s editorial board last week to discuss his candidacy for U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas’ seat, which will open when she retires at the end of her current term. His pitch to voters centered around one key word: “different.”
Das believes Congress should vote to overturn federal laws criminalizing marijuana. He thinks the Democratic party whose nomination he seeks was “tone deaf” in the previous election cycle and needs a new perspective to flourish. He finds President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration “disastrous.”
And as Trump continues his push for a wall along the southern border, Das is clear that he would not agree, even in exchange for protections for DACA recipients who will soon be vulnerable to deportation.
“If the wall is nomenclature for tougher border security, nobody in the room is going to say no,” Das said. “(But) if the wall is a wall, it’s going to be a no. If it’s going to be a 30-foot wall, then no. That’s not who we are. The Berlin Wall fell for a reason. Let’s not construct a second one.”
Das sat down with The Sun’s editorial board Wednesday to discuss his candidacy for U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas’ seat, which will open when she retires at the end of her current term. His pitch to voters centered around one key word: “different.”
Das described himself as a candidate who, despite never before running for elected office, could blend legal experience with business acumen to bring a fresh perspective to Congress. After graduating from law school at the University of Michigan, Das, a Democrat clerked for Judge Benson Everett Legg, a Republican appointee, on the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Recently, the Indian American candidate announced in a campaign press release that he has raised $425,000 for his Congress run this year and currently has $550,000 cash on hand, according to the Lowell Sun. “I’m incredibly grateful for the number of individuals who believe in my campaign enough to support it financially. I’m particularly proud that more than half of our donations in the fourth quarter are small donations under $200. We were determined to raise the necessary funds for a competitive race that will allow us to run a grassroots campaign and meet as many voters as possible,” Das said in the release.
Das is a “constitutional lawyer by training, but an entrepreneur at heart” and has “built an innovative hotel company” which has over 100 full-time employees in three states, according to his website. Both of his parents came from India in the early 1960’s to study and build a better life for themselves, they eventually received their Ph.D.s at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and his mom became a professor at Lowell State College while his dad became one of America’s top engineers, according to his website.
Das received his Political Science degree from Middlebury College in Vermont after he attended UMass Lowell and grew fond of politics in 1988 when he was the President of the Young Democrats as well as an early volunteer for Gov. Michael Dukakis.
He then went on to study law at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor before becoming a “federal law clerk to Hon. Judge Benson Everett Legg of the United States District Court for Maryland where I helped decide cases ranging from civil rights, affirmative action and discrimination, commercial disputes, intellectual property, to drugs and other criminal matters,” according to his website. Das then returned to UMass Lowell to teach classes on the sociology of law and started a career at a leading Boston law firm before joining the hotel business.
“I’m Deep. I’m a teacher, school founder, technology entrepreneur, lawyer, and child of immigrants from India.”
A teacher, school founder, technology entrepreneur, lawyer, and child of immigrants from India, Deep Sran has declared his intention to run for the US Congress in Virginia’s 10th District. “I’m running for Congress because I want to work to restore the promise of a better future for all Americans. I know that’s a big goal, but I also know it is within reach if we work together with open minds and better ideas,” he said in a statement. “I’ll focus on finding the best ways to fulfill this promise through education, better democratic processes, and a commitment to confronting and solving problems, rather than ignoring them or limiting myself to a narrow set of tired, ideologically-driven ideas.”
On his achievements and the reason for running for a political office, the Democrat of Indian origin says, “I design and implement new ideas to make education work better, in a school I founded and at a technology company I co-founded. I’m leaving my life’s work to run for Congress in the 10th Congressional District in Virginia—where I have lived since 2004—because Congress no longer works for the people. People like you and me can change this.”
Deep’s parents emigrated from India over 50 years ago. His father was a refugee during India’s partition. Both parents arrived in an America that was a land of opportunity for many Americans and new immigrants, yet a place of racial division and injustice for those still excluded from the American Dream. Born and raised in Montgomery County, Maryland, Deep often felt like an outsider growing up — and this experience made all the difference in his understanding of the potential and promise of America. He was able to see the differences and common ground between cultures and faiths, and he learned to avoid the many ways in which people can divide ourselves from one another. More than anything, he learned why America is the greatest nation on the planet, and must be a model for the world.
Deep has been an educator his entire adult life, and his experience has shown him that students thrive when teachers have the power to decide what happens in the classroom. In a moment when politicians, corporations, and technological developments are stripping teachers of their autonomy, Deep founded and runs a school, Loudoun School for the Gifted, based on the premise that the adults who know their subjects and their students best should lead the way. By showing what is possible in his private school, Deep hopes to build the case for greater teacher autonomy where it is regularly under attack: in our public schools.
Deep holds a degree in political science from University of Maryland and attended law school at Georgetown University. He was previously a corporate attorney for large firms in Baltimore and Chicago. He left private legal practice to study how children learn and to work on a Ph.D. in Human Development at University of Maryland. Deep was also recently a columnist for Loudoun Now, where he shared his thoughts on education and democracy.
Indian American Democrat Shri Thanedar, has declared his candidacy to run for governor in the state of Michigan. “My story is one of grit and determination, of the heights of success and the lessons of failure, of unwavering optimism in the face of harsh adversity,” says the young the scientist, entrepreneur, and now Democratic candidate for Governor of Michigan..
On his mission and why he wants to run to be the governor, Thanedar says, “At critical points in my life, Michigan gave me tremendous opportunities to pursue my dreams. Now I want to give back by serving as governor, using my real-world experience to build a stronger Michigan that puts the people back in power after years of special interest rule.”
Thanedar is mostly self-funding his campaign and has already put $6 million from his own pocket into the election. According to the Detroit Free Press, Thanedar has purchased about $114,000 worth of 30-second commercials before, during and after the Super Bowl, which will be aired live on Feb. 4 on NBC-affiliated stations. “I have very low name ID. I’ve been to every corner of the state, but that doesn’t reach as many people as I want to reach,” Thanedar told the Detroit Free Press.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Thanedar seems to have followed into the current governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder’s footsteps, who also was a businessman from Ann Arbor. Many believe that Thanedar copied Snyder’s strategy. However, Thanedar disagrees.
“I’m a different kind of businessman than Gov. Snyder. I look at the campaign as an entrepreneurial venture. I’m not copying or borrowing anything from anyone else’s book,” he told the Detroit Free Press. According to the Detroit Free Press, Thanedar moved to Michigan in 2010 and is a retired businessman from Ann Arbor.
The young Indian American grew up in Belgaum, India, in a poor family with five siblings. When his father was forced to retire from his government job at the age of 55, his family was faced with severe economic hardship, Thanedar says on his webportal.
“I worked odd jobs to help them out while still in high school and later in college. Watching my mother Inni – a strong woman raising six children on a meager income – I learned frugality, pragmatism, and above all, fearlessness. Shouldering major family responsibilities at the age of 14 taught me the importance of hard work and saving for the future,” he adds.
Thabedar went to college in India, and took a job with the Bhabha Atomic Research Center. But after several run-ins with red tape and authoritarianism, he decided to explore opportunities in the United States.
He came to the US and earned his doctorate in polymer chemistry, then became a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He became an American citizen in 1988, “fulfilling a lifelong dream.”
In 1990 he joined a small chemical services company in St. Louis called Chemir, and when Chemir’s owner announced her intention to retire, Thabedar obtained a bank loan to purchase the three-person company. Under his able leadership, Chemir grew from a tiny lab to 400 employees with more than $60 million in revenue.
Like so many Michiganders, Thanedar and his company took a hard punch from the great recession. Like many Michigan businesses, his firm suffered a severe downturn. “My business was taken by the bank and, like many Michigan homes, my dream home was foreclosed. In the end, every cent was paid back, but I had to start over,” Thanedar says with a sense of pride and determination.
“In 2010, we packed up a truck and returned to Michigan. At the age of 55, I restarted my business from scratch in Ann Arbor, creating nearly 50 high-paying jobs. In 2016, I sold my business, gave my staff $1.5 million in holiday bonuses, and decided to devote the rest of my life to public service.”
Having gone through severe hardships in life, Thanedar says, “All Michiganders deserve an equal shot at success, but for far too long our leaders have favored the wealthy over the middle class. I am the only candidate in this race who knows what it’s like to go hungry. I am the only candidate who has created a single job. And I know what role our government can serve in helping people and small businesses get on a path to financial stability. I’m going to make Michigan’s government work for everyone again – not just the people at the top.
“That’s why I have named our campaign “Shri for We.” I will change the status quo in Lansing, and put “we, the people” back in charge of our government,” Thanedar adds. If elected, the Indian American leader says, he will work for policies that lift up working families through access to quality education and job training, allowing them to get good paying jobs that provide a comfortable life and a secure retirement. “It’s time to level the playing field so that every Michigander has an opportunity to pursue their dreams.”
The newly elected New Jersey State Senator Vin Gopal, was sworn in as the Senator representing the 11th Legislative District was sworn on January 10th along with other Senators. State Senate president Steve Sweeney administered the oath of office to Gopal in the New Jersey Assembly Chamber in Trenton.
Gopal, an Indian American Democrat, defeated a long-time Republican incumbent Jennifer Beck in the November election, said, “It is an absolute honor to be able to represent the 11th District in the State Senate. As a life-long resident of Monmouth County, born and raised here, this is a very humbling moment for me.,”
The young and talented Gopal has been assigned to serve as vice-chair of the Senate Transportation Committee. He will also serve as a member of the Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee and the Economic Growth Committee.
“I look forward to working with my new Democratic and Republican colleagues on issues that matter to the people in New Jersey, like property taxes, healthcare, transportation and the environment,” Gopal added.
Gopal, in addition to his time as chair of the Monmouth County Democrats, where he helped place the focus of local campaigns on the crushing property tax burden placed on Monmouth County homeowners, served on the board of directors for the now Monmouth County Chamber of Commerce where he chaired the Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee.
He is a past president of the Hazlet Township Business Owners Association and a past board member of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Monmouth County. Gopal is the owner of Community Magazine NJ, which he founded in 2008, and the nonprofit Direct Development LLC, which he founded in 2010 to help local charities and individuals in need. Gopal, who was born and raised in New Jersey, earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Pennsylvania State University.
Over the past several months, there have been a number of articles in the national press, including The New York Times and Newsweek, speculating whether former South Carolina Governor and the current US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley might consider a presidential run in 2020. Some say her efforts and clear leadership as governor and ambassador to the United Nations have put her in a strong position to possibly become this nation’s first female president.
“Nikki Haley may end up as our first female president,” Fox News’ strategic analyst Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters recently commended current U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Haley is definitely solidifying her foreign-policy resume and is earning a reputation as a tough ambassador. Newsweek even pointed out that Haley has had a higher profile than even Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, especially earlier in the administration.
Also, the recently-released book penned by Michael Wolff, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which was released on January 5th, claims that Nikki Haley is considering a presidential run. The Indian American aspiring leader and ambassador had no response publicly to the book.
Haley, in her time since taking over her new post, to which she was appointed by Trump, has emerged as a close confident of Trump and has been strongly pushing for Trump’s foreign policy agenda at the United Nations, attracting frequent praise from Trump himself.
However, the book portrays Haley in somewhat of a negative light saying that she has presidential ambitions and does not have a good view of Trump. “By October, however, many on the president’s staff took particular notice of one of the few remaining Trump opportunists: Nikki Haley, the U.N. ambassador,” the book said.
“I work with the president and speak with him multiple times a week; this is a man, he didn’t become the president by accident,” Haley was quoted to have said. “We need to be realistic at the fact that every person, regardless of race, religion, or party, who loves the country, should support this president. It’s that important.”
Entering American politics in 2004, Ambassador Haley assumed office as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from the 87th district and was elected chair of freshman caucus and majority whip in the South Carolina General Assembly. She was successfully re-elected in 2006 and 2008.
Being a Republican, Ambassador Haley holds on to the fiscally conservative viewpoint on taxation, which advocates for lower taxes and deregulation of the economy. Being a daughter of Sikh immigrants, she believes immigration laws should be enforced thereby ensuring that immigrants follow legal procedures, which led her to support legislative reforms to address issues of illegal immigration. As a pro-life advocate, she voted for the Penalties for Harming an Unborn Child/Fetus law in 2006 and supported the Pre-Abortion Ultrasound law in 2007.
Ambassador Haley was elected governor of South Carolina in 2010; her election made her the second Indian-American, the first woman and youngest person in U.S. history to serve as governor in the United States. Haley said, “it was a shock to the people of South Carolina. One, I was the first minority [elected in South Carolina]. Two, I was the youngest governor in the country. And three, oh my God she’s a girl.”
In June 2015 her empathetic response to the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina states grounds after the Charleston Massacre, garnered her praise during her governorship. “What I realized now more than ever is people were driving by and felt hurt and pain. No one should feel pain,” said Haley.
Though her governorship of South Carolina is surely commendable, she has flourished in her new role as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, despite criticisms of her lack of experience in foreign relations and diplomacy. In November 2016, president-elect Donald Trump recommended the former governor as a “proven dealmaker,” adding that “we look forward to making plenty of deals and she will be a great leader representing us on the world stage.”
Even though Ambassador Haley supports President Trump today, she still holds true to her own beliefs. For example, by encouraging women everywhere to come forward with their traumatic, sexual harassment experiences. “I know he was elected, but women should always feel comfortable coming forward and we should all be willing to listen to them.”
A popular twice-elected governor of South Carolina, she’s an experienced GOP politician in an administration packed with outsiders. As the daughter of Indian immigrants, she stands out in an administration run chiefly by white men. Telegenic and poised, she has a knack for the limelight that stands in sharp contrast to the administration’s tendencies toward the rumpled (former press secretary Sean Spicer) or reclusive (Tillerson).
But in her first seven months at the helm of the US mission to the UN, Haley’s differences have gone far beyond optics. Trump campaigned on a foreign policy platform of “America first” — the idea that the US should avoid getting involved in unnecessary conflicts overseas and focus narrowly on national security interests over promotion of democracy and human rights abroad.
But Haley has pursued the opposite course. From her stern criticism of Moscow to her championing of human rights to her calls for Syrian regime change, she’s routinely diverged from, or outright contradicted, Trump’s stance on the biggest foreign policy issues of the day.
As Politico first reported, the Democratic National Committee is already digging into the pasts of Haley, Vice President Mike Pence, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse – Republicans at the center of Washington speculation as presidential contenders if Trump isn’t on the ballot for some reason in 2020.
Haley told CNN’s Jamie Gangel, she “can’t imagine running for the White House.” During our interview, she deflected questions about her future in or out of the Trump administration and said she’s concentrating on “making the American people proud” in her current job.
The only Indian-American lawmaker in the New Jersey General Assembly, has been appointed the House Majority Whip for the 218th legislative session.
Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin has named Assemblyman Raj Mukherji — a prosecutor, healthcare entrepreneur, and former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant who previously served as Deputy Mayor of Jersey City — as Majority Whip of the General Assembly to help shepherd the Speaker’s agenda through the 218th legislative session.
Mukherji becomes the first Asian American in state history to serve in this role. He is presently the only former Marine and the only Asian American serving in the New Jersey General Assembly.
“I am confident, based on his zealous advocacy for progressive priorities on the Budget Committee and his personality, that Raj is the right guy to count the votes and help achieve consensus within our caucus,” said Coughlin (D-Middlesex). “Even with his professional success, Raj never forgot his humble roots, and he is well-liked and widely respected by his peers in the legislature. His support in the caucus will be invaluable as we tackle challenging issues and a comprehensive agenda.”
Assemblyman Raj Mukherji is a partner in the Jersey City-based law firm Mukherji Wolf LLC and co-owns several healthcare businesses. At 24, Mukherji was appointed Commissioner and Chairman of the Jersey City Housing Authority, the youngest in city history, where he earned nationwide acclaim for various reforms at the state’s second largest housing authority. At 27, he was appointed Deputy Mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey.
The son of immigrants, Assemblyman Mukherji supported himself through high school, college, and grad school as an emancipated minor when economic circumstances forced his parents to return to their native India. After suffering a pituitary tumor, stroke, and other ailments, Mukherji’s father could no longer work as a result of his health but could not afford health coverage without employment. This experience shaped his perspective and interest in healthcare policy. Assemblyman Mukherji founded an Internet consulting and software development company while in middle school, grew it, and later sold it to a larger technology company to enlist in the Marines two weeks after the attacks of September 11th at age 17, where he served in military intelligence as a reservist. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Thomas Edison State University, an individualized Master of Liberal Arts focused on national security from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Seton Hall Law School.
Representing the 33rd Legislative District, comprised of Jersey City, Union City, Hoboken, and Weehawken, Assemblyman Mukherji is serving in his third term in the Legislature and has also been appointed Vice Chair of the Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee and reappointed to a coveted seat on the Assembly Budget Committee, where he has served since 2014.
“I am humbled by Speaker Coughlin’s trust and confidence in me, and I look forward to helping him deliver on an agenda that seeks to grow our economy, boost the middle class, and improve the quality of life for all New Jerseyans,” said Mukherji.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., was appointed to the US Senate Judiciary Committee on January 9th. Harris, who already serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on the Budget, was joined by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on the committee, according to a news release. The Judiciary Committee oversees the U.S. Department of Justice, including the FBI, as well as the Department of Homeland Security.
“I look forward to the chance to continue to provide a voice for our most vulnerable communities, work on issues I’ve handled since my earliest days in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, and defend California in the face of this administration’s repeated attacks on our values,” Harris said in a statement.
In taking the new assignment, Harris has left the Committee on Environment and Public Works. “While I will no longer serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee, I will continue to be a champion for California, which has an outsized stake in all issues relating to the protection of our environment,” the first-term senator said. “My commitment to fight for everyone’s right to drink clean water and breathe clean air is unwavering.”
As the former District Attorney of San Francisco and Attorney General of California, Harris worked extensively on issues that fall directly under the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction including criminal justice reform, federal criminal law, immigration law, human rights, consumer protection and internet privacy, according to her website.
Both Harris and Booker have been persistent critics of Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Congress. Harris gained notoriety and national attention for her prosecutorial style of grilling Sessions during intelligence hearings in June.
“I can’t help but think that it’s time we replace division with a new way of thinking,” Harris said on Facebook. “I’ve come up with a little equation which is this: diversity, because we are a diverse country, plus commonality, seeing what we all have in common, equals unity. Let’s agree that our diversity is our strength, and our strength is out (sic) unity,” Harris said. Unity in diversity would build “the muscle that will power our movement,” Harris concluded.
Ravi Bhalla, the first Sikh Mayor in any American city, was sworn in as the mayor of Hoboken in the state of New Jersey on January 1st. The 43-year-old new mayor, an Indian-American born in New Jersey, has said he plans on prioritizing infrastructure, commuting and open space.
US Senator Cory Booker presided over the ceremony late Monday. Booker stated, he was proud to be there because his election was a victory for the principle and ideals of the United States.
Bhalla, the 39th mayor of Hoboken, didn’t use the occasion to just celebrate his historic election win. Instead, he used it as a platform to let community members and would-be visitors to the Mile Square City know that his city is friendly to all.
Bhalla said that he heard about racially-motivated attacks against Indian-Americans in Hoboken in the eighties when he was growing up in New Jersey. He says he is proud to see how far the city has come since then.
As his first order of business as mayor, Bhalla signed an executive order declaring his city “fair and welcoming,” in what appears to be a direct response to President Donald Trump’s administration. Bhalla succeeds Dawn Zimmer, who did not seek re-election and supported Bhalla on the campaign who fought back as the target of racially charged fliers.
Bhalla signed the order with many local officials, including Hoboken Police Chief Ken Ferrante, looking on. Ferrante will issue a police directive to implement the policies set forth in the order, the report said.
The 12-page order says no city employee can ask any individual about their citizenship or immigration status; bars federal immigration agents from accessing municipal facilities or databases; and establishes a Fair and Welcoming City Commission that will focus on immigrant issues, among others, NJ.com reported.
“The Hoboken we know and love was built by immigrants and today is sustained by immigrants,” Bhalla said in a statement. “This first executive order is a reflection of our quintessential American values and sends an unmistakable message that Hoboken is a place that welcomes all who are ready, willing and able to contribute to our great city.”
Bhalla’s order requires the city to keep track of records related to immigration-related requests made by federal officials, including the number of immigration detainer requests or administrative warrants received by Hoboken.
Amol Sinha, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, in calling the order extremely significant, told NJ.com that “It allows Hoboken to live up to its potential of being a truly welcoming city.”
“This past election was a model of diversity showcasing for New Jersey and America a city that cares less about who you love, where you came from, what your gender is, where you worship than they care about your ability to take on the challenges ahead for our city,” Bhalla said, according to an NJTV report. “So while the mark of the moral universe may be long, there is no doubt that here in Hoboken, it bends firmly toward justice.”
Indian American and an investment firm founder Harry Arora, 48, has filed paperwork on December 28th with the Connecticut state to register as a candidate, seeking the Republican nomination to run against Jim Himes, an incumbent, a Democrat representing the 4th Congressional district in the state of Connecticut.
Arora in a statement Friday said the central tenets of his platform will be “… to protect our freedoms, to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in our society and ensure that we remain a land of equal opportunity for every American.”
In 2012, Arora co-founded Northlander Advisors, an investment firm with a focus on European energy, which he still runs. Arora lives in town with his wife and three children. He has never run for political office before.
“My understanding of economics and policy framework will allow me to propose thoughtful policies to reverse the harm being inflicted by current policies,” Arora said in the statement. “After a successful business career, I want to serve the public cause. I consider that my duty. I have been blessed with the American dream. Now it is my turn to give back and serve.”
According to a report, Arora criticized both Himes and Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, saying that their policies have failed Connecticut and on his website he criticized the Affordable Care Act claiming that “he will propose policies to lower health care costs and provide more consumer choice.”
He also said that “recent policy has ‘attacked’ the state financial services and insurance industries instead of attracting entrepreneurs and jobs.”
“There are so many in Congress who do not even read the bills they pass – let alone understand the impact of those laws. My real world experience allows me to be your representative who has the capacity and ability to do the job,” Arora says on his website.
“I worked as a portfolio manager and analyst for 20 years studying and investing in macro markets. Through this experience, I gained an understanding of government policy and its impact on economy, employment and living standards. I learned in great detail about our fiscal and monetary policies. I came to understand the impact of immigration, employment trends and industry structure. This experience has given me an appreciation of how incentives are critical for the success of a system,” he adds.
According to his website, Arora is a first generation American, who emigrated to the U.S. as a graduate school student from India. “I still remember the day when my flight landed and I realized that I did not know a single person in the entire country,’ he sates on his website.
“While I came to this country alone, from the day I arrived, I was the beneficiary of the generosity of Americans. Strangers became friends and partners. One such friend, Nisha, became the special person of my life in my American journey. Nisha and I are blessed with three children who are the love of our lives.”
Since leaving the South Carolina Governor’s Mansion for the United Nations, Nikki Haley’s profile has risen. As the United States ambassador to the U.N., Haley is visible on a worldwide level that few experience. Because of that, South Carolina’s former governor shows up on lists of who’s who and is ranked among other prominent people – not just politicians.
That’s the group Haley is included with in another poll. The Republican from Lexington is included in the gallup.com ranking of the most admired women of 2017.
Haley was included in the year-end poll for the first time. She rounded out the lower half of top-10 most admired women. Gallup Dec. 27 released their most admired man and woman lists with Indian American Nikki Haley cracking the list for the first time.
Topping the woman’s list was Hillary Clinton with 9 percent, followed by former first lady Michelle Obama with 7 percent. The top most admired man on Gallup’s list was former President Barack Obama, who notched 17 percent of responses. Obama was followed by current President Donald Trump who tallied 14 percent of responses.
It is the 10th consecutive year that both Clinton and Obama have topped their respective lists.
Others receiving votes in the most admired man list included Pope Francis, the Rev. Billy Graham, U.S. Sen. John McCain, Elon Musk, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Bill Gates, among others.
The most admired woman list included entertainer Oprah Winfrey, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Queen Elizabeth II and current first lady Melania Trump, among others.
The United Nations Association’s Boulder chapter has presented Nikhil Mankekar with the International Human Rights Award. Mankekar, a 36-year-old native of Boulder, is active in many local causes related to promoting and celebrating marginalized populations.
Mankekar, co-chair of the Boulder County Human Relations Commission, received the award on December 10th, the day celebrating the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights in 1948. Mankekar noted during the award ceremony that the declaration was signed after an historic period of mass genocide . . . which, tragically, continues to occur to this day, the Community Foundation Boulder County (CFBC) reported on Facebook, posting pictures of Mankekar who is a Fellow of the Foundation.
“Nikhil urged all of us to act locally through our personal interactions to overcome the conditions that lead to such horrible acts, making sure we treat everyone with dignity and respect,” the CFBC noted, adding that the award ceremony was held in the Boulder Public Library, which carried a sign saying, “We are Boulder together.”
“Congratulations, Nikhil, and thank you for your efforts to advance human rights (including in your role on the Boulder Chamber’s Community Affairs Council)!” the CFBC said.
According to the news outlet Dailycamera.com, the event was attended by several local politicians and others. Mankekar has been a local activist of many years standing, working for underserved and under-recognized communities including Native Americans and other minorities. He is of Sikh origin and has advocated for immigrants and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients; was instrumental in creating the Indigenous Peoples Day in Boulder; and combating the criminalization of homelessness, the Dailycamera said.
In his acceptance speech, Mankekar reportedly said he knew firsthand what it felt like to be marginalized in Boulder. “The reason I’ve stayed and lived in Boulder, even despite discrimination that I’ve experienced, is to do what I’m doing now and to make it a better place for everyone,” he is quoted saying in the Daily Camera. “I’m just happy to be recognized for what I’ve been doing in the community around human rights,” the Indian-American activist added. “I’ve put a lot of myself into this, into human and civil rights issues.”
A physician and entrepreneur in Illinois recently declared his candidacy to run for the state’s 10thCongressional District seat as a Republican. Dr. Sapan Shah, 37, of Libertyville, announced his candidacy in September for the 2018 primary, with the hopes of eventually unseating Democrat incumbent Brad Schneider next November.
Among the Indian American candidate’s platform includes taxes and spending, the healthcare crisis and championing the role of citizen legislators as intended by the nation’s founders, he told Patch.com in a report.
Shah is the president and founding partner of a malpractice insurance brokerage in Chicago providing insurance and risk management solutions for more than 800 doctors. He said it has given him the chance to see the problems with the healthcare system up close, according to the report.
“As a doctor who has spent his entire adult life in and around the medical field, I am uniquely qualified to address the health care crisis we find ourselves in today,” Shah said in the report. “I will accomplish this through competition and transparency, empowering individuals by putting them in charge of their own healthcare.”
Shah said he intends to improve the economy by supporting job creators and cutting spending and taxes, the publication noted.
“Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy, yet instead of supporting them, our government seems to be doing everything it can to stifle the entrepreneurial spirit,” the candidate said in the report. “As a successful entrepreneur and small business owner, I know that businesses sometimes just need government to get out of the way.”
Additionally, Shah said that reducing taxes on businesses and individuals will “energize our economy and create better-paying jobs for the hard-working people of the 10th District.”
According to the report, Shah said he intends to run and serve in Congress for a maximum of six years, during which he will support implementing term limits.
Members of the Indian American Community organized a grand Victory celebrations in New York on Tuesday, December 19th, 2017 in Long Island, NY. On a working day large number of community leaders and people attended the celebrations at Hicksvile, New York.
In his Key Note Address Jagdish Sewhani, president American India Public Affairs Committee said that People of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh have out rightly rejected the politics of casteism, appeasement of minorities and corruption.
They have endorsed good governance and voted for development. The proof is that the BJP has been re-elected for a record sixth time. In Himachal Pradesh they have totally rejected corrupt Congress government and gave BJP a 2/3rd majority.
Sharing his personal story, Sewhani said when he was growing up in Gujarat there was long hours of power cuts were norm of the day, every year there were riots and workers went on strike. Ever since BJP has come to power they have changed the face of Gujarat. It is the most developed and industrial State of the country. It has set a gold standard of development in the country. Gujarat now has surplus power. It is now riots and strikes free. There is internet even in villages.
Gujarat has reached this development because of a stable and powerful BJP government for nearly last two decades.
This is the Gujarat Model, we need to follow. If we want a developed and powerful India – which is peaceful and strong – the vision of New India that honorable Prime Minister has envisioned, we need a stable and strong government in Delhi for at least for the next three decades.
India is on its way to Congress Mukt Bharat. BJP/NDA is now in 19 states. The credit of Victory goes to our Dynamic Prime Minister Shri Narendrabhai Modiji, who in last 3 1/2 years has given clean government, set a standard for good governance. India is now marching ahead…. We do not want to be stopped.
As such we need to work in a mission mode for the 2019 general election. Our objective should be not only to re-elect BJP, but also target 450 Lok Sabha seats and 50 percent of the popular votes. Such a strong mandate and popular government is essential to accelerate the pace of development march on the path of New India that we all dream of.
The vision of New India requires uninterrupted power to BJP and Modiji. Modiji firmly believes in Politics of Development and Sabh ka Sath and Sabh Ka Vikas . There was lot of excitement in the audience. They were again and again Chanting Modi/Modi. The victory celebrations finally concluded with a new slogan of Modiji Jeetega Bhai Jeetega Vikas Hee Jeetega.
Rahul Gandhi, vice-president of the Congress Party was elected unopposed as president of the Indian National Congress here on Monday, December 11th, 2017. Gandhi’s appointment was confirmed on Monday, days after he filed his nomination papers for the post. There were no other contenders. He will officially take over as the President of the oldest Indian national Party on December 16th.
Briefing reporters, the party’s central election authority chief Mullappally Ramachandran said Gandhi will formally take over on December 16. “Since the withdrawal of date/time is over and as there is only one candidate (Rahul), as per Article XVII (d) of the Constitution of Indian National Congress, I hereby declare Shri Rahul Gandhi elected as president of the Indian National Congress,” Ramachandran said.
At the party headquarters, 24 Akbar Road, slogans such as “Agla pradhan mantri kaisa ho, Rahul Gandhi jaisa ho,”(Who would be our next PM, Rahul Gandhi!) and crackers rent the air as Mr. Ramachandran made the announcement. Supporters gathered in huge numbers waving Congress flags.
He is the 16th president of the Congress since Independence and sixth from the Nehru-Gandhi clan to take over the party reins. Mr. Gandhi has been vice-president of the party since 2013.
Among other senior politicians, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also congratulated him. “I congratulate Rahulji on his election as Congress President my best wishes for a fruitful tenure,” he tweeted.
The Congress, the country’s largest opposition party, which has ruled India for most periods since Indian gained independence from the British Raj in 1947, won less than 20% of the popular vote in the seismic 2014 general elections which catapulted Narendra Modi’s BJP to power. It secured just 44 – or 8% – of the 543 parliamentary seats in its worst performance ever.
Since then, the Congress has lost elections in half-a-dozen states, and is now in power in only two big states – Karnataka and Punjab – and three other smaller ones. Its prospects in two imminent state elections – Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh – look mixed.
Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad said even before taking over, Gandhi had rattled the BJP. “After three decades, we have a Congress president in the mid-40s. Of course his father took over at a younger age. In the last four-years, Rahul Gandhi has worked hard and we can see the results today. He is leading the Congress campaign alone in Gujarat and the BJP is countering him with their 80 Cabinet Ministers, 12-15 Chief Ministers, and State Ministers,” Azad said.
The incumbent president Sonia Gandhi is expected to hold a designated role as an overall guide and mentor of party. According to sources, a new post of a party patron may be constituted to accommodate her. There is no clarity yet on whether she will resign from the post of parliamentary party chief or not.
The new Congress president has to live up to the expectations of his colleagues who hope that he would arrest the slide in the party’s electoral fortunes. “In 2014, we were in a weak spot. We have been on a path of recovery since then. Despite a measly 44 MPs, under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi we have forced the government to roll back anti-poor measures in GST and the Land Acquisition Bill,” Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said.
Monday’s announcement has to be ratified by the Congress plenary session. The plenary will also elect the new Congress Working Committee. People across the Indian continent hope that Gandhi, 47, will change the fortunes of his enfeebled party.
He entered public life 13 years ago, when he stood and won in his family seat of Amethi. Since then, the fifth-generation scion has been seen as a reluctant politician, aloof and disinterested in the hurly burly of politics.
Gandhi’s elevation to the party’s second most senior leader – after his mother Sonia Gandhi – in 2013 didn’t improve things. He tried to reform his party by holding primaries, revitalize its flagging youth wing and running it like a corporate office. But the results have been less than impressive, and the party’s slide has continued.
After his initial reluctance and poor show at election rallies, Gandhi, the son of late Rajiv Gandhi and grand son of late Indira Gandhi, has come around and has begun establishing himself as a mass leader in his own name.
Gandhi went on a well-received tour of the US, meeting students, think-tank experts, government leaders, and journalists and took questions from them. He was self deprecating about his limitations – he told students at University of California, Berkeley that Mr Modi was a “better communicator” than him.
His social media campaign has finally begun packing a punch. Mr Gandhi is now being seen as more open and refreshingly amusing – he tweeted a health update about his mother’s illness and a video featuring his dog, which caused a sensation.
With Rahul Ganshi assuming office, the highest decision-making body of the party is expected to see a few changes. Gandhi is likely to bring in some new faces. The plenary session may be held in mid-January either in Delhi or Karnataka.
Gandhi’s burst of enthusiasm appears to have energised the party’s rank and file somewhat, but he will need a lot more political nous and strategy if he’s to start winning elections.
He will need to articulate a compelling economic vision to young Indians who are tired of confusing reformist platitudes. He will have to find and encourage charismatic and clean local leaders, forge winning alliances with regional parties, and make sure his party runs better governments in the states it rules.
Nikki Haley, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, and Hasan Minhaj, who made national headlines with his scathing stand-up delivery against President Donald Trump, are among those made it to the list of leading thinkers from around the world, according to the Foreign Policy magazine’s annual reckoning.
Kamala Harris topped the list and was recognized “For giving the Democratic Party hope in the Trump era”; Haley was included “For trying to preserve America’s traditional vision of international affairs”; Minhaj was named to the 2017 list for defining the narrative of a “New Brown America.”
This year the magazine named it’s list the “Global re-Thinkers of the World” contending that 2017 was the year when leaders had to re-calibrate their ideas and strategies after “reactionary populism swept the world” in 2016.
The list includes “legislators, technocrats, comedians, advocates, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, presidents, provocateurs, political prisoners, researchers, strategists, and visionaries — who together found amazing ways not just to rethink our strange new world but also to reshape it,” the magazine said.
“Daily Show” correspondent Hasan Minhaj gave the keynote roast at the White House Correspondents Dinner 2017 in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. MUST CREDIT: Photo by The Washington Post by Marvin Joseph
What skyrocketed Harris to the national scene was a June hearing where she flayed former Sen. Jeff Sessions, in prosecutorial style, drawing flak from Republican Senators. “Suddenly, California’s 53-year-old junior senator has become an early favorite to challenge Trump in the 2020 presidential election,” the magazine noted.
As for Minhaj, the magazine notes it was no coincidence he was chosen for the White House Correspondents Dinner. “After all, just when the U.S. president was desperately trying to ban more Muslims from entering the United States, Minhaj — the son of Muslim immigrants from Aligarh, India — was making a name for himself as the right comedian for the wrong time,” the magazine said.
“In a cabinet stacked with decorated generals and multimillionaire moguls, the daughter of Indian immigrants whose only major political experience was serving as governor of South Carolina seemed an unlikely pick,” said the magazine. But, even before she became the U.N. Ambassador, Haley “appeared to have little in common, foreign policy-wise, with her would-be boss, President Donald Trump,” according to the magazine.
“After she assumed her new role, their differences have been thrown into stark relief,” it adds. Haley’s push to keep sanctions against Russia, championing human rights, and advocating renewed commitment to NATO, over the last 10 months, “smacks more of traditional Republican (and, arguably, traditional U.S.) policies more closely in line with Ronald Reagan than with the current president.”
Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a fast-rising Democratic star, has featured in the Politico magazine’s “Power List for the year 2018” for having assumed the mantle of a House “leader of the resistance.”
Jayapal, 52, is in the fifth position and the only Indian American in the power list. She is described by Politico as a “feisty freshman Democratic lawmaker from Washington state’s 7th Congressional District who knows how to punch back.”
“Jayapal, a fast-rising Democratic star and determined critic of President Donald Trump, has assumed the mantle of a House ‘leader of the resistance’,” the report said. The list, according to Politico, highlights politicians, activists and operatives across the country who are poised to have a big year in 2018. From the “resistance” on the left, to the establishment and the Bannonite wing trying to remake the GOP, these are the people to watch over the next 12 months, Politico wrote.
Politico calls the Indian American Jayapal, D-Wash., a feisty freshman Democratic lawmaker who knows how to punch back. The publication cites an incident when California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa accused the India native Jayapal, who was raised in Indonesia and Singapore, of “naiveté” on the issue of immigration on the House floor. The congresswoman followed with this tweet, “Thank goodness we have so many men in Congress to mansplain our naiveté. Here’s to you, @DarrellIssa,” Politico noted
Issa wasn’t the lone culprit. GOP Rep. Don Young of Alaska during a House debate called the 52-year-old Jayapal a “young lady’’ who “doesn’t know a damn thing.” Jayapal responded on Twitter saying, “A message to women of color out there: stand strong. Refuse to be patronized or minimized,” Politico pointed out. In talking with Politico, Jayapal said, “I thought, ‘What century am I in, that people can actually say these things to me?’”
Determined to fight “a culture of diminishment around women in this Chamber,” Jayapal said her goal is to challenge colleagues “in a way that flies high … I try to be both gracious — and pointed,” the report said.
The Indian American’s story is well-known among the Indian community in the U.S. She came to the country at 16 on her own to study at Georgetown University. In 2001 she founded Hate Free Zone — later renamed OneAmerica — dedicated to advocacy work, including registering new immigrants to vote and lobbying for immigration reform. She later became the first South Asian American to be elected to the Washington state Legislature and then earned a spot in Congress in 2016.
“I knew I would have to succeed,’’ she told Politico Playbook. “My dad used all his money to get me here.” Politico said Jayapal has assumed the mantle of a House “leader of the resistance.” From her spot as first vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, she has worked as “a relentless advocate of civil rights and immigration reform on Capitol Hill,” says her friend and fellow freshman House member, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the report said.
“She’s really positioned herself to be an essential player in the future of the Democratic Caucus in the House. With determination, steely drive and some well-placed tweets, Cruickshank said, Jayapal has “taken a deliberate approach to get there”.
Jayapal is the first Indian-American woman in the US House of Representatives. She travelled to the US from Chennai at the age of 16 to study at Georgetown University. Years later, as a new US citizen, Jayapal in 2001 founded Hate Free Zone — later renamed OneAmerica — dedicated to advocacy work including registering new immigrants to vote and lobbying for immigration reform.
Preet Didbal, a longtime Planning Commissioner and lifetime Yuba City resident, and City Councilmember since 2014, was sworn in on December 5th, possibly making her the first Indian-American Sikh woman in the U.S., to lead a city. She was appointed by the Council and was sworn-in as the mayor of the city that thousands of Indian-American Sikhs have called home for more than a 100 years, finally has a woman mayor belonging to that community.
“I’m speechless. It’s so humbling,” Didbal told the media. “Seeing someone that looks like you, that comes from the same faith as you, to be elected in a public office in this country is inspiring and exciting. And it’s definitely moving,” Sikh Coalition’s Jaydeep Singh is quoted saying in the a media report.
While there have been male Sikh mayors in the past, including the most recent, Ravi Bhalla of Hoboken, New Jersey, and before that, former Mayor of Laurel Hollow in New York, Harvinder Singh Anand, Didbal is likely the first Sikh woman to occupy that office, according to kcra.com. “Congratultions to Mayor Preet Didbal!” the Sikh Coalition tweeted.
Didbal, a single mother, has lived in Yuba City, raising her daughter who attends River Valley High School there. According to her bio on the Council website, Didbal’s “focus is built around children being raised in a community that invests in the success of young people and will look to develop more youth and family activities.” She is also committed to creating an economic environment that will provide good-paying jobs for returning college graduates, the site says. The Sikh Coalition estimates around 500,000 people who follow the Sikh faith live in the United States.
United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley is the best communicator in American politics today, according to a technology company that specializes in voice transcription. To their robots, Haley is a better orator than Hillary Clinton and a stronger speaker than former President Barack Obama. And, according to their tests, the former South Carolina governor is far better at getting her message out than her boss, President Donald Trump.
The findings come from Trint, a web application that uses artificial intelligence robots to transcribe what people say. Trint said in a release that they wanted to find out which politicians could be better understood by these robots, and put 14 influential politicians to the test, along with a fictitious one, who was portrayed by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus from the TV show “Veep,” to find out who did best.
Trint then took the audio recordings of their speeches and ran them through its transcription A.I. and used a standard known as Word Error Rate, which measures the accuracy of an A.I.-transcribed text against a 100 percent accurate transcription, to determine the winner.
Sure enough, Haley’s score was almost perfect, with a 99.48 percent accuracy rate and was closely followed by Clinton and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Obama ended up coming in at eighth place while Trump came in 11th and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi came in last.
Trint told postandcourier.com that the reason for Haley’s victory was that “she speaks clearly, intelligibly, and is easy to understand. In comparison, politicians who scored lower tended to ‘swallow the last word of each sentence’ and have heavy accents.”
Echoing the sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump during his address to the United Nations General Assembly in August this year, The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations warned on Wednesday November 29th that the North Korean regime “will be utterly destroyed” if a war breaks out, a day after that country launched an intercontinental ballistic missile in a new provocative test.
Haley’s comments are a continuation of the Trump administration’s responses to North Korean military displays. The president stated in August that he would unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea if it continued threatening the US and its allies.
Nikki Haley ratcheted up talk of war with North Korea in reaction to the isolated country’s most recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, warning that Kim Jong-un’s government is on a road to ruin.
“We have never sought war with North Korea, and still today we do not seek it,” ambassador Nikki Haley said at an emergency UN Security Council meeting. “If war does come, it will be because of continued acts of aggression like we witnessed yesterday.”
“And if war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed,” Haley said. “The nations of the world have it within their power to further isolate, diminish and, God willing, reverse the dangerous course of the North Korean regime.”
During an emergency session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Haley asked the members of the panel to increase the sanctions imposed on North Korea and to implement penalties established by the council earlier in the year, The Hill reported. Haley also warned the panel that North Korea’s latest missile test has brought Pyongyang and Washington “closer to war.”
If war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed,” Haley said. “The dictator of North Korea made a choice yesterday that brings the world closer to war, not farther from it,” Ambassador Haley added.
Also on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said that he would put forth “additional major sanctions” against North Korea in reaction to the recent ICBM test. Trump added that “the situation will be handled.”
North Korea’s latest ICBM test on Tuesday was its first in more than two months, and the rocket that was launched flew further than any previous launches. The distance of the launch allegedly put the US mainland into the range of the missile, according to North Korean state media. It is the third ICBM test conducted by North Korea, which has also carried out six past nuclear tests. In all, the North Koreans have test-fired rockets 18 times since Donald Trump took office in January. Of the missiles tested before that, one was intermediate-range, two were medium-range, eight were either short-range or medium-range and the range of one is unknown, according to various North Korea watchers. Four fired on June 8 were believed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles. U.S. military officials said that the missile tested Tuesday appears to be a new variant.
As a result of the continuous pressure the US has put on Pyongyang, on November 20, Trump officially declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism. While speaking of the designation, Trump said: “In addition to threatening the world with nuclear devastation, North Korea has supported international acts of terrorism including assassinations on foreign soil.”
On November 15, as tensions between the two countries continued to heat up, the US military stated their B-1 bombers are capable of dropping nuclear weapons, and the US possesses “secret silos” of nuclear hardware.
“As long as there is a continuous hostile policy against my country by the US and as long as there are continued war games on our doorstep, then there will not be negotiations,” Pyongyang’s ambassador to the UN, Han Tae Song said.
In October, North Korea mimicked the the Trump administration’s tough talk and threatened an “unimaginable” strike on the US, as tensions further ramped up over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, North Korean state media reported.
A missile capable of reaching the United States topped with a nuclear warhead is considered to be Pyongyang’s ultimate goal. They want it because they believe the US will eventually try to remove Kim Jong Un from power. But would the United States try to topple the Kim regime if North Korea could respond with a nuclear attack?
Pyongyang believes Washington wouldn’t, and that’s why the country sees nuclear weapons as the key to sparing Kim Jong Un from a fate similar to that which befell Moammar Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The long-range missile is what really scares the United States because it means there is an existential threat of a nuclear attack, according to John Delury, a professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Relations.
“We are in a somewhat dangerous period of a threat perception gap, as Americans adjust to the sense of vulnerability to North Korean retaliation that South Koreans and Japanese have lived with for quite some time,” he said.
Ajit Pai says his children are being harassed over net neutrality
Ajit Pai, President Trump appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is all set to scrap rules around open internet access, a move that would allow giant cable and telecom companies to throttle broadband speeds and favor their own services if they wish.
Ajit Pai followed through on a pledge to try to repeal “net neutrality” regulations enacted under the Obama administration. The current rules treat internet service providers such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon as if they were utility companies that provide essential services, like electricity. The rules mandate that they give equal access to all online content and apps.
Pai said those rules discourage investments that could provide even better and faster online access. Instead, he said new rules would force ISPs to be transparent about their services and management policies, and then would let the market decide.
“Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet,” Pai said in a statement. Pai distributed his alternative plan to other FCC commissioners in preparation for a Dec. 14 vote. Although the FCC’s two Democrats said they will oppose the proposal, the repeal is likely to prevail as Republicans dominate 3-2. The vote for net neutrality in 2015 was also along party lines, but Democrats dominated then.
Equal treatment for all web traffic has been a fundamental principle of the internet since its creation but companies have increasingly put their thumb on the scales of access. AT&T, for example, doesn’t count use of its streaming service DirecTV Now against wireless data caps, potentially making it seem cheaper to its cellphone customers than rival TV services. Rivals would have to pay AT&T for that privilege. Regulators, consumer advocates and some tech companies are concerned that repealing net neutrality will give ISPs even more power to block or slow down rival offerings.
A repeal also opens the ability for ISPs to charge a company like Netflix for a faster path to its customers. Allowing this paid-priority market to exist could skew prices and create winners and losers among fledgling companies that require a high-speed connection to end users.
Meanwhile, in an interview this week, Ajit Pai said his family has become the target of harassment. Protesters against the new policy had put up cardboard signs at Pai’s home in suburban Virginia. One sign, appearing to refer to Pai’s children, read: “They will come to know the truth. Dad murdered Democracy in cold blood.”
Pai said those signs crossed a line, even as he noted the charged debate over net neutrality. “I understand that people are passionate about policy, but the one thing in America that should remain sacred is that families, wives and kids, should remain out of it. And stop harassing us at our homes.”
Pai has said his proposal would restore a “light-touch” regulatory framework for Internet services and would stop the government from micromanaging the Internet. Broadband and wireless companies such as Comcast and Verizon applauded Pai’s move. But Internet companies and activists see the undoing of net neutrality as an invitation for corporate abuse, in which service providers block websites they do not like and charge Web companies for speedier delivery of their content.
“It was a little nerve-racking, especially for my wife,” Pai said. Pai suggested that the intense criticism leveled at him for targeting neutrality rules can lead to the type of harassment his family experienced. “That’s one of the things I think is very unfortunate about all the vitriol and hot air that’s out there is that if you keep going out there and peddling this misinformation like, ‘This is the guy who is going to break the Internet and destroy democracy,’ it’s not surprising that some people get alarmed by it.”
Pai said in a statement, “Internet regulation activists have crossed the line by threatening and harassing my family. They should leave my family out of this and focus on debating the merits of the issue.”
Narendra Modi rode the wave of ‘Gujarat Model of development’ in 2014 to catapult himself to the most powerful office in India. The social media campaign, most probably waged with the help of Madison Avenue agencies, that heralded the State’s economic performance nothing short of spectacular and credited its success to the visionary leadership of Narendra Modi started years earlier.
Is the ‘Gujarat Model’ of development a myth or reality? As the Gujarat state elections scheduled for December are only a few days away, it is an imperative that the voters are better informed and the cloud of doubts that is hanging over the claims and counterclaims be removed.
Mr. Maitreesh Ghatak, a professor at London School of Economics, characterized as such: ‘Gujarat is a proverbial case of darkness under the lamps”. According to an article written in Scroll.in, “Over the years, the high growth figures have covered up a dark underbelly of poverty, inequality and poor performance on human development indicators” said Mr. Ghatak.
To Gujarat’s credit, the World Bank has listed it as the top state on the ease of doing business. In the early 90’s, during the Congress rule, Gujarat has been at the forefront regarding both level and growth rate of income as well as infrastructure development.
However, an analysis of social data reveals the true underbelly of Gujarat, which is far behind other States in Human Development Index. If states are ranked in terms of people below poverty line, Gujarat is No.13 and has made it quite obvious that the prosperity from the high growth rate is not trickling down fast enough to make any substantial difference.
Looking at other social indicators such as Infant mortality rate and life expectancy, Gujarat ranks 17th and 10th respectively. In terms of sex-ratio, Gujarat is at 21st and in literacy, it ranks at 7th. Overall, if states are compared on the Human Development Index, Gujarat only stands at number 10. If one examines the entire period in which Modi was the CM of Gujarat, these numbers more or less remained the same.
On the other hand, a study conducted by Bangalore-based NGO Public Affairs Center rates the three south Indian States Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka as the best-governed states in India. The ranking was done by the Public Affairs Index computed on ten equal parameters including human development, law and order and basic infrastructure.
In a story on the State of States awards reported by India Today, Kerala grabbed the number 1 position as the best state topping three categories such as Law and Order, Health and Environment. It topped all States in categories for Literacy, Life Expectancy, Infant Mortality and Sex-ratio. Tamil Nadu was reported to be the most improved state in eight of the ten categories and developed into an innovation-based economy with a strong performance in Manufacturing and Services.
Even when it came to economic growth, states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Haryana increased their growth performance by a bigger margin than Gujarat. Modi may have a higher rate of economic growth than the national average, however, he may not stake any claim to the fame as it has also been true during the pre-Modi era. Why then there are no Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu models of development?
If the high economic growth and development does not translate into the better living conditions for its ordinary citizens by creating more jobs, increasing their wages, improving educational opportunities for the poor and the disadvantaged or providing better healthcare to its citizens and in general succeeding in poverty reduction as a goal; what is there to boast about? It might have been at best simple ‘crony capitalism’ favoring a group of powerful people with capital-intensive industries that did not generate necessary jobs for the masses.
When it comes to infrastructure development, one needs to take a look at the borrowing the Government has been engaged in the Modi-era. When Narendra Modi stepped into the State’s Chief Ministership in October 2001, Gujarat debt stood at roughly around 53,000 crore rupees. When he left his post to become the Prime Minister, the public debt of the state was 165,000 crores. These figures once again question the much acclaimed ‘Gujarat Model’ of development especially considering all the ongoing social upheavals in the state particularly among the Dalits and the Patidars.
In today’s Gujarat, 49% of the Children are malnourished, and 6 million Gujarati youth including 80 percent of the Engineering graduates are unable to find suitable jobs, and the unemployment rate stood at around 6.8% which is above the national average. As a matter of fact, conditions in Gujarat have only deteriorated for the workers in rural and urban areas. The major increases in the agricultural income that was accounted in the growth story in the previous years appeared to have leveled off. Meanwhile, small and medium-size industries suffered heavily under the disastrous demonetization policies and half-baked implementation of the GST. The state also has seen the closure of more than 60,000 small scale industries in 10 years and a massive mounting of debt.
Although much of the nation and the majority of the Diaspora have bought into the ‘Gujarat Model’ story in 2014, there was plenty of early skepticism, including from this very author (http://www.pravasi.com/varthaFull.php?newsId=65667). However, the opposition parties including Congress were unable to capitalize on the available information from Gujarat government’s own Department of Economics and Statistics.
According to Alpesh Thakor, leader of ‘Ekta Munch’ in Gujarat who has once announced plans to boycott the vibrant Gujarat Summit at Gandhinagar, “ Vibrant Gujarat was always media hype and a flawed model of Gujarat was highlighted as the development model”.
The ‘Gujarat Model’ of development was a mythical and fictitious tale that is not in sync with the reality. It was primarily the result of the large incentives given to big corporate houses in terms of land, water, and other resources with little regard to environmental concerns or even adverse fiscal consequences that almost left the state treasury almost empty to spend on uplifting of masses from basic poverty and inequality.
(Writer is a former Chief Technology Officer at the United Nations and Executive Director of the Indo-US Democracy Foundation)
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, lead Democratic sponsor of the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, joined Republican sponsor Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson of Pennsylvania in leading 235 other Members of the House of Representatives in urging the Senate education committee to take up the bill which passed the House unanimously in June.
The Thompson-Krishnamoorthi act would modernize career, technical, and vocational education through increasing local control and employer involvement to focus curricula on in-demand skills. By requiring educators to work directly with local employers to identify the skills needed in the work force, the Thompson-Krishnamoorthi Act will ensure that career and technical education programs prepare students not just for their next job, but for a good-paying, family-sustaining career. The bill will also benefit employers through providing the skilled workforce they need to help their businesses thrive and grow.
“It’s not often these days that we see a piece of serious legislation pass the House with bipartisan support, never mind unanimously, but that’s exactly what happened with this bill because Democrats and Republicans agree that we need to modernize our career and technical education system,” said Congressman Krishnamoorthi. “The House has done its part by passing this legislation unanimously and through our letter, my colleagues and I are calling upon the Senate to do the same. A four-year degree may not be for everyone but an education must be and this bill will help make that a reality.”
New Jersey’s Governor-elect Phil Murphy’s Transition Team reveals his close connections to the Indian-American community which he courted during his election campaign. The vast team, named in various focus areas, was announced in a news release Nov. 13, with Indian Americans Jay Bhatti, Balpreet Grewal-Virk, Ehsan F. Chowdhry and Lt. Col. Kamal Singh Kalsi being included.
Barely a week after winning his seat to lead the state Nov. 7, Murphy has selected an Indian-American veteran, Lt. Col. Kamal S. Kalsi to his Transition 2018 leadership team, in the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. Bhatti, the co-founder of BrandProject, was named to the government technology and innovation team.
Grewal-Virk, the director of community engagement at Hackensack Meridian Health’s Department of Population Health, was named to the healthcare team. Chowdhry, the president of the New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association, was named to the law and justice, social justice subcommittee team.
“I pledged to build my administration to mirror the diversity, talent, and potential of New Jersey, and my transition will be no different,” Governor-elect Murphy is quoted saying in a press release. Murphy won by a 13-percentage point lead over his Republican opponent Kim Guadagno. “To a person, this transition is full of incredible talent and experience, and I’m thrilled to see them serve. Together, we’ll start the difficult job of building a stronger, fairer economy that works for all nine million New Jerseyans,” Murphy added.
GOPIO Members, during a reception hosted in honor of the first Indian American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal in New York on Nov. 3rd, 2017. Several community issues were discussed at the meeting including the current anti-immigrant atmosphere, H1-B Visa, DACA and Dreamers.
Rep. Jayapal emphasized the importance of everyone getting involved in the political process. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal elected in 2016 election, represents Washington’s 7th District. She is the Vice Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee and also serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.
Congresswoman Jayapal is committed to ensuring that every resident of the district has economic opportunity; fairness and equity; and safe and healthy communities. She is proud of the district’s role in leading the country on issues like the minimum wage, racial equity and innovation, and will work to support that work and lift it up as a model for the rest of the country.
Her focus is on ensuring income equality; access to education, from early learning to higher education, including debt-free college; expanding Social Security and Medicare; protecting our environment for our next generation; and ensuring immigrant, civil and human rights for all.
Jayapal will relentlessly challenge systems that corrupt our democracy, pushing for campaign finance reform, tax reform, voting rights and an end to institutionalized racism. In all of these endeavors, she’ll continue to build the movement to expand our democracy and create the political space for policy change that benefits working families and responsible businesses.
The first Indian-American woman in the House of Representatives, Jayapal has spent the last twenty years working internationally and domestically as a leading national advocate for women’s, immigrant, civil, and human rights.
She came to the United States by herself at the age of 16 to attend college at Georgetown University and later received her MBA from Northwestern University. She has worked in a number of industries in both the public and private sector.
Jayapal was elected to the Washington State Senate in 2014, becoming the first South Asian American ever elected to the State Legislature and the only woman of color in the Washington State Senate. As a Washington State Senator, serving in a Republican majority Senate, Jayapal fought for gender equity, expanded access to contraceptives for all women, including those on Medicaid, and introduced legislation to increase the statewide minimum wage and provide free community college. She stood up to members of her own party against giveaways to predatory payday lenders, and secured $5.25 million into transportation pre-apprenticeship programs for women and people of color. She played a leading role in the push to pass the Washington State Voting Rights Act – blocked, unfortunately, by the Republican majority in the State Senate. She received a Champion award from the Children’s Alliance for her work on ensuring equity as the state invested millions into early learning.
A delegation from GOPIO, the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin met with India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on recently in New York and discussed several Indian Diaspora issues and avenues of cooperation.The delegation was headed by GOPIO International Chairman Dr. Thomas Abraham. Other members included GOPIO Intl Vice President Ram Gadhavi, Chief of Board of Advisors H.R. Shah, International Coordinator for North America Dr. Rajeev Mehta, GOPIO Intl. Chamber of Commerce Co-Chairman Prakash Shah, New York Area Coordinator Lal Motwani, GOPIO-Connecticut Past President Shelly Nichani, GOPIO-New York President Beena Kothari, GOPIO-North Jersey President Rajul Shah, Health Council Chair Dr. Asha Samant, Science/Tech Council Chair Shailesh Naik and Media Council Chair Nami Kaur.
OPIO delegation brought the following issues to the Minister Swaraj: PIO youth participation in Know India Program (KIP) from the developed countries (currently only PIO countries have larger participation) – GOPIO asked for a program in the Summer (July/August) timeframe.
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, 2019 and GOPIO’s Active Participation – GOPIO provided the largest Overseas Indians registration at the last PBD. GOPIO has the largest network among NRIs/PIOs. GOPIO should be involved from the beginning for PBD-2019 planning. Minister agreed to have representative in every pre-planning meeting of PBF 2019.
Launch of GOPIO International Chamber of Commerce (GICC) – Launched in Mumbai this year on Jan. 10th and inaugurated in New York on April 28th. GOPIO would like to work closely with her ministry to develop this global Indian business people network.
Demonetization Issue- OCIs and PIOs are still holding demonetized currencies since RBI did not allow them to deposit and Diaspora Indians have close to Rs. 7,500 crores still lying with them in small amounts. What should the NRIs do with the old currencies? Minister Swaraj informed that the Govt. had provided the time window for NRIs who are Indian citizens to deposit their currencies earlier. However, that window was not open for Diaspora Indians with foreign citizenship and the government would not be able to provide another such chance.
Aadhaar Card policy confusion for NRIs – NRIs do not have Aadhaar card for linking with their bank accounts. Minister Swaraj clarified that NRIs won’t require Aadhaar card to operate their bank accounts. GOPIO suggested that Indians citizen living anywhere in the world should have an Aadhaar card similar to all US citizens having a social security number, whether staying in the US or outside.
The Middle East NRI issues – NRIs stuck in the Middle East, returned NRIs without any opportunities in India, etc. – GOPIO complimented Minister Swaraj and the Indian Missions worldwide for their pro-active role in helping Indians living outside India in time of distress. However, as more Middle East NRIs are returning home, we need to develop programs to help resettle them. Minister Swaraj said that there are many programs for skills development as well as money available from different ministries for starting a business or technology related outfit. GOPIO offered to be facilitator between the returned NRIs and the government.
Diaspora Women’s Issues – GOPIO, like Indian Missions, take a proactive role on issues of Indian women in the western countries especially the newlyweds who arrive in their new adopted lands and find themselves in financial distress or other crisis mode.
NRI/PIO Participation in Make in India, Clean India, Pooling/Transferring New Technologies for India, etc. – GOPIO can be catalyst to motivate participation of the Diaspora to collaborate with Indian professional and community groups to find creative solutions in these arenas.
Consul General of India in New York Sandeep Chakravorty also participated in the meeting which ended with a positive discussion on how GOPIO can play an instrumental role to support the Indian Government’s objectives with respect to their nationals living abroad. Minister Swaraj encouraged the GOPIO officials to continue engagement with their local congressmen and other legislative officials to advocate for the Diaspora rights and position within their adopted homelands.
Abhijit Das, the president and CEO of Troca Hotels, has announced he is running for the 3dr District Congress in Massachusetts. The Democrat candidate made the official announcement on his birthday amidst friends, family and community members at the Stonehedge Hotel and Spa in Tyngsborough. The seat ib being vacated by Niki Tsongas in November, 2018.
“As most of you know, I’m not a fan of [President] Donald Trump,” Das said, adding that the unequivocal denunciation of hatred, bigotry and racism should be a prerequisite to running for president. “That notwithstanding, we should not demonize those who voted for him nor can we simply ignore their voices. It is by engaging other viewpoints that we ultimately achieve understanding, compromise and progress,” he said.
Das attended the Brooks School in North Andover and earned a BA in political science from Middlebury College in Vermont. He later earned a law degree at the University of Michigan’s law school, focusing on constitutional law and the American political sector.
“It was there (at the University of Michigan) that I learned the power of democracy,” he said.
Early in his career, Das served as law clerk to U.S. District of Maryland Judge Benson Legg. There, Das said he was witness to the power of the federal government, its compassion and its injustice.
Before starting Troca Hotels in 2011, Das was senior director of development for Hilton Hotels in South Asia, resurrecting 28 hotels in India from none. With Troca Hotels, Das’ mission is to revitalize communities.
“Our state of the economy is troubling,” Das noted. “Something is not working and we need to fix that. We must work diligently to turn this place to one of opportunity and innovation.”
Das says his platform includes the economy, innovation, education and the mental health crisis, among other issues.
“Washington is broken. I entered the possibility of this race because I saw friends (on both sides) shouting at each other,” Das said. “True dialogue is what we need. We need someone who is going to cross over that line and say, ‘let’s talk.’”
The Democrat is among eight individuals from his party, as well as two Republicans, who hope to be victorious next November for the seat being vacated by Lowell-based Democratic incumbent Niki Tsongas, who is retiring after the current term.
“Our state of the economy is troubling. Something is not working and we need to fix that. We must work diligently to turn this place to one of opportunity and innovation,” Das said at the time in his announcement. His platform, he said, will focus on the economy, innovation, education and the mental health crisis, among other issues.
The 44-year old Das was born in Woburn, and grew up in North Andover. He went to Brooks School, studied political science at Middlebury College in Vermont, and took two semesters of classes at UMass Lowell, where his mother Mitra Das is in her 45th year teaching sociology, the Eagle-Tribune reported.
(Long Island, NY: November 5, 2017) Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian American woman elected to the U.S Congress, representing Washington state’s seventh Congressional District, was among those honored at the 25th annual gala of the The Indian American Kerala Cultural and Civic Center at the World Fairs marina, Queens, New York on Saturday, November 4thg, 2017.
Rep. Jayapal of Kerala origin, a rising star in the Democratic Party, was honored for her achievements in Political Leadership. Attorney Appen Menon, a partner at Wormser, Kiely, Galef & Jacobs LLP law firm in New York for contribution in Legal Services; writer Dr. Sheela N.P. for Literature; Dr. A.K.B. Pillai for Humanities; Community volunteer Sheela Sreekumar for Community Service; and Ginsmon Zacharia, for achievement in Media, were others who were honored for their achievements in their respective field of specialization or for their service to the society at its 25th Anniversary Awards Banquet.
The Center also honored five of its pioneers with Silver Jubilee Year Life Time Achievement Awards. The 25th Jubilee Year Life Time Achievers are Shanti Bhavan Founder Dr. Abraham George, Industrialist and Founder & Chairman of Sami-Sabinsa Group Dr. Muhammed Majeed; Philanthropist Sreedhar Menon; Columbia University Professor P. Somasundaran and Entrepreneur Dilip Varghese. Also honored with a ‘surprise award” was E M Stephen, the pioneer and first President and the Center’s current Executive Director for his visionary and hard work in establishing and running the center in the past quarter century.
While lauding the contributions and achievements of the Malayalee community, chief guest at the gala, Consul General of India in New York Sandeep Chakravorty, “Kerala Diaspora has made India so proud. They are incredibly strong and enormous,” he said. Referring to the strong Indo-US relationship, the Indian Ambassador paid tributes to the larger Indian American community for their contributions towards making the relationship between the largest and the greatest democracies to be growing and poised to be stronger for the next 100 years.
In her address, Congresswoman Jayapal shared with the audience her own growing up in a traditional Kerala family, immigrating to the US as a student and the aspirations of the family. “My parents would be delighted to hear of this honor today at the Kerala Center,” she told the audience, referring to her family’s long association with Sreedhar Monon, a founding member and pillar of the Kerala Center.
Pointing to the fast growing Indian American community, the lone woman Representative from South Asia in the US Congress said, “There are many more coming forward to fight elections and making our voices heard” in the decision making process of our nation’s destiny, she said, while referring to at least 8 persons of South Asian origin contesting elections in her state in the upcoming elections this week. Urging the Indian American community to be more politically active, Jayapal said, “If you don’t vote, you are giving away your voice.”
While describing today as the “greatest day for Kerala Center” the Executive Director E.M. Stephen said that the Center had recognized 140 achievers in the last 25 years, who have continued to become bigger achievers and contributors to the society. He called upon the new generation of Indian Americans to come forward and take on more responsibilities at the Center and in the larger community and the society.
“Kerala Center has been honoring outstanding achievers since 1991 and every year we invite nominations and the committee has to make a unanimous choice for a candidate in a category to receive the award and this year is no different from previous years in terms of their achievements,” said Kerala Center President Thambi Thalappillil. “In 25 years, Kerala Center has become a secular civic institution providing services to the Indian American community and we are recognizing those who were honored earlier by the Center and who went on to become successful achievers and contributors to society with Life Time Achievement,” said Dr. Thomas Abraham, Chairman of the 25th Anniversary Dinner.
The gala began with the national anthems of both Indian and the Un ited states sung beautifully by the youth group members of the Kerala Center, and they entertained the audience with cinematic dances. The event concluded with light music entertainment and a sumptuous dinner.
Born in Chennai, India, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is the first Indian American woman elected to the U.S House of Representatives. She is a Senior Whip for the Democratic Caucus, Vice Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, First Vice Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and she also serves on the prestigious House Judiciary Committee. Before getting elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Jayapal served in the Washington State Senate and was the founder and executive director of OneAmerica, the largest immigrant advocacy organization in Washington state.
Appen Menon is a partner at Wormser, Kiely, Galef& Jacobs LLP, a law firm in New York and has been providing legal service for the last 3 decades. He represents banks in problem loan workouts and litigation involving debt recovery and mortgage foreclosures and advises financial institutions in their compliance and regulatory matters and on Letters of Credit and secured lending. His corporate law practice includes domestic and foreign corporations in matters relating to domestic acquisitions, cross-border acquisitions involving India and the United States, while representing business entities in their corporate transactions, litigation and corporate governance. Menon also represents corporations in their professional visa matters such as H-1, L-1 and PERM. His clients include technology companies, banks and multinational corporations.
Dr. Sheela N.P. is an accomplished writer in numerous journals and periodicals. She has seven published works including a novel, for which she was the recipient of an international award. She began her teaching career at St. Xavier’s College, Aluva, where she served as the Head of Hindi Department for 35 years. She had also served as a visiting faculty in several seminaries for Malayalam and Sanskrit. She has a Ph.D. in comparative literature and elegy from Cochin University of Science and Technology. In addition, Sheela has post-graduate degrees in Hindi, English, Sanskrit and Malayalam and also diplomas in Theology and Christian women education.
Dr. A.K.B. Pillai is an integrated personality of wisdom, spirituality and creativity. He has higher levels of education in many disciplines, including an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University in Anthropology, for which he held a Research Fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health, USA. He continues as an Associate of University Seminars (post- doctoral) at Columbia University. His specializations include Comparative Literature with techniques of creative writing, other disciplines in the humanities and medical sciences. Dr. A.K.B. Pillai is a practitioner of his own Integral Development Therapy, Personality Development System and Developmental Transcultural Psychiatry, with resources also drawn from psychological and mystical Yoga sciences. Dr. Pillai’s lifelong dedicated philosophy is that all wisdom is for social well-being, which he practices with his spouse, Professor Donna Pillai. He is listed in many Who’s Whos of the world.
Sheela Sreekumar is involved in many local, national and global community organizations in the US and is working for the community around her. Born and brought up in Vayalar, Kerala, she attended N.S.S. Women’s College, Trivandrum and later completed her Law Degree from The Government Law College in Ernakulam. After coming to the US, she has served as the President of Karuna Charities of New York; the President and Board of Trusty Chair of Kerala Association of NJ; Advisor to World Malayalee Council of NJ; Chairperson of FOMAA’s Mid- Atlantic Region; Representative of D.C. 37, and also as the Secretary of Asian American Association at New York City Housing Authority. Currently Sheela works as a Community Coordinator of Resident Economic Empowerment and Sustainability Unit at the New York Housing Authority to help the residents for their job education and financial stability.
Hailing from Thodupuzha, Ginsmon Zacharia dedicated 17 years of his life to the news media. Currently he is coordinator of the Indo-American Press Club, an organization that he founded and chaired. His decision to choose print and visual media indeed served him right. He is also the Director of Jaihind TV USA, which made headlines hosting reality shows in all major North American cities. It served as a platform for young talents to be heard and seen and loved by the viewership of the channel. The weekly program US Dairy brought to the attention of the authorities the difficulties and problems the Indian immigrants face in the US. Having successfully started and established newspapers in UK and US with circulation in Canada, he strategized techniques to earn the reader’s trust. He is the publisher and chairman of Jaihind Vartha, Aksharam magazine and The Asia Era in the US. For more information on The Indian American Kerala Cultural and Civic Center and diverse activities and programs throughout the year, please visit: http://keralacenterny.com
“I am a different kind of Democrat and why — because I’ve not been a politician and I am a pro-business progressive:” Bhargava says
Mudita ‘Dita’ Bhargava, 45, the vice chair of the Connecticut Democratic Party and a former Wall Street banker, has declared her candidacy for governor, becoming the only woman in a field of four men vying in the primary to replace Democrat Dannel P. Malloy. Malloy announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election.
“I am a different kind of Democrat and why — because I’ve not been a politician and I am a pro-business progressive. And, if we don’t put a different kind of Democrat in the general election, it’s going to be very difficult for us to win,” she said. “Now, there is too much at stake for our state to turn into a red state. I am very focused on making sure that we keep it a Democratic state.”
According to reports, Bhargava, a Greenwich-based businesswoman, has raised more than $53,000 in the 18 days since she announced formation of an exploratory committee for her candidacy. Bhargava, who describes herself as a “pro-business progressive,” has raised well in excess of funds raised by any other candidate in that period of time, owing to contributions from the state’s Indian-American community. She is pledging to invite new business investment in Connecticut and create a welcoming job market for college graduates.
Bhargava said she is wearing her identity as an Indian-American woman on her sleeve. “About 3 percent of Connecticut’s population is Asian, and I am a very proud Indian-American and am quite close to the South Asian Community in Connecticut,” she said. “Five years ago, I co-founded the India Cultural Center of Greenwich which has a wide reach in Southern Connecticut. I have a good relationship with Dr. Abraham, and he was very supportive during my State Rep run and is also supporting me for my gubernatorial exploratory campaign and he did say that he will host an event for me.”
Bhargava told the media that she saw Connecticut at an economic and fiscal crossroads. “I want to bring to the state ideas that need to be implemented immediately,” especially in the areas of good-paying jobs and a thriving business sector. Bhargava made an unsuccessful bid for state Representative from Connecticut’s 151st District last year, going up against a Republican incumbent in a majority GOP district. She said that despite the loss, the contest gained her name recognition — helping win her election this past January to be vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party.
She said her experience as a Wall Street banker and her business acumen bring much to the table. “I have more than two decades of financial sector experience. It took courage, perseverance and hard work to break down barriers and be successful as an ethnic woman in a male dominated field. I plan to bring that same tenacity to help our state overcome its current challenges.”
She wants to see the tax base and industry base expanded. “So, I want to make sure that the businesses that are here — the small and large businesses —especially the small businesses because they employ more than 90 percent of our population across the country — feel empowered to stay and continue to do business in Connecticut. And, I want to attract new businesses and new industries to the state,” she said.
Born in Ontario, Canada, Bhargava grew up with two sisters, raised by a single mother following their parents’ divorce. She has a degree in electrical engineering from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She moved to the U.S. with her mother and sisters and became a citizen in 2004. Bhargava moved to Connecticut in 2007 from New York, after marrying her husband, Dan Pelletier. The couple has two children — Arya, 8, and Kalyan, 7.
Bhargava’s last private sector job was with RBS, but she also worked as a Wall Street trader and portfolio manager at Bear Stearns, Citadel Investment Group, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, and Dillon Read Capital Management.
She said she has reached out to the Indian-American community’s leaders, including Dr. Thomas Abraham, the co-founder of the National Federation of Indian American Associations and the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin.
She said the modest-sized Indian and South Asian-American communities were nonetheless politically active in Connecticut and she has found them supportive. “A good portion of the funds I’ve raised so far have come from Indian-Americans, and I expect to continue to receive that support,” she said. She said she has been happy to receive donations from citizens and even green card holders and that state financing requires candidates to raise at least $250,000.
“I come from a family with a lot of history and a lot of knowledge about Indian culture and history, and my grandfather — the late Dr. P.L. Bhargarva — was a renowned professor in Sanskrit and History, and he was awarded the President’s Medal in India for his scholarly work. He’d written 14 or 15 books and so in our family, Indian culture as very much an integral part of our upbringing,” she said. “I used to go to India almost every other year and spend the summer with my grandparents in Jaipur. So, I am very close to the culture and I am very proud of that — of my heritage. My kids are half-Indian, but they both understand and speak Hindi.”
Bhargava said the reason she founded the India Cultural Center of Greenwich was to continue that legacy. “A lot of the people who come to our events — about 30 to 40 percent — are non-Indian and we are very happy to share our culture with the broader community,” she said. She said she was also motivated by the bigotry, xenophobia and misogyny often associated with the presidential campaign and administration.
“When I was campaigning last year, I avoided talking about Donald Trump —I wanted to talk about the issues in Connecticut, and I am still focused on that,” she said. “But there came a time when my opponent had said that he supports Donald Trump and after that Access Hollywood tape came out, he still, when asked, two days later, whether he still supports Trump, he said, yes.
Then it became very personal to me, because this was a direct attack on women, and then I made it a point to say, ‘Listen, this is not the first and last time that Donald Trump is going to do this.’ He wants to be the leader of the country and people will follow his lead and he sets an example, and his xenophobic, misogynistic behavior, he’s giving people and open ticket, because there a lot of people out there who do carry insecurities, who are hateful, but there wasn’t this license to express it.”
She said he has “emboldened” racists and bigots. “And, so, when I was campaigning last year, I made the point that he is going to open this up …and, I said, we’ve come so far but I can assure you that this will happen again, and not surprisingly, and literally very soon after, I had made this point, I got this mail sent to my home with my walk-card—my campaign material defaced—and my face defaced and it said, ‘Go back to where you came from.’
“We’ve come way too far in our country and we stand on the shoulders of leaders who have made it a point to educate our folks that diversity makes us stronger, but this will make us weaker as a country and there’s way too much at risk for us not to double-down and stand up to this type of rhetoric and this kind of behavior.”
The publication, in a recent report, said that Bhargava took a step towards a possible run for governor in 2018 when she resigned from her post as vice chair of the Connecticut Democratic Party. Bhargava had held the post since January and resigned Aug. 15 in a letter to party chair Nick Balletto, the report noted. In her resignation letter to Balletto, Bhargava said she was considering a run for statewide office, the Time report added.
“Our state is facing some deep challenges,” Bhargava said last month, the Greenwich Time reported. “I’m trying to determine how I can help in the best possible way. My resignation is the first step, and the next step is talking to people throughout the state, hearing their concerns and seeing how I can best help.”
“We simply can’t afford to keep doing things the same way and expect a different outcome,” Bhargava wrote in her letter to Balletto, the Time reported. “We need new solutions to overcome Connecticut’s fiscal and economic challenges while advancing progressive goals.”
“We have to significantly improve the economic environment in Connecticut for our businesses and families to stay and to thrive,” she added in the Daily Voice report. “There needs to be a fresh, proactive and effective approach to how we deal with the challenges facing our state, starting with the budget.”
Vin Gopal, an Indian American and a former Monmouth County Democratic Party chairman, is running for the 11th District state Senate seat representing Monmouth County in New Jersey, hoping to clinch it away from the Republican Party. Gopal’s announcement is a direct challenge to state Sen. Jen Beck, a Republican, who currently holds the seat. Beck will be seeking re-election. If Gopal succeeds in flipping the 11th District seat held since 2012 by Republican incumbent Jennifer Beck this November 7, he would become the first Indian-American State Senator in New Jersey’s history.
Gopal was unopposed in the June 6 primary, receiving the Democratic Party’s nod for the state’s 11th district. Gopal is running on a ticket with the two Democratic Assembly representatives who currently represent the district and will also be running to keep their seats, Assemblyman Eric Houghtaling (D, Neptune Township) and Assemblywoman Joann Downey, (D, Freehold Township).
Gopal served for four years as the chair of the Monmouth County Democratic Party, a perch from where he is credited with engineering several electoral victories to mayoral, city councils and the state assembly. In an interview over the weekend with Desi Talk, Gopal said his campaign has raised $600,000 so far out of a target of $2 million he estimated earlier was needed to win the race. “I have personally knocked on 3,500 doors and have another 300 volunteers” doing the same. “I am working hard to unseat a long-time incumbent,” Gopal acknowledged.
The American Federation of Teachers, New Jersey chapter has endorsed Gopal. The teachers union represents about 30,000 education workers across New Jersey. “I am proud to endorse Phil Murphy, Christine Lui Chen and Vin Gopal,” said Meng. “All are exceptional candidates who will fight tirelessly for New Jersey’s hard-working middle-class families,” Rep. Meng said in a press release. “I look forward to working with each of them to strengthen our economy, create jobs and ensure equal pay and affordable health care for all.” Gopal has held rallies with other candidates running for office, including most recently in Asbury Park, N.J., Democratic gubernatorial favorite Phil Murphy. New Jersey’s only Indian-American State Assemblyman Raj Mukherjee has also actively campaigned for Gopal.
“As a proud small business owner and life-long Monmouth County resident I love the State of New Jersey and I believe it is headed in the wrong direction,” said Gopal. “I have volunteered as a board member for our county chamber of commerce, as president of my town’s business owners association, as a volunteer EMT and a volunteer member for the county’s Big Brothers, Big Sisters Board. As your Senator, I will fight for every taxpayer in the 11th District.”
Garden State Equality, the state’s largest and most active gay and lesbian rights advocacy organization, has formally backed Vin Gopal for state senate in the battleground 11th District. “We consider Vin Gopal a friend, and we know he will have our back with Phil Murphy in Trenton,” Christian Fuscarino, executive director of Garden State Equality, told InsiderNJ. “We know we will have two allies. Vin Gopal is someone we can count on, and we know we can take him at his word,” Fuscarino said.
“I’m hoping everyone will take this seriously and if they do this could have a major impact on this race,” the Vin Gopal said of the endorsement. “There are not many districts where we can sway an election, but this is one.”
India says it is looking forward to a visit by US secretary of state Rex Tillerson to New Delhi next week to further strengthen a partnership based on a shared commitment to a rule-based international order. External affairs ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar welcomed a recent statement by Tillerson calling for an expansion of strategic ties.
“We appreciate his positive evaluation of the relationship and share his optimism about its future directions,” Kumar said. In an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank on October 18th, Tillerson has said the world needs the U.S. and India to have a strong partnership as he pointedly criticized China, which he accused of challenging international norms needed for global stability.
He said the United States and India shared goals of security, free navigation, free trade and an international rules-based order which is increasingly under strain.
Tillerson’s remarks come as a boost to India at a time when its ties with China have suffered a setback following a recent border standoff. Declaring, “We share a vision of the future,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has unveiled a centennial roadmap marking a “profound transformation” in United States-India cooperation “in defense of a rules-based order” with New Delhi “fully embracing its potential as a leading player in the international security arena.”
The Secretary pointed to what he considered a “more profound transformation that’s taking place, one that will have far-reaching implications for the next 100 years: The United States and India are increasingly global partners with growing strategic convergence.”
“Our nations are two bookends of stability – on either side of the globe – standing for greater security and prosperity for our citizens and people around the world,” he said. “President (Donald) Trump and Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi are committed, more than any other leaders before them, to building an ambitious partnership that benefits not only our two great democracies, but other sovereign nations working toward greater peace and stability,” he said.
The speech gave form and substance to the administration’s policy towards India and not just South Asia, but the broader Indo-Pacific region stretching from the vulnerable western flank of the U.S. It touched on a wide range of areas of cooperation ranging from military and defense to economics and trade, and from promotion of democracy to freedom of navigation.
“Tillerson’s speech was one of the most thoughtful and forward leaning speeches from this administration,” asserted Jeff M. Smith, research fellow on South Asia at The Heritage Foundation. The core of the cooperation between the U.S. and India and New Delhi’s enhanced role that Tillerson outlined lies in the Indo-Pacific region where the “world’s center of gravity is shifting” — an area where the Washington and its allies confront China, which he said “subverts the sovereignty of neighboring countries and disadvantages the U.S. and our friends.”
In effect, President Donald Trump’s point-man for foreign policy, just dramatically ratcheted up U.S. support for India’s role in the Indo-Pacific region vis-a-vis Beijing, delivering a clear message of preference for the democracy just as the Chinese Communist Party Congress was getting underway in Beijing, and days before Trump’ was scheduled to visit China.
India, Tillerson said in no uncertain terms, weighed heavier on the scale of strategic security and economic cooperation in Asia. “We’ll never have the same relationship with China, a nondemocratic society, that we have with India,” asserted Tillerson during questions and answers after a speech. Tillerson outlined the game-plan for an Indo-Pacific region where Washington was already engaged with India and Japan, and hopes to rope in Australia to make a quartet countering China’s aggressive stance in the South China Sea.
“We need to collaborate with India to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is increasingly a place of peace, stability, and growing prosperity – so that it does not become a region of disorder, conflict, and predatory economics,” clearly pointing at China.
“The emerging Delhi-Washington strategic partnership stands upon a shared commitment upholding the rule of law, freedom of navigation, universal values, and free trade,” he said, asserting further that, “Our nations are two bookends of stability – on either side of the globe – standing for greater security and prosperity for our citizens and people around the world.” Experts see this as the clearest statement of U.S. objectives vis-a-vis Asia and India, coming from this or previous administrations.
Nikki Haley , the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations called Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election “warfare” — wording that President Trump repeatedly has shied away from. Nikki Haley blasted Russia’s efforts to “sow chaos” in elections across the world during a conference hosted by the George W. Bush Institute.
“The Russians, God bless them, they’re saying, ‘Why are Americans anti-Russian? And why have we done the sanctions?’ Well, don’t interfere in our elections and we won’t be anti-Russian,” Haley said. “When a country can come and interfere in another country’s elections, that is warfare.”
Trump has never used such bold language when discussing Russia. The President has instead consistently questioned the U.S. intelligence community’s assesment that the Kremlin interfered in the election. US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia used cyber-enabled means in an attempt to help President Donald Trump win the White House, an allegation the Kremlin has denied.
“We have to be so hard on this and we have to hold them accountable,” Haley said during a panel discussion with former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice held by the George W. Bush Institute in New York last week.
“When a country can come interfere in another country’s elections that is warfare. It really is, because you’re making sure that the democracy shifts from what the people want,” she said. “This is their new weapon of choice and we have to get in front of it.”
Congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller are investigating alleged Russian interference in the election, including whether there was any collusion between Trump associates and Moscow. Trump has denied that there was any collusion between his campaign and associates and Russia.
The newly elected Member of Parliament Sunil Jhakar characterized his Gurdaspur constituency win with the following statement. “I had said it from the very first day that this election will be a mandate on the policies of union government led by Modi. People have vented their anger against demonetization and GST by making me an MP with a huge margin of votes. I had asked people to vote for me and against BJP’s economic and communal agenda. People have responded to my call, and it has sent a clear message to union government on behalf of the whole country that people are fed up with its policies, and it is time for change,”
Gurdaspur election victory may be a turning point in history for the Congress Party which has been reeling from its inability to expose the failures of the Modi Government efficiently and to change the mindset of the electorate that is still clinging on to the promise of Modi’s ‘Ache Din.’ The Modi PR machine which has helped to catapult BJP to power in Delhi by riding on the bandwagon of a fraudulent ‘Gujarat Model of development’ platform still hasn’t lost its full steam. Nevertheless, Gurdaspur election victory by a recorded margin by the Congress party is pointing probably to the severe first crack of the theory that Modi will be unbeatable in the upcoming Parliamentary election, in 2019.
Most of the reputed Economists including some of the senior stalwarts of the BJP such as the former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and the former minister of communications Arun Shourie expressed grave concern that the economy is fast slipping into deep recession, with no hope of recovery in the foreseeable future. It is believed that all fundamental parameters are declining along with GDP that has fallen for six quarters in a row. The demonetization alone may have shaved off 2 points from GDP growth just as Dr. Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister has predicted. Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine characterized the demonetization process as the “massive theft of people’s property – a shocking move for a democratically elected government”. The negative consequences from the demonetization are still being felt across the spectrum jeopardizing the livelihood of poor farmers and ordinary citizens alike.
Another one of Modi’s grand promises was to create millions of job for the youth. He not only has failed to create those promised jobs but has presided over an economy that started shedding jobs especially in the technology sector. Various protectionist measures across the world including that of President Trump’s new ‘Buy American, Hire American’ executive order followed by several countries including Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore introducing their own legislation aimed at curbing the inflow of foreign labor where Indian Engineers make a sizable chunk of those immigrants to those countries. This new global dynamics rooted in the nationalistic sentiment has further precipitated these jobless growth phenomena in India while automation and new technologies using artificial intelligence (AI) continued to reduce job opportunities across the board. The Modi government is behaving as if it has no clue as to how to confront this crisis to placate the youth who put their faith in the BJP government to improve their destiny.
The sharp fall in the international crude oil prices has been a boon for the Modi government as it has refused to pass on the benefit to the consumer. To a great extent, the government is profiteering at people’s cost while driving up inflation and putting additional pressure on small businesses,
Finally, the messy implementation of the GST appears to have done grave damage to the economy, especially on the small entrepreneurs and traders. Many of these businesses are shutting down resulting in more job losses.
According to Anand Sharma, the deputy leader of the Congress parliamentary party and former minister of Commerce and Industry, “Prime Minister Modi and the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley remain in denial and clueless on addressing the crisis of their own making. They are guilty of monumental mismanagement of Indian economy”.
Therefore, Gurdaspur election victory is not a shocking development to those astute political observers but rather a window of opportunity for the Congress party to seize the initiative and capitalize on Modi’s failures to rescue the people of India from the disastrous economic policies pursued by this administration.
(Writer is a former Chief Technology Officer of the United Nations and Chairman of the Indian National Overseas Congress, USA)
Mona Das, an Indian American woman from the state of Washington, has announced her plans to run for the Democratic nomination representing Washington state’s 8th Congressional District. If elected, she will replace Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, who is serving his seventh term as the U.S. Representative for the state’s 8th District.
Das said her passion for working for positive change is fueled by the Bernie Sanders movement and the new energy it ignited. “I am honored and excited to be running for Congress from the 8th District and to represent voters in both Eastern and Western Washington,” Das said in a statement. “Sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option. Unlike the current representative, my voice will be powerful and inclusive.”
Das is running one district over from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, who was elected last fall to her first term in the House. Interestingly, in the Seattle/Pugent Sound area, eight Indian American women are running for various elected offices, or have been elected, including Seattle city council member Kshama Sawant, and Jayapal. Jayapal is the first Indian American woman to serve in the House; Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, is the first Indian American to serve in the Senate.
Das immigrated from India to the U.S. with her parents as a child. She launched her career with international and domestic software companies in the Pacific Northwest. Thirteen years ago, she started her own mortgage company and built it into an award-winning lender in 50 states, serving a population of homebuyers typically ignored by other lenders, according to a Das campaign news release.
“My focus in business has to been to reach out to underserved homebuyers, to educate them, and to champion their home ownership dreams,” she said. “As a community leader, I advocate for those who need a strong voice – immigrants, women and others in our communities who are often overlooked.
“Americans are dissatisfied with government. They want to see more unification, less division,” she said. “In my travels around the district I’ve been hearing that voters have had enough. Enough of absentee leadership. Enough indecisveness. I am a listener, a consensus-builder, a fighter, and I intend to bring it all to this office on behalf of residents in the 8th District.”
Indian American Nirav Patel has decided to run as a Democrat for the Assembly of the state of New Jersey. “I pledge that I am running for Assembly in order to serve the people of the 12th Legislative District,” Patel stated on his website, and while he is new to politics, he wants to guide New Jersey in the right direction “after eight years of a failed governor.”
Patel believes that his opponents’ spending habits to lower tax bills are out of control and states that “New Jersey has one of the highest property tax rates in the nation and our taxes only go up year after year.”
He also mentions that the state is currently ranked #50 out of 50 in terms of how much federal funding it receives for what the residents pay in federal taxes.
“As your state Assemblyman, I will also fight to ensure New Jersey applies for more grants and lobbies for more federal funding than we currently receive,” he said.
Patel also wants to rebuild the state’s infrastructure because New Jersey is a critical shipping hub on the East Coast.
“Under the failed Christie administration, NJ Transit saw a 90% reduction in funding, and the Governor constantly stripped money from our transportation budget in order to fund tax cuts for his wealthy donors,” he explained adding that as a Northeastern state next to the ocean, New Jersey faces the challenges of both winter weather and salt in the air, which degrade and destroy the infrastructure of the state, asking to build more roads, bridges and tunnels.
Patel also states that the opioid epidemic is getting out of hand and wants to introduce a threefold plan:
We will work with local law enforcement and healthcare providers to create a system that treats addicts for their heath issues, rather than just incarceration.
We will create a system that allows athletic trainers, school nurses, families, and doctors to work together to ensure the usage of medication in schools is regulated to prevent addiction from occurring.
We will work with EMTs to ensure a sufficient supply of Narcan, a drug used to treat overdoses, to bring down the high death toll attached to opioid addiction.
Adding that “if we are able to enact this plan” then “we should be able to address both the root causes of” it “as well as help those who are already addicted.”
“I will be available, I will be transparent, and my door will be open to any constituent with any concern, no matter how small they may think their issue may be,” Patel said, as “It is time to put the service back in public service.”
Patel is the son of Raju Patel, a well-known activist in Jersey City; he has acquired training in chemical engineering, is a graduate in the economics field along with earning a Doctorate in Pharmacy and now works as a pharmacist. Patel will be working with candidate Phil Murphy, who is running for governor.
Addresses a packed audience at Iconic Times Square in New York
“The divisive politics was ruining India’s reputation abroad and NRIs in the tradition of the great NRIs before them, should stand up to those dividing India now,” the Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi told a gathering of over 2,000 Non Resident Indians from around the nation at the iconic Times Square in New York City on Wednesday, September 20th, 2017. Gandhi’s call came in an outreach program at the end of his two-week long tour of the United States.
The leader of the oldest and the largest pa5rrty in India spoke on a range of issues including the Indian economy, India’s healthcare system, and the job market. Gandhi, at the event organized by the Indian Overseas Congress, also spoke about the Congress Party’s vision for India’s future and how the NRI community in America could par-take in building that future.
India’s reputation as a country of peace and harmony is in danger abroad because of divisive forces at work at home, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said in a veiled attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, and urged NRIs to stand up against “those dividing the country”.
The son of late Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi restated his vision for the country based on the principal themes of jobs, agriculture, education and healthcare, while appealing to the community to come to India and work for the country and the congress party, telling them that non-resident Indians had always played a critical role in India’s progress.
He reminded NRIs as to how Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Abdul Kalam Azad, Sardar Patel and B R Ambedkar were all non-resident Indians, who had brought to India their learnings when hey returned and transformed the country. “You need to get involved, you have tremendous knowledge, tremendous understanding.”
Everywhere he went, Gandhi said, he heard the same concern, from San Francisco, where he began his tour, to Los Angeles to Washington DC to New York. “What has happened to tolerance that had prevailed in India? What is going on in your country,” he said people would ask him. “India has a reputation for peace and harmony…this is being challenged…there are forces that are dividing the country…This is dangerous for the country and ruins our reputation abroad,” he added.
Rahul Gandhi spoke about what he termed as the biggest challenge in India – empowering the youth. “For every 30,000 youngsters entering the job market, only 450 get a job. India cannot give a vision of a future if they cannot give the youth a job. Congress party has a vision, by focusing on building the small and medium businesses and entrepreneurship and creating ‘millions and millions of jobs in India.’” Rahul Gandhi also spoke about universities in India which, he said, need to be connected to the economy and businesses across the world.
Gandhi also praised Sam Pitroda, who was an adviser to his father Rajiv Gandhi and to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as another NRI who through his work on telecommunications helped transform India.
Pitroda, who has taken over the NRI mission of the Congress as the chairman of its Overseas Department, organized Rahul Gandhi’s US visit. “He (Rahul Gandhi) is not what the media makes him out to be…Others should not define him,” Pitroda said, adding “People see it for themselves.”
Pitroda said that the party’s immediate goal was to increase its 18 overseas units to 30 and set up chapters in every major US city. The BJP has grown itself in the diaspora through social media. “Use social media responsibly,” Pitroda exhorted the audience, telling them to stay away from fake news and divisive messages.
Gandhi’s visit to New York City coincides with the U.N. General Assembly’s annual high-level session, during which global leaders convene for meetings in the U.N. and elsewhere in the city. Shudh Parkash Singh, president of the Indian National Overseas Congress wing in the U.S., told IANS he was organizing the meeting for Gandhi so “NRIs can know first-hand what his (Gandhi’s) vision is, what his ideology is and Congress is. We wanted him to have meetings with people, face-to-face, in order to turn around (his) image projected by the BJP through managed media. They are out to destroy his image and we are trying to do the opposite.” Singh said the event is financed entirely by the INOC, supplemented with contributions from sponsors and advertisers in a brochure published for the event.
In an effort to create and continue a new dialogue with India, especially with the powerful Indian Diaspora in the United States, Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi is on a two-week visit to the US during which he has been interacting with global thinkers, political leaders, business leaders, and address overseas Indians as part of a new conversation on the future of India as well as an outreach initiative by his party. During his trip to the US, Gandhi has been engaging with the Indian diaspora with the purpose of making them a part in India’s development.
In his first engagement, Gandhi, vice president of the Congress Party, addressed a packed audience of students at the prestigious University of California, Barkley on Monday, September 18th on ‘India at 70: Reflections on the Path Forward’, in which offered his reflections on contemporary India and the path forward for the world’s largest democracy. Gandhi, 47, was received at the San Francisco airport by senior Congress leader Sam Pitroda and Shudh Singh, the president of Indian National Overseas Congress (INOC) US.
“He is here at the University of California Berkley, where Pandit (Jawaharlal Nehru) addressed in 1949 as the Prime Minister. Today we are at the cross roads where core value of Indian democracy secularism and pluralistic society is in danger,” Congress spokesman Madhu Goud Yaskhi said. Rahul Gandhi’s ongoing two-week visit to the United States is a belated attempt by the Congress to compete with the Bharatiya Janata Party for the goodwill of the Indian diaspora.
Gandhi has repeatedly raised the issue of joblessness during his meetings with experts, business leaders and Congressmen in the United States. “Currently, we are not producing enough jobs. 30,000 new youngsters are joining the job market every single day and yet the government is only creating 500 jobs a day. And this doesn’t include the massive pool of already unemployed youngsters,” Gandhi had said in his address at the University of California in Berkeley.
During his interaction with students at the prestigious Princeton University in New Jersey admitted that the Narendra Modi-led BJP came to power in India because people were angry with the Congress party over the issue of unemployment. Employment is an all-encompassing means to empower, enfranchise and involve Indians in the nation building process, he said.
“I think, the central reason why Mr Modi arose and to an extent why Mr Trump came, is the question of jobs in India and in the United States. There’s a large part of our populations that simply do not have jobs and cannot see a future. And, so they are feeling pain. And they have supported these types of leaders,” Gandhi told students, while pointing out that the prime minister was not doing enough to solve the key problem facing India.
At Princeton, Gandhi said India needed to transform itself to compete with China, and for that the people in the country required jobs. “Those same people who got angry with us because we couldn’t deliver on those 30,000 jobs (a day) are going to get angry with Mr Modi. The central question is resolving that problem. My main issue with Mr Modi is that he diverts that issue and points the finger somewhere else instead of saying listen we have a problem,” he said.
“There is anger building up in India right now. We can sense it. So to me the challenge is how to solve that job growth problem in a democratic environment. That is the challenge,” he said. “So we have to first accept it as a problem. Then we have to unite and try to solve it. Right now, nobody is even accepting it as a problem,” he argued. Gandhi also raised the issue of “polarization in India”. He said that the “politics of polarization” was a central challenge in India and some sections of the society, including the minority communities and tribal people, who do not feel that they are a part of the ruling BJP’s vision.
“In the 21st century, if you leave some people out of your vision, you are asking for trouble. New ideas would come, new different visions would develop. So, to me, central challenge in India is politics of polarization where you pit one community against the other and you create spaces for other people to come in,” Gandhi said. “There is a belt of 100 million tribal people who do not feel comfortable with the vision (of the BJP). There are a number of states in India, which don’t want a single vision forced down their throat. There are minority communities, they do not feel that they are a part of the vision. So that’s where the real danger is,” Gandhi said in response to a question. India’s strength has always been its ability to embrace people, he said.
The central pitch, according to Pitroda, is that the “existing world order”, which came up around the United States, is on its way out and India can take a lead in shaping the new order, which, for instance, is inclusive to begin with — “you cannot ignore 200 million Muslims (in India)”.
Gandhi was accompanied by former ministers Shashi Tharoor and Milind Deora. Overseas Indians wield considerable influence in the American establishment and in India. Gandhi’s visit is part of Pitroda’s plan to harness NRI support for the party – a strategy that has been a success for the Bharatiya Janata Party. While the Congress has large base among academics, intellectuals and the media, the BJP has been able to create a much broader support base among NRIs, mobilizing several thousands to attend Modi’s meetings in New York and San Jose in mammoth arenas. The plan is to create a network to connect NRIs to party leaders at state and district levels and to help returning NRIs enter Indian politics.
On Tuesday, this week, Gandhi met with a host of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, civil society representatives, think tanks and experts in California, and then travelled to Washington DC. In DC earlier this week, he began his visit to the capital, starting with think tank Centre for American Progress (CAP). The liberal-leaning CAP was founded by John Podesta, who chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and is run by Indian American Neera Tanden, a veteran of many Democratic administrations, including President Barack Obama’s. Former editor Gautam Adhikari is one of its experts.
Gandhi then visited another DC think-tank, the Atlantic Council, which has a strong focus on South Asia, and then the US-India Business Council, an advocacy group that works on promoting business ties between the two countries and which is now emerging from a specially bruising split. Gandhi had an evening interaction with experts at an interaction organized and hosted by conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation and Republican strategist Puneet Ahluwalia. Experts invited included Ashley Tellis of Carnegie and Anish Goel, a former Obama White House India hand. The tour concluded with Gandhi meeting about 2,000 prominent members of the Indian community at New York’s Marriott Hotel on September 20.
Charlotte City Council member Dimple Ajmera has advanced to the general election for the Charlotte, N.C., City Council’s at-large seat with a fourth-place finish in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary election. Ajmera just made it to the November election, with the top four finishers of the election advancing to the next phase.
Indian American financial accountant Dimple Ajmera says supporters of President Donald Trump have no business running for office in Charlotte. It’s a silly thing to say. It’s an unproductive thing to say. I sort of recognize why she said it.
Ajmera, who was appointed to the council in January to replace fellow Democrat John Autry, is running for an at-large seat this fall. In an appearance Sunday on the news show Flashpoint, she said: “Republicans that are supporting Trump, they should have no place on City Council whatsoever or in the mayor’s race.”
The candidate, in being named to the seat, agreed not to seek re-election, though she drew the ire of some councilmembers who voted her into the seat when she announced she would seek election for the at-large post. Ajmera, who works at TIAA in University City, said she has worked to make progress on redeveloping Eastland Mall and wants to do more to encourage businesses to relocate to east and west Charlotte.
She said the city could change its economic development grants to steer companies toward struggling areas of the city, according to the report. Ajmera immigrated with her family to the United States from India when she was 16. She graduated from Southern High in Durham and then the University of Southern California.
Passaic County Freeholder John Bartlett of Wayne, a Democrat, has announced his candidacy for the U.S. Congress from the 11th Congressional District. In a speech announcing his run, Bartlett drew upon his connections to the Indian-American community to garner support.
“I’m the son of a country doctor. He kept his doctor’s bag in the back of his pickup truck, with a chainsaw in case a downed tree ever stood between him and a patient. Dad’s example of commitment and service guides me every day,” Bartlett is quoted saying in a press release. He is married to Khyati Y. Joshi, a full Professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she teaches about race and religion in America. “I’m equally inspired by the example of my father- and mother-in-law, Dr. Yogesh and Madhu Joshi, who traveled halfway across the world, and helped build an Indian American community for themselves and their daughters and so many others,” Bartlett added. Khyati Joshi is also co-chair of the South Asian American Caucus of the N.J. Democratic State Committee.
Bartlett stresses the diversity of his interfaith (Christian and Hindu) and inter-racial family. The family attends St. John’s Episcopal Church in Montclair, and are involved with Hindu temples in the area, the press release said.
Bartlett, a Harvard Law School graduate and two-term freeholder, announced his run for the Democratic party nomination at the Alps Diner in his hometown of Wayne on Friday. The 45-year-old attorney said he will begin his campaign with “30 coffees in 30 days,” meeting with residents around the 11th District to hear their concerns.
“I want to hear from you, the voters, about your lives, your kids, and your parents, and your hopes, you dreams and your fears,” Bartlett told about two dozen supporters gathered at the diner.
Bartlett is an attorney with Murphy and Orlando LLC, a firm that frequently litigates on behalf of Democratic party interests, such laws regarding voter registration, at both the state and federal level. His partner is Michael Murphy, the former Morris County Prosecutor who was appointed by Gov. Jim Florio in the 1990s.
Murphy was at the diner for the campaign kick-off on Friday. Bartlett took aim at Frelinghuysen, a 12-term congressman who has was once considered a moderate Republican, but has supported President Donald Trump on the travel ban and repeal of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
“Congressman Frelinghuysen’s 100 percent voting record in support of the Trump agenda this year is the culmination of a decade-long and continuing transformation of the congressman from someone who represented the 11th Congressional District’s moderate and pragmatic New Jersey values to someone who answers to ideologues in Washington while dodging contact with his own constituents,” Bartlett said.
Bartlett is the latest contender for the Democratic party nomination. He joins two candidates who have already entered the race, Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor from Montclair, and Jack Gebbia, a 26-year-old U.S. Army National Guard veteran from Boonton. Assemblyman Jack McKeon of West Orange has said he’s considering making a run for the seat, and Woodland Park Mayor Keith Kazmark is also thinking about running.
Some Indian-Americans Bartlett met during his campaign are quoted saying favorable things about him. “We hadn’t met John previously, but we came away from the evening impressed by the depth and breadth of John’s knowledge of the issues, his record of results as a Freeholder and his commitment to hear out and respond to all our neighbors’ questions and concerns,” Rob Soni, who hosted a coffee in Randolph along with his wife Rachita, is quoted saying. “He’s a family man, and understands what it’s like to live in our area. Everyone who joined us was struck by his ability to speak to the issues we’re concerned about, and issues affecting families like ours,” Soni added.
The newly appointed Chairman of the Overseas Congress wing of AICC, Sam Pitroda, addressed The Indian National Overseas Congress USA members in New York, last week.
INOC USA hosted a welcome event for Pitroda at the Cottelion Banquet Hall in New York on August 26. The event was attended by all the chapters of Overseas Congress, the executive committee and National President Shudh Parkash Singh.
The event started with Singh introducing Pitroda as a great patriot and a man who brought revolution in telecom and digital Communication in India working with the complex bureaucracy, a difficult system and obsolete resources in the 1980s.
“Our dynamic leader Rahul Gandhi could not have appointed a better person to lead overseas Congress in my opinion,” said Singh. In his address, Pitroda spoke of his journey in transforming digital and telecommunication system in India. He recalled the support he received from the then Prime Minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi. He said that he was specifically entrusted to rebuild and energize the overseas Congress by the Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi.
Pitroda said he will work on building overseas Congress in many countries around the world. “Only Congress can build a strong, secular and progressive India due to its inherent ideology,” he said.
Pitroda recalled developments seeds that were sown with his initiatives and during the tenures of Rajiv Gandhi and the former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh that India is now reaping the benefits.
Talking of his health, Pitroda admitted he is battling to stay in shape, with two multiple bypass surgeries and fighting cancer. “My only mission is to sow more seeds that will build a better India in the future,” he said.
Rajendar Dichpally, the National General Secretary, INOC, spoke on how NRIs can play an important role in developing the Congress Party in India and hoped Pitroda will encourage NRIs to return to India to serve in social and public life.
Other INOC members who spoke at the meeting, included: Senior Vice President Phuman Singh, National VP Kalathil Varghese, Executive VP Ravi Chopra, Vice President Kulwant Deol, Chapter Heads Charan Singh Prempura, Sher Madra, Sushil Goyal, Joby George, Gurmit Singh Mulanpur, and Dr. Rajinder Jinna. Two veteran leaders from Punjab, KK Bawa and Dakha, also addressed the gathering.
Krishna R. Urs of Connecticut has been nominated by President Trump to become the Trump administration’s first Indian-American diplomatic appointment envoy to a country, if his nomination is approved by the U.S. Senate. Urs, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, has served as an American diplomat since 1986.
He is currently Charge d’ Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain, where he was also the Deputy Chief of Mission. He speaks fluent Spanish as well as some Hindi and Telegu. Previously, Urs served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Affairs and Chief US Government Aviation Negotiator at the Department of State from November 2010 until June 2014.
He has also served as Director in the Office of Aviation Negotiations in the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs in the Department of State, Charge d’Affaires, at the US Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, Deputy Chief of Mission at the same embassy, Director of the Office of Economic Policy and Summit Coordination in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the Department of State.
Prior to that, Urs was Acing Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where according to his profile, he oversaw a budget of more than $50 million and led a successful efort to achieve negotiation of U.S. and Dominican Republican free trade agreement.
Earlier in his career, Urs also served as Pakistan Desk Officer at the State Department from 1994 to 1996. Urs has served at seven United States embassies as well in senior leadership positions in Washington, D.C. Apart from other awards, Urs has received the Senior Performance Award nine times from 2007-2017, as well as the Presidential Meritorious Service Award.
On his LinkedIn profile, Urs says “I’m a Foreign Service Officer with extensive experience managing large Missions overseas and units in the Department of State. In 30 years with the U.S. Government, I have served mainly in Latin America and South Asia, as well as in Washington and in Europe.” As Chief Operating Officer for U.S. Embassy Mission in Spain, Urs manages relations with the major NATO ally and key economic partner and supervises 350 staff members.
During his three decades of State Department service, Urs has specialized in economic issues and developed extensive policy experience in the Andean region of South America, the White House said in a press release.
He has an M.S. from the University of Texas and a B.S. from Georgetown University. He is married to Denise A. Urs, also a Foreign Service Officer and currently Deputy Executive Director at the State Department.
Celebrating its 42nd year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce U.S.-India Business Council’s (USIBC) Annual Leadership Summit on June 27 featured Vice President of the United States Mike Pence and other high ranking government and private sector leaders to address USIBC members and guests.
Vice President Mike Pence spoke about increased economic and security ties between the U.S. and India during his keynote address at the U.S.-India Business Council’s 42nd Annual Leadership Summit June 27 in Washington, DC.
The summit was held the day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House. Most significantly, Pence pledged that the U.S. would back India for permanent membership on the reformed United Nations Security Council.
The Leadership Summit focused on the important role of the private sector in advancing the ties between the two countries, the future of the U.S.-India economic relationship, as well as strengthening and deepening the U.S.- India defense partnership. “The partnership between the U.S. and India has never been more important,” said John Chambers, USIBC chairman and executive chairman of Cisco.
“Both governments are deeply committed to creating greater economic opportunity for their citizens. The USIBC does just that by advancing bilateral cooperation between the two nations. I’m incredibly proud of the impact we’ve had so far in driving economic growth, job creation, innovation and entrepreneurship in both nations, and we look forward to shaping the future of both countries by doubling down on our efforts in the years to come.”
The summit welcomed addresses from the Ambassador of India to the United States Navtej Sarna and Congressman Pete Sessions, chairman of the House Committee on Rules. USIBC presented its prestigious annual “Global Leadership Awards” to Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company, and Adi Godrej, chairman of the Godrej Group. Both were honored for creating inclusive business environments, integrating India in the global supply chain and advancing core values such as manufacturing, innovation and scale in tough market conditions.
Pence focused on increasing opportunities in the sectors of aviation and energy. He gave a shout-out to Spice-Jet airlines, which, in January, placed a $22 billion order for 100 airplanes with Boeing. Earlier in June, SpiceJet expanded its order for an additional 20 airplanes. The deal will create 130,000 jobs for American workers, said Pence. “Thank you to SpiceJet for believing in American workers,” he said, to applause from the packed crowd. “The American people elected a builder to serve as their leader and before we’re done, President Trump is going to rebuild America,” said the vice president. “American energy can help power India’s future,” stated the vice president.
Councilman Ravi Bhalla is running for mayor of Hoboken. “Yes, I’m running for mayor,” Bhalla said. A longtime ally of the siting mayor’s, attorney Bhalla first won his council seat in 2009, running on the Zimmer ticket. This June 20, Bhalla announced his bid for Mayor of Hoboken, and since then a slew of endorsements starting with the current Mayor Dawn Zimmer, have been pouring in.
“I am very comfortable in making this decision because Ravi Bhalla is stepping forward to run for mayor,” Mayor Dawn Zimmer said.
The only Indian-American Sikh Councilman and elected official in Hoboken’s history has made a name for himself fighting publicly against racism and because of his accomplishments on the council which News India Times and Desi Talk in New York have reported on previously.
Just this April, Bhalla was campaigning hard for his third term as Councilman-at-large for the Nov. 7 elections. But with Zimmer declaring she will not run for another term, and endorsing Bhalla, he is gunning for the top office. Several other candidates are in the running or considering it, including Hoboken Council President Jen Giattino, a Republican, and community organizer Ronald Bautista.
Bhalla, a long-time Zimmer ally, will now face a crowded field in the November municipal election. That field includes business owner Karen Nason, activist Ronald Batista and Councilman Michael DeFusco, a former Zimmer ally who was first elected to office in 2015 as a part of Zimmer’s slate. Freeholder Anthony Romano is also reportedly weighing an entrance into the race but his possible candidacy is complicated by the fact that he won the Democratic primary for county freeholder earlier this month and is slated to appear on the primary ballot for that position this November.
Bhalla said that his decision to enter the race stems from a desire to continue moving Hoboken forward after Zimmer’s departure.
“I am here today to announce the I am running for mayor of the city of Hoboken, the city where I chose to put my roots down and raise a family, the city that I love,” Bhalla said. “Under the leadership of mayor zimmer we have transformed the city.”
DeFusco said that Zimmer’s departure and Bhalla’s entrance into the race does not change his strategy and that he still plans to continue “full-speed ahead.” So far, DeFusco has been successfully fundraising and had raised $90,000 as of April according to filings with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission.
“I think Hoboken voters are looking for a breath of fresh air in city hall, and I don’t think most people see Ravi Bhalla as a vehicle for that,” DeFusco said. “I’ve said from the start we need to challenge the status quo, but Ravi seems to me like a step back even from where we are now.”
President Donald Trump welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House on Monday, June 26th, and praised him for being “such a great prime minister” of India. Describing India to be a “a true friend,” the US president declared that ties between Washington and New Delhi had “never been stronger” – and both the leaders sealed their bond with three hugs.
“I am thrilled to salute you, Prime Minister Modi, and the Indian people for all you are accomplishing together. “The relationship between India and the United States has never been stronger, never been better,” Trump said. “Your accomplishments have been vast. India has the fastest-growing economy in the world. We hope we’ll be catching you very soon in terms of percentage increase – I have to tell you, we’re working on it!”
“We want to take our strategic partnership to new heights,” Modi said and added that the two leaders have agreed to enhance cooperation in fighting terrorism – and that he had invited Trump to visit India. Trump said both the US and India had been affected by the “evils of terrorism” and the “radical ideology that drives them. We will destroy radical Islamic terrorism,” he said.
In the first ever meeting between the two leaders who had spent a little over four hours — including Trump’s first working dinner with a Head of State — discussing a wide range of issues including trade and terrorism. Following their one-on-one meeting, the two leaders issued a joint press statement at the Rose Garden but, as decided earlier, did not take any questions from the media.
President Donald Trump’s first meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House was long on proclamations of friendship and short on confrontation over delicate policy issues, analysts said. The meeting between the off-the-cuff President and the prime minister who leads one of the world’s fastest growing economies could have been filled with contentious issues, but publicly that wasn’t evident.
No issue on the table may have be more challenging than how the United States treats India like a “major defense partner” — a designation the Obama administration gave the country in 2016 — without angering neighboring Pakistan. Trump nodded to their possible differences during a meeting in the White House, but struck an optimistic tone. “We agree on most things and I would say by the end of the day we’ll agree on everything,” Trump said.
Trade and terrorism were the two key talking points of the meeting. The two nations also discussed strengthening energy strategies. While there was no explicit mention of the Paris climate deal, the leaders called for a rational approach that balances environment and climate policy, global economic development, and energy security needs. A key issue for India that was not mentioned in the joint statement was that of H1-B visas. It wasn’t immediately known if the issue came up for discussion between Trump and Modi, or not.
“Both our nations have been struck by the evils of terrorism, and we are both determined to destroy terrorist organizations and the radical ideology that drives them. We will destroy radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump said. Modi, on his part, reiterated India’s concern regarding terrorism in the Indo-Pacific region. “Fighting terrorism and doing away with the safe shelters, sanctuaries, and safe havens will be an important part of our cooperation,” Modi said.
On trade, Trump said he would like it to be ‘fair and reciprocal’, hoping that the trade deficit with India currently almost $31 billion will fall. Modi said India would continue to strengthen the already existing trade and manufacturing partnership the two nations share, something, Modi said, that was beneficial to both the nations.
The featured in the talks between the two nations. Trump and Modi were hopeful that the deal between India’s Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCI) and Westinghouse Electric Company for six nuclear reactors and the projects financing would soon be completed.
The US also reiterated its strong support for India’s early membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the Australia Group. Trump also welcomed India’s formal entry into the International Expedited Traveler Initiative (Global Entry program) that facilitates closer business and educational ties between the citizens of India and the US.
The two leaders spoke of being responsible stewards in the Indo-Pacific region and agreed that a close partnership between them is central to peace and stability. Trump’s statements on ‘territorial integrity’ and his administration’s outright condemnation of terrorism by Pakistan-backed organizations was something India was hopeful would come out of the meeting.
During his visit to the White House, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won the endorsement of the US on India’s objections to China’s massive initiative to open land and sea corridors that connect it to Central Asia. India has objected to China’s “new Silk Road” project, because part of it, an economic corridor, runs through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. The government has said the construction and plans violate “India’s territorial sovereignty”, which the US appears to have accepted.
The Indian leader, who has recently looked to woo companies to India with a “Make In India” campaign, said that his vision could work with Trump’s campaign pledge to “Make America Great Again,” his 2016 campaign slogan.
“I am sure that converge between my vision for new India and President Trump’s for making America great gain will add new dimensions to our cooperation,” Modi said. “I am very clear about the fact that India’s interests lie in as strong and prosperous and successful America in the same way that India’s development and its growing role in the international level are in the US’ interest.”
“I want to make a point here that US relationships with India and Pakistan really stand on their own merits and terms,” a senior administration official said. “We don’t see a zero-sum relationship when it comes to the US relationship with Pakistan and the US relationship with India.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gifted US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump a range of gifts, including a handcrafted Himachali silver bracelet, tea and honey from Kangra Valley and hand-woven shawls from Jammu and Kashmir. Modi gifted a folio containing the 1965 dated original commemorative postal stamp, issued to mark the death centenary of Abraham Lincoln. Trump gave PM Modi a guided tour of the President’s residence quarters in White House, including Lincoln bedroom, and showed him a copy of Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg address and the desk on which he wrote it.
Trump even highlighted their affinity for social media in the Rose Garden. “The relationship between India and the United States has never been stronger, has never been better,” Trump said. “I am proud to announce … that Prime Minister Modi and I are world leaders in social media.”
He added: “We are believers, giving citizens of our country to hear directly from the elected leaders and from us to hear directly from there.” Modi has close to 31 million followers. Trump has over 32 million.
The Indian Prime Minister in his major address to the Indian Diaspora in the nation’s capital, promised of a developed India in their lifetime. Soon after arriving in Washington, DC, while addressing the Indian American community, Modi said their success was due to the supportive environment the U.S. provides and added that his government is working to create the same environment back in India. “Your heart always asks when would our country become like this… I assure you that this will happen in your lifetime,” Modi said.
Modi also said that Indians in America have advanced progress in both India and the U.S. and said the success and action of the Indian diaspora echoes throughout the world. “You are the same people but your success story has a simple reason, it’s because you got supportive environment here,” he said.
The prime minister added that “125 crore equally talented Indians are there back in India, they are now getting supportive environment and soon we will develop India soon. The biggest change in India today is that every Indian wants to do and is already doing something with resolution to change and develop the nation,” he said.
“Today, 125 crore people from Kashmir to Kanyakumari have resolved to do something for their country. With such a resolve, the country is developing in a pace never seen before.”
Saying that corruption was the reason “the previous governments were changed in India,” Modi said his government has emerged corruption-free in the last three years. “Governments were changed because of corruption. The common people hated this… There has been not a single blot on our government in the past three years. And governance is being modified so that honesty becomes an in-build process,” Modi said. “Technology is helping with that,” he added.
“Increased usage of technology brings transparency in systems. When I think of a developed India, I think of a healthy India, particularly the good health of the women and children of our nation,” he added. “Transparent policies create an environment of trust among the people. The youth of India understands technology and the importance of technology very well. Through technology driven governance we are creating an ‘Adhunik Bharat,'” the prime minister further said.
“With proper policies and governance, aspirations of people of India can become achievements. We are already seeing the results of this,” said Modi. “Innovation, technology and talent are crucial in this age,” he added.
The prime minister also said the warmth the Indian community offered was unforgettable. “All my family members are settled in America… The happiness we get after meeting the family is what I am feeling right now,” Modi said. “If you want to give back to India, this is the best time to do so. Keep the bridge with India. Your younger generations must continue the strong bond with India,” he said.
PM said that “no one in the world questioned India’s surgical strikes+ ” on terror camps in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir except “of course the target of the strikes”. The PM kept up the momentum and quickly followed the surgical strikes comment by referring to the recent case of Uzma Ahmed+ , an Indian national who was misled into going to Pakistan to marry a man who was already married.
“She went with dreams in her head, but her life was ruined there. She is a Muslim. She thought if I go to Pakistan, my life will be made. But it turned out to be quite the opposite. Somehow she made contact with the Indian embassy so she could get out,” the PM added.
“MEA is one ministry of the government which has demonstrated through the use of social media, for the first time, that it cares for poorest of Indians,” Modi said. “India’s MEA has touched new heights from the point of view of humanity. As many as 80,000 Indians in distress have been rescued from different parts of world in 3 years,” he said, The PM, in his address to the almost 600 people gathered to hear him speak, talked about the achievements of his government in the past three years.
He said his government “has not seen a single taint” in the years it has been in power. “The reasons governments have been defeated in India are things like corruption and cheating. People of India do not like corruption. I can say humbly today that there has not been a single taint on us during our three years of performance,” Modi said.
The global fight against terrorism and the situation in Afghanistan figured prominently when U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi here ahead of his summit-level meeting with President Donald Trump June 26.
“There was strong focus on terrorism and cooperation in counter-terrorism in the meeting with Tillerson,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said while briefing the media here.
“Given the challenges the two countries have faced, the discussions in the meeting touched upon how the two countries have cooperated in countering terrorism and where in the broad direction they can develop it further,” Baglay said.
He said that the entire world was looking at India-U.S. ties and this partnership had been described as a “defining partnership.”
The situation in the Indo-Pacific and Asia-Pacific regions was also discussed by Modi and Tillerson. According to Baglay, Modi said that the fulcrum of India’s foreign policy was to have good relations with all countries, especially with the neighbors.
Speaking of the prime minister’s desire of walking side by side with the U.S., the spokesperson said that Modi discussed the counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan in the meeting with Mattis.
In the meeting, it was mentioned that the U.S. and India believed in respect for international laws, a rule-based order and freedom of navigation and uninterrupted communication.
On being asked about the U.S. State Department’s notification June 26 that declared Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin as a global terrorist, Baglay said that this was merely a courtesy meeting and not a detailed one where such issues could be discussed.
Defense and counter-terrorism issues are likely to be among the major topics to be discussed during the Modi-Trump meeting. The prime minister was scheduled to meet President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at the White House. The leaders will address the media from the Rose Garden.
On June 25, in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, Modi said that defense was a mutually beneficial sphere of the Indo-U.S. partnership. “We are already working together to address the existing and emerging strategic and security challenges that affect both our nations – in Afghanistan, West Asia, the large maritime space of the Indo-Pacific, the new and unanticipated threats in cyberspace,” he said in the article.
Anubhav Gupta, Assistant Director, Asia Society Policy Institute
The visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi couldn’t come at a more opportune time. President Trump badly needs both an opportunity to bolster his presidency and a clear achievement to add to his win column. In India, Trump has a natural partner, and in Modi, he has a leader he can truly work with.
Modi recently completed a very successful trip to Europe, visiting Spain, France, Germany, and Russia. His visit garnered positive press as he showcased an India that was open for business, ready to take on greater global responsibilities, and embrace its European partners. Trump and Modi have an opportunity to craft a similarly lauded and productive visit.
Trump and Modi will use this first visit to build trust and get to know one another. They can begin on the right foot by communicating their desire to advance the relationship to new heights. Modi, who has steadily moved India closer to the United States in his three years in office, is well positioned to take the relationship further after consolidating political power in India through big victories in recent state elections in India. He is strongly situated to win re-election in 2019, and therefore, shape India’s path over the coming years. The United States should take advantage of his good standing.
The visit’s success will depend on whether the Trump Administration has been able to focus enough of its attention on Indiato decide whether and how it will seek an upgrade in the relationship. It will also depend on whether the White House can reassure India about some of its major concerns.
Modi is sure to bring up South Asian stability, in particular U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Administration’s recent decision to let the Defense Department determine troop levels in Afghanistan could result in a short term influx of U.S. troops there, which India might welcome. However, India will look for reassurance that the Administration is committed for the longer term in Afghanistan and has a true interest in and strategy for maintaining stability. Modi will also push the Administration for a more stern U.S. policy toward Pakistan, which continues to support militancy in Afghanistan and India. Support on these two fronts would reassure India greatly.
The two leaders should ensure that legitimate disagreements on certain issues, including worker visas and intellectual property rights, do not hold the relationship back. There is strong bi-partisan support in the U.S. Congress for a closer partnership with India. India’s fast growing and increasingly more open economy are huge opportunities for the United States. Additionally, India can serve as a vital partner for the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. For all of these reasons, pursuing stronger ties with India would be a clear win for the Trump Administration.
Some areas of cooperation are clear. The countries should continue building on their defense relationship and should seek ways to enhance counterterrorism cooperation, especially as this is a major focus for the Trump Administration. On the strategic front, the United States should encourage India to enhance its engagement in the Asia-Pacific. Trump can help facilitate this by telling Modi that the U.S. will finally support India’s membership for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Finally, the two leaders can commit to strengthening economic ties by agreeing to a genuine dialogue on enhancing trade or negotiating a bilateral investment treaty.
“The whole world is looking at India. 7,000 reforms alone (have been carried out) by the Government of India for ease of business and minimum government, (with) maximum governance,” PM Modi said at the round-table to the chief executives of world’s top business leaders in Washington, DC.
PM Modi presented India as a “win-win” opportunity to the business tycoons. “The growth of India presents a win-win partnership for India and the US both. US companies have a great opportunity to contribute to that,” the PM explained.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was meeting with the who’s who of American business – including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Apple’s Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos – at a round-table gathering in Washington DC on Sunday, June 25th.
As the Indian Embassy in Washington DC tweeted, it was “A Stellar Starcast” that had gathered to meet the workaholic PM, despite it being a Sunday morning in the US. As many as 21 high-profile chief executives of US corporations were in attendance at the round-table with Modi at the Hotel Willard Intercontinental in Washington.
The PM, in his inimitable style, also had a suggestion for US business schools. “The implementation of the landmark initiative of GST (Goods and Services Tax Bill) could be a subject of studies in US business schools,” he said, talking about the historic bill that will do away with the system of cascading taxes that has for long been seen as a drag on business and for consumers. In reference to this, he emphasised the importance attached by his government to “efficiency, transparency, growth and benefit for all”.
Kenneth I Juster, a top aide of US President Donald Trump, is set to be America’s new ambassador to India, the White House said last week. The 62-year-old Juster, who is the Deputy Assistant for International Economic Affairs, and Deputy Director of his National Economic Council, would replace Indian American Richard Verma — who stepped down from the post Jan. 21, at the behest of the White House, which dismissed several Obama appointees — if nominated and confirmed by the Senate.
After five months without a U.S. number one in India, Donald Trump has finally chosen the next ambassador to the subcontinent. Kenneth Juster, who serves as a top deputy at the National Economic Council in Trump’s White House, will likely exert a steadying influence on U.S.-India relations if his nomination goes forward as expected.
Juster is a long-time India hand – he chaired the U.S.-India High Technology Cooperation Group and helped spearhead a major new bilateral initiative under the George W. Bush administration – and with his extensive diplomatic experience, he differs from some of Trump’s other ambassadorial picks such as Terry Branstad, the former Iowa governor, or Callista Gingrich, his envoy to the Vatican.
“He’s considered an experienced hand with a good relationship in the White House and other agencies that will make him an effective ambassador,” said Ronak D. Desai, a U.S.-India relations expert at Harvard University and fellow at New America.
If Juster is tapped for the post, he’ll have to navigate some significant political minefields, in large part thanks to his former boss in the Oval Office. One key sticking point is climate change. Trump angered the entire world when he pulled out of the Paris climate agreement, and went out of his way to jab India in the process.
Some blame the attacks on Indian-Americans on the racially-charged climate Trump churned up on the campaign trail – and he’s been silent on the attacks ever since despite growing concerns among Indians and Indian-Americans.
“Given the very real fears of Indian-Americans and the crucial role of the Indian diaspora in U.S.-India relations, Modi can’t afford not to bring up this matter,” wrote the Wilson Center’s Michael Kugelman.
“Ken Juster’s move to Indian Ambassador is because he is extremely qualified for the position,” White House deputy spokesperson Lindsay Walters reportedly told the media about the news which was first reported by The Washington Post. The Post reported that Juster was still undergoing the vetting process.
“Ken has a strong and positive relationship with everyone in the White House, including the president,” Walters said. The move has been welcomed by widely respected Ashley Tellis, the top India expert in the U.S.
“Ken knows India well and actually was deeply involved in successful bilateral negotiations between the two countries. The Indians will welcome him enthusiastically. He is a known quantity,” Tellis told The Washington Post.
Leo Varadkar was elected Irish Prime Minister, making the 38-year-old son of an Indian immigrant the first gay premier of the once-staunchly Catholic country and the youngest person to hold the office. Despite inheriting Europe’s fastest-growing economy, he will face immediate challenges in the shape of neighboring Britain’s exit from the European Union, a political crisis in Northern Ireland and a housing crisis at home.
Varadkar succeeded Enda Kenny earlier this month as leader of the Fine Gael party. Colleagues pinned their hopes of an unprecedented third term on the straight-talking Varadkar, who they believe can widen their appeal in elections that may be triggered as soon as next year.
“Enda Kenny’s leadership enabled me to become an equal citizen in my own country two short years ago and to aspire to hold this office, an aspiration I once thought was beyond my reach, at least if I chose to be myself,” Varadkar said in reference to Ireland’s 2015 vote to legalise gay marriage.
“The government I lead will not be one of left or right. The government I lead will be one of the new European centre as we seek to build a Republic of opportunity, that is a Republic in which every citizen gets a fair go and i n which every part of the country stands to share in our prosperity.”
Varadkar’s elevation marks another chapter in the social change that has swept through the country of 4.6 million people that only decriminalised homosexuality in 1993 and legalized divorce two years later.
“As the country’s youngest holder of this office, he speaks for a new generation of Irish women and Irish men, he represents a modern, diverse and inclusive Ireland and speaks for them like no other,” Kenny told parliament, nominating his successor.“I’ve been elected to lead but I promise to serve.”
Shariq Ahmad, who was a former staffer for U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and a chief-of-staff to Assemblyman Robert Karabinchak, has recently become chairman of the Edison Democratic Organization.
“We’d been trying to get him to come back home from DC for a while, but he seemed to enjoy being down there in the Senate. He’s a very talented guy, and now that we have him back, I’m proud that he’s on my team,” Karabinchak told the Observer.
In an agonizing duel to rule Edison, one fraught with history, fractious fighting, incredibly strange bedfellows, and ultimately revenge, Shariq Ahmad prevailed at the Pines Manor last week by turning out incumbent Keith Hahn for the chairmanship of the local Democratic Committee. Hahn lost to Ahmad by one vote.
The final was 71-70 Ahmad, as the sitting chairman failed to diffuse an insurrection by minority members of the committee, which came tinged with the byzantine bloom of establishment politics – and the fierce resurrection of a local political animal.
Ahmad serves as the chief of staff to Assemblyman Robert Karibinchak (D-18), who got to the statehouse in part politically owing to a deal Hahn cut with the Middlesex Democratic Committee, presumably to keep his chairmanship, with his further support sealed for incumbent Mayor Tom Lankey. The surfacing of a warpaint-wearing Ahmad as an 11th hour challenger infuriated Hahn fans, who feared the complicity of the Middlesex Democratic Party brain trust and a quiet tomahawking of their chief.
Phil Murphy for Governor had strong ties to Ahmad, while Hahn was an early backer of Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulup for Governor. Dogged by years of headline headaches concerning ranks that often blocked out minority leadership, the establishment found itself with a unique opportunity to gong that narrative while simultaneously off-loading wild man Hahn.
“I always knew from when I first came in that I was going to be a transitional guy. I think the party will be in good hands with Shariq moving forward,” Hahn told MyCentralJersey.com. “He has a great relationship with the Mayor and Council and we are happy he came home to serve the residents of the 18th District,” Hahn said to the Observer.
“I’m excited, I want to do what I can to bring the different leaders in Edison together and I think I am uniquely positioned to do that because I have a good working relationship with people on all sides,” Ahmad told MyCentralJersey.com. “I aim to help heal some of the wounds that have opened over the last few years,” he said to nj.com.
Indian American Republican Hirsh Singh lost the opportunity of becoming the governor of New Jersey as he failed to win the primary gubernatorial election held on June 6. Singh lost by about 90,000 votes. He came in third with 23,611 votes. The winner was Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno on the Republican side with 112,867 votes and Phil Murphy the winner on the Democratic side with 239,189 votes.
Singh, an engineer from Atlantic City, had just released a 30 second TV Spot ad, a week before the primary, stating that being an engineer, he is a trained problem-solver and that “career politicians make empty promises and they think they’re entitled to run our state; they’re not. We need a conservative to fight for the rights of the people; a results-driven leader who can solve the problems in Trenton and not create new ones,” said a PR Newswire report.
According to his website http://singhfornewjersey.com/innovation-plan/, Singh aimed to do quite a bit as governor including lowering taxes, overhauling education, enacting the Pain-Capable Child Protection Act, protecting the second amendment, legalizing cannabis, making improvements in transportation and infrastructure and stopping medical malpractices.
Singh has always been passionate about making a difference exclaiming on his website that “New Jersey needs a problem solver. Not a politician,” and said in an interview with TV ASIA, that he was keen on putting Indian Americans in his cabinet.
According to PR Newswire, Singh is a native of Linwood, New Jersey; he graduated from Egg Harbor Township High School and earned a degree in engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump will meet for the first time on June 26 during the Indian leader’s two-day visit to the United States, with their discussions expected to set the agenda for strengthening the bilateral strategic partnership.
“Their discussions will provide a new direction for deeper bilateral engagement on issues of mutual interest and consolidation of multi-dimensional strategic partnership between India and the US,” the Indian external affairs ministry said in a statement on Ju ne 12th.
The White House said the leaders can be expected to set forth a “common vision” for expanding the US-India “partnership” in an “ambitious and worthy way”. U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week and said he looked forward to playing host to a visit by Modi to Washington.
President Trump is looking forward to “advancing our common priorities — fighting terrorism, promoting economic growth and reforms and expanding security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region”, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.
Trump saw India as a “true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world. The two discussed opportunities to strengthen the partnership between the US and India in broad areas such as the economy and defense,” it said. Modi said he had “also invited President Trump to visit India
The US statement added that Trump and Modi resolved to “stand shoulder to shoulder in the global fight against terrorism”. Modi had congratulated Trump after his election win in November, saying he appreciated his “friendship” with India.
During the US election campaign, Trump wooed Indian-American voters and was largely positive about India. He had praised Modi for championing bureaucratic reform and economic growth.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to arrive in Washington DC on June 25 and hold talks with President Donald Trump the following day, the Ministry of External Affairs said. This will be his first visit to the US after Trump became president earlier this year. Contentious issues such as the Paris Climate Change Agreement and H1-B visa are likely to figure in the talks between the two leaders.
The White House said Trump spoke with Modi to congratulate him on the outcome of recent state-level elections. Trump expressed support for Modi’s economic reform agenda. “President Trump also said he looks forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Washington later this year,” the White House said in a statement. No date for the visit was mentioned.
Terrorism is expected to figure significantly on the agenda of both countries, according to officials and experts. The issue of America’s H-1B visas for highly skilled foreigners could be next for India, and trade for the US.
The US has emerged as a top arms supplier to India and the two sides will be looking to move forward with deals such as unarmed drones that India wants for its navy, Reuters reported citing sources in New Delhi.
Equally important, the two leaders, who have spoken three times on phone since Trump’s election last November, will use the meeting to strike a personal rapport for the future. Their officials have met and interacted over phone multiple times.
The US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and Trump’s harsh remarks could come up, but Indian officials have said that climate change was never going to figure prominently in discussions with this White House, knowing where it stands on the issue.
Another area for discussion between the two leaders is Trump’s efforts for stricter norms for the H1-B visa program — often used by IT companies to hire Indian engineers in the US. Terrorism is another major area to be discussed during the talks.
Bilateral trade between the 2 nations could find a prominent place during discussions. The US trade deficit with India is among those Trump has tasked the US commerce department to investigate and recommend correctives.
Trump recently pulled US out of the Paris accord, accusing India of receiving “billions of dollars” in exchange for signing it. India hit back saying there was no truth in Trump’s claims. “First of all, there is absolutely no reality. India signed the Paris agreement not because of pressure from any country nor greed. We signed the agreement because of our commitment to protecting the environment,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said at a press conference.
Trump’s “America first” policy has also put a considerable strain on Indian tech companies’ earnings. The Trump administration is also looking to put a cap on the H1-B work visa, there by putting thousands of Indian engineers at risk of losing their jobs.
It is expected that Modi-Trump discussions will provide a new direction for deeper bilateral engagement. This will be the first meeting between the two leaders, the ministry added. “Prime Minister will hold official talks with President Trump on June 26. Their discussions will provide a new direction for deeper bilateral engagement on issues of mutual interest and consolidation of multi-dimensional strategic partnership between India and the US,” the ministry said.
A majority of Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters nationwide backed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for president. Seventy-seven percent of Indian Americans who responded to the 2016 National Asian American Survey voted for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, noted researchers who released results May 15. Eighty percent of Indian Americans view President Donald Trump unfavorably, according to the survey, which was conducted shortly after the Nov. 8, 2016 general election.
For the first time, the survey disaggregated data about Bangladeshi and Pakistani Americans. Eighty-eight percent of Pakistani Americans and 90 percent of Bangladeshi Americans voted for Clinton. Almost all Pakistani and Bangladeshi Americans view Trump unfavorably, according to the NAAS survey results. More than 1,100 South Asian Americans participated in the NAAS survey.
While Clinton performed better nationally with AAPI voters than President Barack Obama did in 2012 — winning 79 percent of the vote compared to Obama’s 77 percent — President-elect Donald Trump secured double the AAPI support compared to GOP candidate Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania, a battleground state that helped Trump win the election.He noted the influence of Khizr Khan, father of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in 2004 during the Iraq War, who berated Trump during the Democratic National Convention for his anti-immigrant rhetoric.
About 35 percent of Indian Americans identify as Independent or Other party voters, reported the survey. More than a third of Indian American participants in the survey reported that they had problems with bullying. Bangladeshi and Pakistani Americans reported similar results.
Almost one-fifth of Indian Americans believed they had been subjected to discrimination at the workplace, based on their ethnicity. “All of the anti-immigrant rhetoric we’re currently seeing might be having an effect on getting hired or getting promoted,” said Ramakrishnan.
Ireland’s governing Fine Gael party June 2 elected Leo Varadkar, the gay son of an Indian immigrant, as its new leader and the country’s likely next prime minister. Varadkar defeated rival Simon Coveney in a contest to replace Enda Kenny, who resigned last month.
“If my election as leader of Fine Gael today has shown anything, it is that prejudice has no hold on this republic,” Varadkar said after his victory was announced in Dublin. Coveney won the votes of a majority of party members, but Varadkar was backed by most lawmakers and local representatives to give him victory under the center-right party’s electoral college system.
He is highly likely to become prime minister in Ireland’s coalition government, although not immediately. Kenny will remain in place for a couple more weeks while Varadkar holds talks with other parties and independents propping up the Fine Gael-led government.
His confirmation as Taoiseach – Ireland’s prime minister – would come when the lower house of parliament resumes after a break on June 13. At 38, Varadkar would be Ireland’s youngest prime minister, as well as the first from an ethnic-minority background and the first openly gay leader.
Varadkar was born in Dublin in 1979, the son of an Indian doctor and an Irish nurse. He came out publicly as gay in the run-up to a 2015 referendum that legalized same-sex marriage in Ireland.
If confirmed as prime minister, Varadkar will lead a country still emerging from the shadow of the 2008 global financial crisis, which hit the debt-fueled “Celtic Tiger” economy particularly hard.
He also will have to steer Ireland during complex divorce negotiations between Britain and the European Union. Brexit has major implications for Ireland, the only EU country to share a land border with the United Kingdom. Varadkar said he was “aware of the enormous challenges ahead. I’m ready for those challenges, as are we as a party.”
Kamala Harris topped the list and was recognized “For giving the Democratic Party hope in the Trump era”; Haley was included “For trying to preserve America’s traditional vision of international affairs”; Minhaj was named to the 2017 list for defining the narrative of a “New Brown America.”
The Center also honored five of its pioneers with Silver Jubilee Year Life Time Achievement Awards. The 25th Jubilee Year Life Time Achievers are Shanti Bhavan Founder Dr. Abraham George, Industrialist and Founder & Chairman of Sami-Sabinsa Group Dr. Muhammed Majeed; Philanthropist Sreedhar Menon; Columbia University Professor P. Somasundaran and Entrepreneur Dilip Varghese. Also honored with a ‘surprise award” was E M Stephen, the pioneer and first President and the Center’s current Executive Director for his visionary and hard work in establishing and running the center in the past quarter century.
While lauding the contributions and achievements of the Malayalee community, chief guest at the gala, Consul General of India in New York Sandeep Chakravorty, “Kerala Diaspora has made India so proud. They are incredibly strong and enormous,” he said. Referring to the strong Indo-US relationship, the Indian Ambassador paid tributes to the larger Indian American community for their contributions towards making the relationship between the largest and the greatest democracies to be growing and poised to be stronger for the next 100 years.
“Kerala Center has been honoring outstanding achievers since 1991 and every year we invite nominations and the committee has to make a unanimous choice for a candidate in a category to receive the award and this year is no different from previous years in terms of their achievements,” said Kerala Center President Thambi Thalappillil. “In 25 years, Kerala Center has become a secular civic institution providing services to the Indian American community and we are recognizing those who were honored earlier by the Center and who went on to become successful achievers and contributors to society with Life Time Achievement,” said Dr. Thomas Abraham, Chairman of the 25th Anniversary Dinner.
Everywhere he went, Gandhi said, he heard the same concern, from San Francisco, where he began his tour, to Los Angeles to Washington DC to New York. “What has happened to tolerance that had prevailed in India? What is going on in your country,” he said people would ask him. “India has a reputation for peace and harmony…this is being challenged…there are forces that are dividing the country…This is dangerous for the country and ruins our reputation abroad,” he added.
“I think, the central reason why Mr Modi arose and to an extent why Mr Trump came, is the question of jobs in India and in the United States. There’s a large part of our populations that simply do not have jobs and cannot see a future. And, so they are feeling pain. And they have supported these types of leaders,” Gandhi told students, while pointing out that the prime minister was not doing enough to solve the key problem facing India.