Rohit Khanna, an Indian American attorney from Fremont, CA is reported to have won the primary with the narrowest of victories over incumbent Mike Honda in the primary elections on June 7 in his fight for California’s 17th Congressional District where. Khanna totaled 38.3 percent of the vote while Honda earned 38.1 percent. A total of 33,785 voters sided with the 39-year-old challenger, 177 more than Honda’s 33,608 votes.
“This is an astounding upset and an amazing victory for the people of the 17th District,” Khanna said in a written statement. The 17th Congressional District covers Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Santa Clara, north San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont and Newark. “The people want a representative in Congress that is ready to get to work for them.”
The grassroots campaign has flipped the recorded net contributions in Honda’s favor, but because the Democratic incumbent is battling the House Ethics Committee for allegations he had congressional aides perform campaign work during government business hours, the candidates’ cash-in-hand was heavily tilted in Khanna’s favor, $1.96 million to $792,208, according to recent financing reports.
In the 2014 primary election, Honda handily defeated Khanna by more than 20 percent of the vote. The two met again in the general election later that year, with Khanna gaining significant ground. Honda ultimately won the election by a mere 3.6 percent.
“This year, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, alike, sent a strong message,” Khanna said. “The time for politicians that use their office to help themselves and their donors, but not their constituents, is up; the time for politicians that take money from PACs and lobbyists is up; the time for politicians that don’t have the energy, desire or ability to reach across the aisle and get things done is up.”
Meanwhile, Honda delivered a business-as-usual approach in an emailed statement, focusing on his campaign rather than the results. “This campaign and my commitment to public service has always been about expanding opportunities for Silicon Valley’s families,” Honda said. “I am incredibly proud of my track record of delivering for workers, seniors and middle class families. As a senior appropriator I’ve been able to secure millions in funding for the nanotechnology industry and $900 million in funding for (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and other critical investments across the district.”
The incumbent added, “With individuals ready to trample on the middle class bank rolling my opponent’s campaign, we know that this is going to be one of the closest congressional races in the country. I am ready to fight tooth and nail between now and Nov. 8 so I can continue delivering for middle class families and turning progressive ideals into results.”
While celebrating the victory in the primary, Khanna understands there’s ground to be gained if he expects another win in November. “There’s still more work to do on this campaign in the coming months. … With our upset last night, we’re more strongly positioned at the beginning of the general election this year,” he said, adding that with continued support in the grassroots approach, “we’ll celebrate another win in November.”
Rohit “Ro” Khanna is an American teacher, lawyer and politician. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the United States Department of Commerce under President Barack Obama. Khanna is a member of the Democratic Party and was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives in California’s 17th District, which encompasses a large part of Silicon Valley, including Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino, north San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont and Newark.
New York Times, one of the most widely read and powerful newspaper in the world, has described deepening of India-US ties as one of President Barack Obama’s “most important foreign policy achievements” and referred to as “producing concrete gains” under Obama.
The leading US daily on Tuesday, June 14, in an editorial, wrote that the two democracies are finding “common cause” in countering China’s “aggression” in the South China Sea, climate change, fighting terror and investing in each other’s economic growth.
Pointing to the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama in Washington last week, and the previous three meetings in two years, many analysts were left puzzled over how and why the two leaders, so different in so many ways, get along.
“Whatever the reasons, what’s important is that they have significantly deepened the partnership between their two countries. It may be one of Obama’s most important foreign policy achievements,” the editorial said.
It said relations between New Delhi and Washington had been “testy” during the Cold War, turned warmer under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush but are now “producing concrete gains” under Obama. “The two democracies are finding common cause in countering China’s aggression in the South China Sea, resisting climate change, fighting terrorism and investing in each other’s economic growth,” it said.
It praised the announcement by Modi and Obama to work towards ensuring implementation of the Paris climate deal and the growing cooperation on defense. “Other vital issues will need work, now and far into the future, including the India-Pakistan-China nuclear competition that threatens the region. It will be up to the next president to build on a relationship that is on stronger footing now than it has been for some time,” it said.
NYT has been critical of the Modi government and had written a scathing editorial on the eve of Modi’s visit to the US last week. In the editorial, NYT had stated that there should be “no exceptions for a nuclear India” and the country should meet the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s standards and open talks with Pakistan and China on curbing nuclear weapons if it wants to push its case for membership in the elite 48-nation group.
However, in its editorial this week, the leading and influential daily said the growing cooperation between the two countries on defense issues is “no less important” with the US formally recognising India as a major defense partner, making it eligible to buy some of the most sophisticated US-made weapons and technology without first having to receive a license.
“If there was any doubt that a message to China was intended, Modi told Congress that India appreciated America’s role in Asia and endorsed its commitment to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which Beijing is claiming largely as its own,” the editorial added.
Progress was also made on the nuclear deal that “has dragged on for years” when the two sides also announced plans to complete a deal under which India will buy six nuclear reactors from Westinghouse by June 2017, “fulfilling a promise” India made when it persuaded Bush in 2005 to lift an American ban on selling nuclear technology to India.
Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday, June 7 becoming the first woman in American history to top the ticket of a major political party and putting immediate pressure on primary rival Bernie Sanders to step aside.
Hillary Clinton celebrated her triumph as the first woman to lead a major party in a race for the White House, scoring big wins in California and New Jersey, New Mexico, and North Dakota to cement her grip on the 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination. The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state spoke to supporters at a raucous event in Brooklyn, New York, and placed her achievement in the context of the long history of the women’s rights movement. “Thanks to you, we have reached a milestone,” Clinton said in a speech. “We all owe so much to who came before.”
Marking the historic moment, Clinton said: “This campaign is about making sure there are no ceilings, no limits on any of us.” She also congratulated Sanders, calling his campaign and the debate he brought about income inequality good for the party – while also saying this is a moment to “come together.”
The Vermont senator has, however, vowed to keep fighting for “every delegate.” Far from bowing out, he vowed to campaign through the final primary next Tuesday in Washington, D.C., and then “take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” the site of the convention.
She will become the first female nominee for a major US political party. Clinton had reached the threshold with a big win in Puerto Rico and a burst of last-minute support from super-delegates, AP said late on Monday night. Superdelegates are party insiders who can pledge their support for a candidate ahead of the convention but do not formally vote for them until the convention itself.
It has taken a long 227 years to get even this far. George Washington was elected president of a newly independent America in 1789. Forty-three men later (42 of them white) Hillary Clinton makes history today by being the first female nominee for the White House.
Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state, New York senator and First Lady, leads Sanders by over three million votes, 291 pledged delegates and 523 super-delegates, according to AP’s count. She has won 33 caucuses and primaries to his 25 victories.
Sanders has argued that super-delegates — elected officials and other party leaders who are not bound to vote for the candidate their state selected in its primary contest — should not be counted in the final tally even if they have made formal commitments to individual candidates.
His campaign believes that they can still put the nomination within reach for the Vermont senator by convincing Clinton-backing super-delegates to switch their support to Sanders, who they note performs better than Clinton in hypothetical head-to-head contests against GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump.
In a potential move toward reconciliation, the White House revealed that President Obama called both Clinton and Sanders Tuesday night – and plans to meet with Sanders at the White House on Thursday, June 9 to discuss “how to build on the extraordinary work he has done to engage millions of Democratic voters.”
It has been a series of diplomatic and personal victories for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, currently on his fourth visit to the US. His meeting with President Barack Obama on Tuesday, June 7 – their seventh so far and perhaps their last since Obama retires in January – was done in a backdrop of major deals signed between the two countries.
India and the US signed eight agreements, including in the sphere of defense and energy cooperation and counter-terrorism after talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama in the White House on June 7.
The agreement laid the foundation for exchange of terrorist screening information between the Multi-Agency Centre/Intelligence Bureau of India and the Terrorist Screening Center of the US under which the two sides shall “provide each other access to terrorism screening information through the designated contact points, subject to domestic laws and regulations”. The arrangement will enhance the counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries, said a statement.
A MoU to enhance cooperation on Energy Security, Clean Energy and Climate Change through increased bilateral engagement and further joint initiatives for promoting sustainable growth, was another notable agreement signed between the tow nations.
With a view to enhance co-operation in Wildlife Conservation and Combating Wildlife Trafficking in areas such as Wildlife Forensics and Conservation Genetics; Natural World Heritage Conservation and Nature Interpretation; and Conservation Awareness, India and the UIS signed an agreement.
Another MoU is between the Consular, Passport and Visa Division of India’s Ministry of External Affairs and US Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security for the Development of an International Expedited Traveler Initiative – the Global Entry Program, which is a US Customs and Border Protection program.
The program allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. After joint scrutiny and clearance by both countries, the approved Indian travelers will be extended the facility of expedited entry into the US through automatic kiosks at select airports, the statement said.
The fifth agreement is a Technical Arrangement between the Indian Navy and the US Navy concerning Unclassified Maritime Information Sharing that will allow sharing of unclassified information on White Shipping as permitted by respective national laws, regulations and policies, and provides a framework for mutually beneficial maritime information.
A MoU was inked between India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas ministry and the Department of Energy of the US for cooperation in Gas Hydrates. The MOU aims to increase the understanding of the geologic occurrence, distribution, and production of natural gas hydrates along the continental margin of India and in the US.
In defense cooperation, an Information Exchange Annex (IEA) was held between the Ministry of Defense and the US’ Department of Defense regarding Aircraft Carrier Technologies. The IEA is aimed to enhance data and information sharing specific to aircraft carriers between India and the US, it said.
The final one was a Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement between the two defense ministries aimed at facilitating mutual logistic support between India and the US for port visits, joint exercises, joint training and HA-DR, notable among them are: humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
President Barack Obama has boosted the front-runner status of Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Indian-American candidate for the U.S. Congress from Illinois’ District 8, in the November 8 general election. “As the son of immigrants who worked their way into the middle-class, Raja understands both the challenges facing America’s working families and the opportunities their work makes possible,” President Obama said in a statement the White House sent to Krishnamoorthi. “I know he’ll fight hard in Congress to create more good jobs, empower more Americans to start businesses, and help working families afford to put their children through college,” the President added.
If elected, he will become the 2nd India-born Congressman after Dalip Singh Saund, D-California, who served in the House of Representatives 1957-1963. Two other Indian-Americans in Congress include former Representative and later Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal, who was born in Louisiana, and current incumbent Rep. Ami Bera, D-California, who is running for re-election. “I’m elated to have the President’s support,” Krishnamoorthi told the media. “He’s put working families front and center as President and that is what I intend to do if elected.”
Krishnamoorthi is pitted against his Republican rival, Peter DiCianni, a DuPage County board member, whose chances of winning are marginal. Roll Call magazine called Krishnamoorthi the “heavy favorite” to win the general election. But Krishnamoorthi said he is not taking anything for granted and said getting people to the polls was the most important factor in winning.
“We are working extremely hard to mobilize resources and volunteers to get out the vote,” he said. “We need to continue to fundraise. But we have demonstrated in the primary that with the requisite resources my team knows how to deploy them appropriately,” he added.
The Chicago Tribune editorial board wrote that the decision for Congress in the 8th District of Illinois “isn’t close at all” and that the “Tribune endorses [Raja] Krishnamoorthi” for the seat to represent the voters of the northwest Chicago suburbs.
“Krishnamoorthi’s amalgam of business and government experience makes him the best candidate, hands down,” the Chicago Tribune editorial board stated. “A Harvard Law School grad who lives in Schaumburg, he’s been a deputy state treasurer and an assistant attorney general. He’s president of two high-tech firms focused on military security and renewable energy. Those overlapping experiences give him a valuable perspective on how government policy affects businesses and workers.”
The Chicago Tribune endorsement makes it a clean sweep of Chicago-area newspaper endorsements for the progressive Democrat Krishnamoorthi following the earlier endorsements from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Herald, the largest suburban newspaper in the Chicago area.
“We were impressed with Krishnamoorthi’s command of specifics about the tax code and the Affordable Care Act — and even more impressed when he emailed us after our meeting to correct himself on a minor point,” the Chicago Tribune editorial board wrote. “We like that he’s already scoped out opportunities to join in bipartisan initiatives on criminal justice reform and alternative energy. We agree with his maxim that government must do everything ‘faster, cheaper, smarter.’”
Raja Krishnamoorthi, the former deputy state treasurer of Illinois, an Indian American Democrat, who had lost to Rep. Tammy Duckworth in the Democratic primary for Congress in 2012, has announced his bid to join the fray to take the seat one more time. The 41-year-old Indian American has been campaigning to succeed Duckworth in Congress as the representative for the 8th District in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Duckworth has declared her candidacy to the US Senate from the state of Lincoln.
A resident of Schaumburg, Ill., where he lives with his wife, Priya, a doctor at a local hospital, and their sons Vijay, 9, and Vikram, 5, who attend public schools in school District 54, Krishnamoorthi is president of Sivananthan Labs and Episolar, small businesses selling products in the national security and renewable energy sectors.
In 2006, he was appointed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan as a Special Assistant Attorney General in her public integrity unit and he served as a member of the Illinois Housing Development Authority. When he ran in 2016 against Duckworth, who had the support of many in the Democratic leadership, Krishnamoorthi lost by a 66.6% to 33.4% margin.
Co-founder of InSPIRE, a nonprofit providing training to Illinois students and veterans in solar technology, he is a former vice chair of the Illinois Innovation Council, a group supporting economic growth and job creation in Illinois.
“We need people in Congress who understand the opportunities provided by the new economy and how to make sure more Americans are prepared to seize them,” the Indian American candidate said in a press release. “That requires practical, pragmatic ideas and far less partisanship and politics. I want to help provide this leadership and ensure that the same opportunities that my family had to escape tough economic times exist for other working families today and into the future,” he said.
“I am excited to have the support of the hardworking men and women of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 881,” Raja said. “UFCW, Local 881 represents more than 34,000 members employed in retail food, drug stores and grocery stores. Winning another labor union endorsement shows that my campaign’s message of helping more Americans find good jobs and help grow and strengthen the middle class is resonating with voters throughout the northwest Chicago suburbs.”
Kamala Harris, the first ever person of Indian Origin to win a state wide election in the state of California, was declared the winner of the Senate primary in California early Wednesday, June 8th morning, handily beating her competition with 40 percent of the vote with over 80 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D) was trailing far behind Harris with 18 percent of the vote, but she was still in second place. If that result holds, it means the two Democratic women would face off against each other in November for the seat of retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer (D). In third place as the early returns were being counted was Duf Sundheim, the former California Republican party chair. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election.
Harris, 51, the state’s attorney general, was easily the top vote-getter among a field of 34 candidates. “I am just thrilled. I am a proud daughter of California and I cannot be more proud than I am tonight,” Harris said in San Francisco. “We have run a campaign, and we will continue to run a campaign, that is about fighting for the ideals of our country. We have so many challenges as a country and we are prepared to lead,” she said, citing passing comprehensive immigration reform, combating climate change, reforming the criminal justice system and “eliminating that income divide that is making so many families suffer.”
Harris has been campaigning across the golden state to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. Karris, a progressive, has always been in the forefront of Civil Rights, Equality and Openness. Harris used herself as an example, saying that she never would have been elected were it not for the educational opportunities she received because of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that found segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. Harris said that ruling allowed her to be a member of the second class that integrated Berkeley public schools in the 1960s.
She is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., and earned her law degree at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Harris as a veteran prosecutor and astute, ambitious political leader. Harris also has been a strong Obama supporter since he was a U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois.
For more than a decade, she worked as a prosecutor in Alameda County and San Francisco, and tried cases involving charges of drunk driving, sex crimes, assault and homicide. Her transition to electoral politics began in 2003 during her successful campaign to unseat San Francisco Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan. Harris was elected attorney general in 2010, narrowly beating L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, a Republican. She was reelected in 2014 by a wide margin.
Her parents divorced when Harris was a toddler and her late mother, who was a breast cancer researcher at UC Berkeley, raised Harris and her sister, Maya, to be proud African American women during a tumultuous time in the United States. Harris was a student in the second class to integrate Berkeley’s public schools in the late 1960s. Her sister has served as advisor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Harris’ national profile got a boost when Obama gave her a speaking role at the Democratic National Convention in 2012. The headlines continued in 2013 when Obama apologized publicly for having described her as “the best-looking” attorney general in the country.
Throughout her political career, Harris has articulated clear positions on many controversial, divisive issues that could come before the nation’s high court. Harris favors the protection of abortion rights, an end to the federal ban on medical marijuana and a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. She backs major changes in the criminal justice system, in part to address racial disparities, including shorter sentences for low-level drug crimes and a shift in government funding from prisons to crime prevention.
As attorney general, Harris has taken actions conservatives would no doubt take issue with during a Senate confirmation hearing, should one ever occur: She refused to defend Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage in California until the U.S. Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. Harris defended a state law that required members of public employee unions to help pay for collective bargaining.
“I’m not surprised. She’s a representative of the best of California. She’s been a marvelous attorney general, and she’ll be an exceptional senator,” said California state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, on the Associated Press naming Kamala Harris the first-place finisher in the U.S. Senate primary
Harris and Sanchez each drew national attention and support because each is poised to make history if elected: Harris would be only the second black woman and the first woman of Indian heritage elected to the Senate, and Sanchez would be one of the first Latinas.
In the Senate race, Harris, a native of Oakland and a former San Francisco district attorney, jumped into the race immediately after Boxer announced she was leaving the Senate at the end of her fourth term. She won the endorsement of the California Democratic Party, and two weeks ago Gov. Jerry Brown (D) gave her his blessing. Harris also has been backed by some of the state’s largest labor unions, the Congressional Black Caucus’s PAC and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, making his second visit to the White House in two years, and his fourth visit to the United States since he was elected Prime Minister of India only two years ago, announced a crucial step toward ratification of the Paris Agreement to limit greenhouse gases, bringing the accord close to full implementation, giving a jolt of momentum to the international fight to curb global warming.
President Barack Obama welcomed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House for their seventh meeting since Modi took office in 2014, underscoring the warm relationship between the two leaders and the world’s largest democracies. Modi is to address the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. “We discussed how we can, as quickly as possible, bring the Paris Agreement into force,” Obama told reporters during talks in the Oval Office.
So far, countries representing about 50 percent of global emissions have announced that they will submit legal paperwork to the United Nations documenting their compliance with the deal. The pact will become binding when at least 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions formally join. The inclusion of India, the world’s third-largest emitter after China and the United States, would guarantee that the deal will go into effect before the next American president takes office.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had arrived in Washington, DC June 6 on a three-day visit, met with Obama at the White House in the morning, and the two then had a working lunch. The two countries also pledged to expand military cooperation and outlined principles for cooperation on cyber issues.
Following the meeting, the leaders of the world’s largest democracies also announced the agreement to cut the use of hydrofluorocarbons, potent planet-warming chemicals produced by coolants in refrigerators and air-conditioners.
Both the nations announced that they intended to complete a deal in which India will buy six nuclear reactors from Westinghouse by June 2017, fulfilling an agreement struck in 2005 by President George W. Bush. The price is still under discussion, but more difficult issues like liability have been resolved. Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington, DC June 6 on a three-day visit.
Economic cooperation was also on the list for Tuesday’s meeting, with Modi expected to meet with business leaders. India has the world’s fastest-growing large economy, but it is not growing fast enough to provide jobs to even a significant fraction of the one million people entering the work force there every month.
U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma and Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Biswal were among the top officials present at the base to receive Prime Minister Modi.
“India and USA are natural partners, two vibrant democracies that celebrate their diversity and pluralism. Strong India-USA ties benefit not only our two nations but also the entire world,” Modi had said.
Samina Ali from California and Mira Jacob of New York joined hundreds of writers from across the U.S. in adding their names to an online public petition against Trump, 69, whom they referred to as a dictator who “appeals to the most violent elements in society.”
The two Indian American authors are among hundreds of writers who have voiced their opposition to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, slamming him for “encouraging aggression” among his followers, intimidating dissenters and denigrating women and minorities.
Ali is an award-winning author, activist and cultural commentator, according to her profile on her website. Her debut novel ‘Madras on Rainy Days’ won France’s prestigious Prix Premier Roman Etranger award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award in Fiction.
Jacob, who currently teaches fiction at New York University, is the author of the critically acclaimed novel ‘The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing’ which was shortlisted for India’s Tata First Literature Award.
Among the big names signing the petition are Stephen King, David Eggers, Amy Tan, Junot Diaz and Cheryl Strayed. In the “open letter to the American people” on the literary website Lithub, the writers voiced their opposition to Trump, saying that mere wealth or celebrity status does not qualify “anyone to speak for the United States, to lead its military, to maintain its alliances, or to represent its people” and, as writers, they are aware of the many ways that “language can be abused in the name of power.” “Unequivocally” opposing Trump’s candidacy for president of the U.S., the writers said the rise of a political candidate who “deliberately appeals to the basest and most violent elements in society, who encourages aggression among his followers, shouts down opponents, intimidates dissenters, and denigrates women and minorities, demands, from each of us, an immediate and forceful response.”
They said American history, despite periods of nativism and bigotry, has brought people of different backgrounds together and not pitted them against one another. “The history of dictatorship is the history of manipulation and division, demagoguery and lies,” the writers said
Washington DC: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, top US Senators have expressed deep concern over religious freedom, increasing attack on civil society and human rights in India with the Obama Administration saying it was having a dialogue with the country on these issues.
“The situation does raise concern about religious freedom in India,” Colorado Senator Cory Gardner said during a Congressional hearing on India convened by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, while expressing his concern on recent incidents of religious intolerance when artists returned their awards, said he is hoping to raise this issue with Prime Minister Modi when he travels to Washington DC next month.
Describing the anti-conversion laws in some states as problematic, Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, a Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed concern over religious freedom in India. Some of the members also raised the issue of denying visas to the members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Agreeing with the concerns of the Senators, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal said while the Obama Administration has been raising these issues and concerns at the highest level and is having a dialogue with India on this issue, it is the vibrant civil society of India which is itself the most robust and strong voice on this.
“There has been fairly vigorous and vociferous debate within India with respect to religious freedom and religious tolerance,” Biswal said. “But there is a long way to go. It would be increasingly incumbent upon India to advance the rule of law to all aspect of the society,” she added.
Senator Kaine said the heartening aspect of India today has a vibrant civil society that is not shy at all raising these issues. Citing a recent report of the International Religious Freedom, the Republican Senator said the situation of religious freedom has deteriorated in India.
Gardner alleged that foreign non-governmental organisations are being harassed by the Indian government, citing the example of Colorado-based Compassion International. “In India Compassion International has been sued by the Income Tax four times. Their assets have been seized. They have had their employees and church pastors interrogated for hours by intelligence bureau. Twelve separate visa applications have been denied,” Gardner said.
“We are concerned about the attack on civil society within India. They have to be effectively be able to speak. (But) it does not relieve us from developing and working with leaders in India that recognise that these are not western values, these are universal issues that India needs to make progress on,” Cardin said.
Cardin alleged that India has inconsistent record in the manner in which they treat women and girls. In a massive country like India it is a huge challenge to deal with issues of uniform capacity and capability to address the rights of every individual citizen, said Biswal in response to concerns being expressed by the Senators.
Responding to a question on denying visa to members of USCIRF, Biswal said the US Administration has tried to impress the Indian government to provide them with visas. She also noted that the successive Indian governments have denied the visa.
Ro Khanna is in a pitched battle against an eight-term Democrat, who has been in public office for 35 years, is confident of winning the California’s 17th Congressional District Primaries on June 7.
Now, according to a San Francisco Bay Area CBS affiliate, KPIX polls, the already hotly-contested race for the highly contested seat may be tighter than expected. Honda is said to have had 31 percent support and 25 percent polled for the challenger Ro Khanna, shrinking the lead to 6 percent.
In 2014, Honda had led Khanna by 20 percentage points in the polls leading up to the Primaries. However, Khanna fell short to Honda for the 17th Congressional District seat by only 3.6 percent in the General Elections.
Honda, who is now entrenched in an ongoing ethics investigation by the House Ethics Committee, had narrowly beat the Indian American attorney from Fremont, Calif., in the 2014 race for the same seat. “Congressman Honda and his office gave special favors to donors,” Khanna said in the KPIX report. “So it started as this investigation about the mingling of staff but it became something much worse.”
Throughout the campaign, Khanna has steadfastly turned away donations from lobbyists, corporations and Political Action Committees, signing a pledge in refusal of their money. That comes at a cost, with funding increasingly hard to come by, Khanna said in the report. He added that only nine people running for federal offices throughout the country are doing what he is doing.
Despite that, Khanna has outraised Honda and holds nearly $2 million in the bank while Honda, needing to spend much of his raised money on legal fees, has roughly $800,000 cash in hand. Khanna has been endorsed by many who previously sided with Honda in 2014, such as California Secretary of State Alex Padilla and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo. President Barack Obama abstained from making an endorsement, previously having endorsed Honda.
“The difference between this cycle and last is Ro Khanna now has a new line of attack, and he was only within striking distance last election,” said one Bay Area Democrat who has not endorsed in the race. “It’s going to be close.”
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, a Khanna supporter, believes that Silicon Valley voters are paying close attention to the Honda ethics probe. “For the people that come to this Valley to start businesses, they know the big competitive advantage is the rule of law, transparency, honesty, a level playing field and merit — not who you know,” Rosen said. “It’s merit that rises to the top, and Ro is a person of merit.”
Khanna, who spent a couple of years in Washington as a deputy assistant secretary in Obama’s Commerce Department, lost to Honda last cycle by just 3.6 percentage points. But for Khanna, the son of Indian immigrants, there is a risk of going too negative this time around.
Meanwhile, it was ironic that some members of the Indian American community gathered at the Zutshi home on May 15 for a “meet and greet” event supporting Mike Honda. The event was co-hosted by state Senator Bob Wieckowski, Toni Shellen and Jeevan Zutshi. “Unlike his competitor, a perennial candidate, Mike Honda has a fabulous record of service,” Jeevan Zutshi told the gathering.
His views were echoed by other Indian Americans present who felt that Indian American candidates must not run against those who have served the Indian American community for decades, according to a press release. Other activists who spoke were Tara Sreekrishnan, Jean Holmes, Henry Hutchins, Tejinder Dhami, Bridgette Hendrikson and Kameshwar Eranki.
California’s 17th Congressional District includes much of California’s Silicon Valley cities such as Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Santa Clara, as well as north San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont and Newark. Khanna and Honda are expected to have a rare intraparty battle in November, with both progressive candidates expected to advance past California’s June 7 primary, in which the top two candidates move on to the general election regardless of party.
Ravinder Bhalla, a city council member at large and council president of Hoboken, New Jersey, was called a “terrorist” on Twitter by a Donald Trump supporter, media reports here say. The Sikh-American councilman hit back at the troll, saying “you clearly don’t know what it means to be an American”.
Ravinder Bhalla posted a message on Twitter about the Hoboken City Council approving a waterfront multi-use pathway. After Bhalla sent out the tweet, Robert Dubenezic – an open supporter of Republican presidential nominee Trump – expressed shock that Bhalla was a councilman. “How the hell did Hoboken allow the guys to be councilman? Shouldn’t even be allowed in the US #terrorist,” Dubenezic tweeted on Thursday, last week.
Bhalla, was quick to answer, exclaiming, “Sir, I am born and raised in America. You clearly don’t know what it means to be an American…#ignorant.” Dubenezic’s Twitter page contains several posts expressing his support for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump.
“With a lot of the rhetoric we’re hearing from people like Donald Trump about Muslim Americans and people who are perceived to be from a Muslim background, I think the spread of Islamophobia from our national leaders sends the wrong message,” Bhalla told NBC News.
Many voiced their support of Bhalla, including elected officials US Representative Bonnie Watson-Coleman and Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmer, members of the Sikh-American community, and his constituents.
Bhalla is an attorney and founding member of the national Sikh Bar Association. He earned national recognition for leading a successful challenge to the New York Police Department for restricting the religious practice of a Sikh officer, and he successfully challenged the search policy of the Federal Bureau of Prisons after he was asked to remove his turban in order to see a client.
“I hope this episode shows people that words can be hurtful and that discriminating based on how someone looks shouldn’t just be ignored. People should be educated on different faiths and backgrounds so that diversity is celebrated,” Bhalla said. “America is, after all, a nation of immigrants. And if we work together instead of against each other, we’ll accomplish so much more. At the end of the day, I don’t hold any malice toward this person. I forgive him for what he said and hope he will educate himself about how his comments can be hurtful and divisive,” Bhalla said.
With barely a few days left for the final and one of the last of the primaries in the nation, a group of South Asians came together at the Curry Restaurant on Indian Square, Jersey City in the state of New Jersey on May 17 came together to launch a forum in support of the Democratic party front-runner, Hillary Clinton. New Jersey will hold its primary on June 7.
The formal launch of the group, South Asians for Hillary, aims at soliciting the community’s support for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and to galvanize volunteers to reach out and be proactive. Attended by an estimated 100 people, including former New York City Deputy Public Advocate and Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, former Kansas State Representative Raj Goyle, and Hillary for America Director of Women’s Outreach Mini Timmaraju, the event was also hosted by South Asians for Hillary Jersey City lead Bhavesh Patel.
Clinton was ahead of Bernie Sanders among likely Democratic primary voters, 54 percent to 40 percent, in the Quinnipiac University poll released May 19. While Sanders runs better in the general election, Clinton tops him 54-40 percent among likely voters in New Jersey’s Democratic primary. Only 6 percent of Democrats are undecided and 15 percent say they might change their mind before the June 7 primary, the poll said.
The event was described to be a show of support by South Asians for the former New York Senator and to demonstrate that the community is an influential voting bloc in the American electoral process. Supporters for Clinton had come from throughout the state, including Hudson, Middlesex, Passaic, Bergen and Union counties. Jersey City Deputy Mayor Marco Vigil and Jersey City Council President Rolando Lavarro were also in attendance, and spoke briefly.
“We were truly surprised by the overwhelming turnout at our New Jersey launch event,” said South Asians for Hillary New Jersey co-chairs Amit Jani and Dinesh Suryawanshi, who hosted the event.
The organizers said it was gratifying to see that the South Asian community would like to get more involved in the electoral process. Jani said that many people have explained what they can do to help Clinton’s campaign – from making phone calls to knocking on doors and urging their neighbors from the South Asian community to vote as well. “The South Asian community’s clout as an ever-growing influential voting bloc is becoming clear to establishment politicians, and we should continue to work towards further increasing our community’s voice,” he said.
Mudita Bhargava, an young Indian American, who announced her candidacy challenging incumbent Republican Fred Camillo for the 151st District state representative seat in the state of Connecticut, unanimously received the Democratic nomination on May 18 for the seat covering the Greenwich region.
Jeff Ramer, Chair of the Greenwich DTC, praised Bhargava, saying, “This district has not sent a Democrat to Hartford in over a century. I am proud that our party nominated such an accomplished candidate who, when elected, will represent so many historic firsts for the district,” Ramer said Wednesday. “Dita is a sterling example of the progress our party represents.”
Camillo has held the seat since 2008 when he was first elected to the district which includes residents of Greenwich, Conn. However, Bhargava believes it is time for a “positive change,” the Indian American candidate said in a Greenwich Daily Voice report.
“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.”
“It’s time for action and positive change. We can’t continue to conduct business as usual in Hartford,” Dita said. “We have to significantly improve the economic environment in Connecticut for our businesses and families to stay and to thrive. There needs to be a fresh, proactive and effective approach to how we deal with the challenges facing our state, starting with the budget.”
After spending two decades working in the financial sector for several major financial institutions as a Senior Trader and hedge fund Portfolio Manager, Dita shifted careers in 2015 to focus on public service and her nonprofit work.
Bhargava has spent a career in the financial sector, serving a number of major organizations. In 2015, she redirected her focus on public service and nonprofit work, according to the report. Bhargava said she plans to use her financial experience to help better serve Greenwich residents.
Dita, the daughter of a single immigrant mother, focused her acceptance speech on ensuring the same kind of access she had to the American Dream for every Connecticut resident, while getting Hartford’s fiscal house back in order.
“I don’t believe that increasing taxes is the necessary solution to solving our fiscal issues. Instead, we need creative ways to address and fix the budgetary problems in Hartford and create a more business and family friendly environment. This will entice our businesses and families to stay and thrive and will also attract new ones to move here. And naturally, the pool of tax income will increase. After spending two decades in the financial sector, I am equipped with the right combination of quantitative and negotiating skills to be a strong and effective voice on policy making and I intend to tackle these issues immediately. Building a healthier fiscal situation will lead to better resources for all of us,” Dita said Wednesday.
Currently, Bhargava serves as a board member of The Parity Partnership, a nonprofit that she co-founded which supports gender equity. She also is a founding board member of the India Cultural Center of Greenwich, a board member of the Urban League of Southern Connecticut and an ambassador for the Clinton Foundation.
Additionally, she volunteers for numerous organizations, including the Magic Bus global childhood education organization, Inspirica Women’s shelter and the Robin Hood Foundation. Among those supporting Bhargava’s candidacy for the 151st District are Congressman Jim Himes and Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
Congressman Jim Himes applauded Dita’s decision to run. “I’ve seen Dita’s incredible work ethic and strong commitment to improving the lives of Greenwich residents” Himes said. “Running for State Rep of the 151st District is an opportunity for Dita to continue to affect positive change but now on the State level in Hartford.” Senator Richard Blumenthal also praised Dita’s decision, stating that “Dita’s tireless, passionate advocacy which I have seen firsthand will serve Greenwich residents well in Hartford.”
Money makers on both sides of the border have turned the hype into a savvy marketing tool. “Leaving the country if TRUMP is elected PRESIDENT? Give me a call and LET’S GET YOUR HOME SOLD!!” advertised one US realtor.
A millennial entrepreneur in Texas set up dating site Maple Match promising to help Americans “find the ideal Canadian partner to save them from the unfathomable horror of a Trump presidency.” The site is the brainchild of 25-year-old Joe Goldman, who always wanted to set up a dating site but used the Trump bandwagon to drive publicity.
While actual introductions and dates are a way off, Goldman says that more than 30,000 people hungry for love have already signed up. “The Donald Trump campaign for president has provided us with an opportunity to make something positive,” he told AFP. “But ultimately Maple Match itself is not political. It’s about bringing Americans and Canadians together.”
After Cape Breton Island, off the tip of Nova Scotia, offered a refuge to Trump-hating Americans earlier this year, visitors to its tourism site exploded from 65,000 last year to 600,000, says tourist chief Mary Tulle.
Canada has tightened immigration procedures for many categories of people, although it has been liberal in accepting Syrian refugees. Americans opposed to Trump hardly meet the UN definition of a refugee, Katz warned. “It is a tough argument to make that you are being politically persecuted in the US,” said Katz, president at Apex Capital Partners Corp.
Recognizing that the India-US relationship draws its strength and dynamism from shared values, the breadth and diversity of the engagement and growing links between the people of the two countries, leaders of both countries have placed promotion of closer ties between the people, private collaborations and public-private partnerships at the center of the Strategic Dialogue.
The United States and India have engaged in comprehensive regional consultations that touches on nearly every region of the world. The United States and India have a shared vision for peace, stability and prosperity in Asia, the Indian Ocean region and the Pacific region and are committed to work together, and with others in the region, for the evolution of an open, balanced and inclusive architecture.
Going along with this new direction, the Obama administration has announced that in its assessment, India has made significant progress in implementing the civil nuclear deal in the last 18 months, that it is now up to individual companies to take decisions in terms of risks and opportunities.
Indian American community had come together to campaign on US-India Nuclear deal. Numerous community organizations have played a major role in organizing town hall meetings with US lawmakers to make it happen, after the Clinton administration had placed restrictions on India after the South Asian had tested nuclear weapons in 1998.
“One of the areas we have been able to have significant breakthroughs is the civil nuclear cooperation. We have seen in the past year-and-a-half significant progress with respect to India establishing its liabilities law which are compliant with international convention on supplementary compensation,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on South Asia. India, she said, has now ratified it and is now a member of the international Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage.
“India has established an insurance pool,” she said in response to a question from Congressman Brad Sherman who wanted to have an update on the civil nuclear deal. “I think, each individual company at this point has to make its own commercial decisions in terms of risks and in terms of opportunity. I think we are starting to see companies making those decisions,” Biswal said. “It is at this point largely a commercial decision. We stand ready through the US Government, through our financing bodies to support,” the senior State Department official said. It is believed that Westinghouse Electric and Nuclear Power Co-operation India Ltd are in advance stage of talks for building six nuclear reactors in Gujarat.
Building on the progress in cooperation on counter-terrorism and related homeland security issues, the United States and India committed to implementation of a detailed action plan intended to share best practices, facilitate the exchange of operational approaches, and promote the development of concrete capacity building programs to secure our respective countries. Recognizing the growing threats and challenges in cyberspace, they welcomed the second round of Cyber Consultations held on June 4, led by their respective national security councils, during which the US and India exchanged views and best practices on a broad range of cyber issues in the interest of advancing security and the effective and timely sharing of digital evidence and information to support counter-terrorism and law enforcement.
NEW YORK: Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been given a boost by a new poll showing the presumptive Republican nominee winning November’s general election against likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
An ABC News/ Washington Post poll published on Sunday shows Trump with a two percent advantage over Clinton with registered voters in a hypothetical general election matchup. According to Langer Research, Trump’s “enhanced competitiveness reflects consolidation in his support since his primary opponents dropped out”.
While positive news for the Trump campaign, it was tarnished by the fact that such a slim advantage falls within the 3.5 point margin of error. However, this was now the fifth poll since the end of the April to put the billionaire ahead of, or tied with, Clinton.
The findings are also echoed in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll published on Sunday which shows that Clinton’s 11 percent lead over Trump has narrowed to a mere 3 percent, 46 to 43. This was in stark contrast to a potential battle between Bernie Sanders and Trump, which found the former with a 15 point margin, 54-39 percent.
The ABC/Washington Post poll also shows that 58 percent of Americans think Trump is “unqualified to be president,” while 76 percent believe he “doesn’t show enough respect for those he disagrees with.”
While Clinton supporters may find some solace in this, it won’t come as welcome news that the presumptive Democratic nominee has something in common with her Republican archrival.
When Clinton’s “unfavorable” rating is combined with Trump’s, the two, together, are the most unpopular likely candidates for a presidential election since the ABC/Post election polls began. Hillary is disliked by 53 percent of Americans, while 60 percent disapprove of The Donald. On the other hand, Bernie Sanders was found to be “unfavorable” by only 38 percent.
One aspect of the findings that may leave Democrats particularly worried is that Trump has a 13 percent advantage over Clinton among independents. This is a reversal from the March findings, which showed Clinton leading by 9 among the grouping.
In a tight race, independents could decide who is elected as 45th president of the US in November, and if Trump can hold onto this lead, the Republicans may just take back the Oval Office. The ABC News/Washington Post poll was based on a sample of 1,005 people from across the country, including 829 registered voters, all of whom were surveyed between May 16 and 19. The WSJ/NBC News poll was conducted between May 15 and 19 with a sample of 1,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
China and Pakistan are closely coordinating moves to block India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), media reports say. Beijing is using Pakistan’s non-starter position with the NSG to block India’s application in the name of parity, stating that it would either support NSG entry for both India and Pakistan, or none of them.
Talking about the China – Pakistan grand strategy to stall India’s admission into the NSG , well placed US sources who work with the NSG said that from all counts it does appear that China and Pakistan are coordinating closely to stop the Indian entry. The sources pointed to the fact that when India sought an information session with the NSG Participating Governments (PGs) at the recent NSG Consultative Group meeting on April 25 and 26, where it would have made a formal presentation to the NSG Group in support of its membership, Pakistan requested for a similar discussion slot with the NSG PGs.
Sources said that even though Pakistan was fully aware that its request would be rejected, it made its application at the cue of China, in order for Beijing to look even-handed when it sought the rejection of both requests on grounds of parity.
Providing an insight into the China-Pakistan plan to stall India, sources say that Pakistan is now going to write to all the NSG PGs about its wish to join the group. This is being done in anticipation of an application by India for NSG membership at the forthcoming plenary session of the group in June.
The Pakistani application, added sources, is “just a decoy” for China to reject both applications on grounds of parity. China knows that Pakistan does not stand a chance at the NSG, and most of the states will reject Islamabad’s application.
By taking the lead in rejecting the Pakistani application along with that of India, China would like to project its position as “neutral” when in reality it is “working in tandem with Pakistan to stall India’s application “.
US sources are disappointed with the Chinese tactics of “using Pakistan’s non credentials with the NSG to settle scores with India”. Informed sources say that this strategy is not a secret and during Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain’s visit to China in November 2015, China revealed its hand when it told President Hussain that if India is allowed to get NSG membership, China would ensure that Pakistan also joins the group. The Chinese government told President Hussain that “if India is allowed to join the NSG and Pakistan is deprived of NSG membership, Beijing will veto the move and block the Indian entry”.
Sources maintain that true to its word, China is following a plan that will enable it to use Pakistan’s non-acceptance at the NSG to block India’s acceptance. “It is both or none” is the Chinese plan to derail the Indian application, say sources. Chinese officials at the NSG level have been using the Pakistan card to stop India’s entry into it while appearing to be even handed in China’s relations with India.
Well informed sources also point to comments made by Pakistan’s former permanent representative to the United Nations Zamir Akram who virtually admitted the grand China – Pakistan plan to stall India’s entry into the NSG when, he said, that India will not make it to the NSG despite US support since China was committed to both India and Pakistan joining the NSG at the same time, and would block any move for a unilateral admission of India. He added that chances of India gaining entry into the NSG are virtually nil. The former senior Pakistani official also made it known that Islamabad has “friends at the NSG” who won’t let India enter the group.
US sources have seen through China’s game of “either both or none” in the NSG. They say that India’s non-proliferation credentials can never be compared with Pakistan’s, as Pakistan has a history of “selling Nuclear technology to rogue states like Libya”. They point to the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Dr A.Q. Khan, and his global nuclear trade.
Added to this history, is the fear in the West that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, especially the tactical version that it is now in the process of developing, can easily find their way into the hands of terrorists, as Pakistan’s nuclear command is extremely vulnerable to penetration by Islamic hardliners.
Well-placed sources say that China is aware of this situation, and is mindful of the fact that Pakistan can never be considered for membership in any global nuclear club, but that won’t stop China from using Pakistan as a “parity token to stop India which is fast emerging as China’s competitor at a global level”.
By rejecting the applications of both Pakistan and India, China is telling New Delhi and the NSG governments that it is “neutral”, when in fact it is working with Pakistan to reject India’s application in the hope that there won’t be an Indian reaction.
US sources say China’s grand plan is to “eat its cake and have it too”, that is reject the Indian application to the NSG on the pretext of “neutrality” between India and Pakistan and then hope that the “neutrality” card will stop any Indian commercial blowback on China.
Giving further insight into the plan, US sources say that China “would be naive to expect that there won’t be an Indian reaction, and especially a commercial one, as China is mindful that India is fully qualified to join the NSG, and by playing the ‘Pakistan parity card’, China is only hurting its own interests with an upcoming economic power, India.”
President Barack Obama cast Donald Trump’s positions on immigration, trade and Muslims as part of an ignorance-and-isolation philosophy that the president says will lead the U.S. down the path of decline. Obama used his commencement speech Sunday at Rutgers University to tear into the presumptive Republican nominee, without ever mentioning his name. Time and again the president invoked specific Trump policies to denounce a rejection of facts, science and intellectualism that he said was pervading politics.
“In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue,” Obama told some 12,000 graduates at the public university in New Jersey. “It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about. That’s not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That’s not challenging political correctness. That’s just not knowing what you’re talking about,” the president said. “And yet, we’ve become confused about this,” he added.
Obama’s rebuke came as Trump closes in on clinching the GOP nomination, raising the prospect that November’s election could portend a reversal of Obama’s policies and approach to governing. In recent days, Trump has started focusing on the general election while working to unite a fractured Republican Party around his candidacy. Democrats are readying for a fight against a reality TV host they never anticipated would make it this far.
Obama has mostly steered clear of the race as Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders compete into the summer for the nomination. But in speeches like this one, he has laid out themes that Democrats are certain to use as they work to deny Trump the White House. He’s urged journalists to scrutinize Trump’s vague policy prescriptions and not to emphasize what he calls “the spectacle and the circus.”
Trump has barreled his way toward the nomination by emphasizing the profound concerns of Americans who have felt left behind by the modern, global economy, summed up in his ubiquitous campaign slogan of “Make America great again.” He’s called for keeping Muslim immigrants out of the U.S., gutting Obama’s trade deals with Asia and Europe, and cracking down on immigrants in the U.S. illegally. In his speech, Obama told graduates that when they hear people wax nostalgic about the “good old days” in America, they should “take it with a grain of salt.”
“Guess what? It ain’t so,” the president said, rattling off a list of measures by which life is better in the U.S. than in decades past. Yet Obama cautioned that both Democrats and Republicans were responsible for over-magnifying the country’s problems. And he appeared to push back gently on Sanders, whose rallies are packed with young Americans cheering the candidate’s calls to uproot an economic system he says is rigged in favor of the extremely rich. “The system isn’t as rigged as you think,” Obama said.
Looking out at a sea of red and black gowns at High Point Solution Stadium, Obama said the pace of change on the planet is accelerating, not subsiding. He said recent history had proved that the toughest challenges cannot be solved in isolation.
“A wall won’t stop that,” Obama said, bringing to mind Trump’s call for building a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. “The point is, to help ourselves, we’ve got to help others — not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who ran against Trump for the GOP nomination and has since become one of his most vocal surrogates, didn’t attend the president’s speech at Rutgers. Instead, he spent the day at nearby Princeton University for his son’s baseball game — the Ivy League championship.
The president, who returned to Washington after his speech, will deliver a final commencement address on June 1 at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Earlier in May, Obama echoed similar themes about progress in the U.S. when he spoke at historically black Howard University in Washington.
A debate on the policy brief by ARCHumanKind, “The Pink Triangle Threat; Nuclear Proliferation: an assessment”, was sponsored in the US Congress, Washington DC on May 11, 2016, by US Congressman Duncan Hunter Jr.
Internationally renowned American foreign affairs scholar, Walid Phares, and Director of ARCHumanKind, Paulo Casaca animated the debate. Congressman Trent Franks, representing Arizona since 2002, also attended. He has been especially active in the fight against nuclear proliferation, and is one of the most experienced politicians in this field. Several high-level experts and journalists also attended the debate.
During the conference, it was highlighted that Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear weapons program in the world, and of particular concern was its recent announcement of the development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons along its border with India. Whereas Pakistan has, in the past, been the primary source of international nuclear proliferation, and gives no guarantee of control on its nuclear weapons, a lighter, more diversified and widespread nuclear device capability, implied by its recent tactical nuclear weapons announcement, significantly increases the risks of a major nuclear catastrophe.
The contemporary nuclear proliferation wave centered in Pakistan was developed through the so called ‘Khan network’ – a mix state, non-state and fanatic corporate multinational that traded clandestine nuclear weapons technology across the world with the help of the Pakistani Army, that allowed both Libya and North Korea to develop their nuclear weapons program.
Speakers present considered nuclear terror proliferation as the most important threat impacting upon humanity today, and argued that this threat has considerably increased following the acceptance, by the major world powers, of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, and the chilling message this has sent to the international community.
Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump has used fake Indian accent to mock a call center representative in India during an election rally last week. The real estate tycoon said that he called up his credit card company to find out whether their customer support is based in the US or overseas.
“Guess what, you’re talking to a person from India. How the hell does that work?” he told his supporters in Delaware. “So I called up, under the guise I’m checking on my card, I said, ‘Where are you from?’” Trump said and then he copied the response from the call center in a fake Indian accent. “We are from India,” Trump impersonated the response. “Oh great, that’s wonderful,” he said as he pretended to hang up the phone. “India is great place. I am not upset with other leaders. I am upset with our leaders for being so stupid,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has slammed the remarks by Trump saying it shows disrespect towards the community and is reflective of his divisive rhetoric. “Donald Trump mocking Indian workers is just typical of his disrespect that he has shown to groups across the spectrum,” said John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton Campaign.
“He has run a campaign of bigotry and division. I think that’s quite dangerous for the country when you think about the fact that you need friends, allies. The kind of campaign he is running breeds disrespect across the globe and breeds division and danger here at home,” he told reporters in Germantown, Maryland after formally launching ‘Indian- Americans for Hillary’, an effort by the community to rally behind the Democratic presidential front runner. Podesta was reacting to Trump’s apparent use of a fake Indian accent to mock a call centre representative in India during a campaign rally in Delaware this week.
Meanwhile, an Indian-American entrepreneur also hit out at Trump, calling his comments “demeaning”. “When Donald Trump fakes the accent of an Indian at the help desk, it is demeaning and demonising to me personally,” said Frank Islam, a top Indian-American bundler in the Clinton campaign who has helped raised more than USD 100,000 for her
Washington, DC: Indian-American star Kal Penn, best known for his roles in Harold & Kumar and The Namesake, says most Americans don’t agree with controversial presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s racist views.
“I seriously believe that most of the Americans don’t agree with Donald Trump over his racist, anti-women, anti-LGBT practices. We are not that country. Hopefully elections will prove that,” Penn, who was associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement from 2009 to 2011, said at the “Cultural Connections in US-India Relations” at the American Center here.
Indian American Neera Tanden led the Hillary Clinton campaign in slamming the economic policies of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential presumptive nominee, and alleging that this poses a threat to the economic future of women and families. “Make no mistake: Trump’s divisive comments about women’s health are a direct threat to our dignity and economic security,” said Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “Trump is now trying to cover up the bald spots in his economic plan but women can see for themselves and women can see through his comb over,” said Tanden, who was joined by Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, expected to be pitted against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in November, has been opposed by peoples and critics, and often been tagged “anti-immigrant”, “misogynist”, “racist” and “worse”. During the event, Penn’s 2007 film “The Namesake”, which also stars Bollywood actors Irrfan Khan and Tabu, was screened.
Sharing his experience about campaigning for Obama, Penn said that it would not “weird” for him to shift from acting to politics. “For me it was an honor to get a chance to serve for your country,” said Penn, whose real name is Kalpen Suresh Modi, and is best known for his role of Kumar Patel in the popular “Harold & Kumar” film franchise. He has also appeared on TV shows like “House”, “How I Met Your Mother” and “The Big Brain Theory”.
Kal Penn, who served in the Barack Obama administration, was in India for the shooting of Guneet Monga’s upcoming project “The Ashram”. With Ben Rekhi as the director, the film is an English-language spiritual fantasy thriller set in the mystical world of Himalayan yogis.
“The Ashram” also features Melissa Leo, Sam Keeley, Hera Hilmar and Radhika Apte. Talking about Indian cinema, Penn said he is more inclined towards watching off-beat films, that too of Amitabh Bachchan and Irrfan Khan. He also said that loved watching 2013 film “Mere Dad Ki Maruti”.
According to Tanden, the trillions in tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and corporations laid out in Trump’s tax plan would be an enormous boon for the top one percent of earners, made at the expense of working families, seniors and the health of the economy. Trump’s plan would give $3 trillion over 10 years or more than 35 percent of its tax breaks to millionaires, enough money to ensure Medicare and Social Security’s solvency for the next 75 years, repair the ailing infrastructure, or raise every person now living in poverty up to the poverty line. Trump would give multi-millionaires in the top 0.1 percent like himself a raise of $1.3 million a year, or $100,000 a month.
Tanden said Trump still opposes raising the minimum wage because he believes “wages are too high,” and recently said he doesn’t favor a federal floor for the minimum wage, which could leave many workers subject to a lower minimum wage.
Tanden alleged Trump’s ideas are not the only risk his presidency would pose for the economic future of women and families around this country. “His tax plan gives $3 trillion to millionaires, that’s enough to make Social Security and Medicare solvent for 75 years. Women, who rely disproportionately on Social Security, can’t afford such an irresponsible giveaway.”
Washington, DC: Congressman Ami Bera’s father, 83-year-old Babulal Bera, is reported to have admitted in court on Tuesday, May 10th that he violated campaign finance laws after he was charged with making excessive contributions to his son’s Congressional campaign and often did so in the name of other people. Babulal Bera is reported to be facing a 30-month prison term after pleading guilty to two counts of violating campaign finance laws by funneling contributions to his son’s congressional campaign via straw donors.
The only Indian American Congressman Ami Bera, a physician by profession, is seeking his third congressional term to retain California’s CD 7 seat. Rep. Bera is facing a tough race against Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, a Republican. Bera said via a press statement issued that he knew nothing of his father’s activities. “I am incredibly saddened and disappointed in learning what my dad did. While I deeply love my father, it’s clear he has made a grave mistake that will have real consequences for him,” said Bera.
“Since I learned from authorities about this investigation, my team and I have cooperated fully with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Neither I, nor anyone involved with my campaign, was aware of my father’s activities until we learned about them from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and, on the advice of my attorney, I have not discussed this matter or anything else regarding my campaigns with my father,” said the congressman, adding that he has returned the full dollar amount to the U.S. Treasury.
According to charging documents made public via Pacer, Babulal Bera — after donating the maximum amount allowed by law, $2,400, to his son’s first bid for office in 2009 — began soliciting friends and family members to contribute equal amounts, with the promise that he would reimburse them for their donations with his own money. Court papers state that prosecutors have identified 130 improper campaign contributions from 90 donors, in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, attributable to Babulal Bera.
The contributions were made in the 2009 and 2011 election cycles. In 2009, the elder Bera reimbursed people for more than $225,000 in donations. During the 2011 elections, Bera’s parents donated more than $40,000, court documents show, media reports stated. The fraud was determined from the campaign’s Federal Election Commission quarterly report filings.
The National Republican Congressional Committee immediately called upon Bera to “return dirty campaign cash.” “As new reports reveal that illegal donations helped finance his campaigns, Ami Bera needs to immediately return the hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal campaign contributions he has accepted,” said NRCC spokesman Zach Hunter. “It defies belief that Rep. Bera was unaware of these activities, and 7th District voters deserve to know the truth,” he added.
At a news conference on May 10, acting U.S. Atty. Phillip A. Talbert said: “Congressman Bera and his campaign staff have been fully cooperative in this investigation. To date, there is no indication from what we’ve learned in the investigation that either the congressman or his campaign staff knew of, or participated in, the reimbursements of contributions.”
The case may be a political setback for Rep. Bera, who has won his two elections with slim margins in what have been billed as one of the most expensive Congressional campaigns in the country. Political analyst Kevin Raggs, speaking to Local TV channel KCRA 3, said stakes are higher this time round for the Democrats because getting a House majority could be in play. “So what happens with Bera’s seat really does have potential national implications,” Raggs contended. As per reports, Babulal Bera signed a plea agreement on May 2, pleading guilty to one count of making excessive campaign contributions and one count of making campaign contributions in another person’s name. Both charges carry maximum penalties each of up to five years in prison or a fine of $250,000 for each count, or both fine and imprisonment. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 4.
According to the plea agreement, prosecutors have agreed not to seek a prison sentence of more than 30 months. They have also agreed not to bring charges against Babulal Bera’s wife, Kanta Bera. Babulal “Bob” Bera — a native of Gujarat — immigrated to California in 1958 to earn a master’s degree from the University of Southern California. Two years later, Kanta joined him, and attended USC to earn her graduate degree. She then worked as a public school teacher. Babulal Bera, is said to told the judge, when asked whether he had broken the law, “I have indeed done the crime.
Donald Trump , the presumptive Republican nominee seems have admirers in India. According to reports, nearly a dozen members of a right-wing Hindu group gathered on New Delhi’s “protest lane” last week to pray for Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election.
According to the Associated Press, the group chanted in Sanskrit and made offerings around a small ritual fire and before a picture of the billionaire politician adorned with a red Hindu mark on the forehead. Trump’s call for temporarily banning Muslims from the United States “until we can figure out what’s going on” apparently a positive chord with some in India’s Hindu nationalist movement, the report said.
“The whole world is screaming against Islamic terrorism, and even India is not safe from it,” said Vishnu Gupta, founder of the Hindu Sena nationalist group. “Only Donald Trump can save humanity.” A separate movement of “Hindus for Trump” has also been gaining speed on Twitter and Facebook in recent days.
In months on the campaign trail, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has made several statements about India both positive and negative. He described the country as a necessary check to nuclear-armed Pakistan but also mentioned India of being among several countries he believes are stealing jobs from the United States
“We’re being ripped off with China, ripped off with Japan, ripped off with Mexico at the border and then trade, ripped off by Vietnam, and by India, and by every country,” Trump said at a rally in February. In a speech in Delaware last month, he mimicked the accent of an Indian call center worker in a speech about the trade imbalance and the job market, later adding — “India is a great place.”
The recent guilt plea by Congressman Ami Bera’s father, 83-year-old Babulal Bera, that he had violated campaign finance laws by making excessive contributions to his son’s Congressional campaign and now facing a 30-month prison term after pleading guilty to two counts of violating campaign finance laws has brought to the fore the discussions about the power of money in the election process in the greatest democracy in the world. While, no one can condone the so-called illegal ways of contributing money to his son’s tough election battle in the state California, Babulal Bera’s action is so insignificant to the way the rich are influencing the elections and their outcomes across the nation.
In this context, the US Supreme Court ruling in 2013, with the then conservative majority by a 5-4 margin affirming their earlier decision disallowing any limit on corporate election spending, is very significant. Everyone knows the impact of the court’s ruling that has ushered in an era of unprecedented money power that is unleashed on the citizens of this country, influencing their beliefs and voting patterns.
The Supreme Court ruling not only allows individuals and corporations to contribute unlimited money to their respective political parties and candidates, but also they could remain anonymous from disclosing their names and the amount to the public. In the name of the First Amendment, corporations and individuals pour in millions of Dollars into campaigns. The irony is that these biggest donations are given to tax-free advocacy groups of political parties and campaigns in defiance even of the admonition in Citizens United that independent contributions should be disclosed. Congress can — and should — require disclosure of secret donations. The Internal Revenue Service should crack down on political organizations that pose as tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations to avoid current disclosure rules.
The net result of this ruling and its national implications are that rich people are going to buy our elections. Estimates say, the money raised during the 2012 cycle of elections has exceeded an unprecedented three Billion Dollars. If President Obama had vowed to raise a Billion Dollars, his opponent, Mitt Romney raised more money than the President every month since he secured his Party’s nomination.
The 2016 election cycle is going to break all the past records. More than six months before the General Elections, according to a Washington Post report, of the $461.7 million donated so far to support Democratic candidates, 17 percent has been raised by super PACs and other independent groups. The presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton raised $191 million and allied super PACs and other independent groups raised$72.9 million. The presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders raised $184.3 million and allied super PACs and other independent groups raised$4.4 million. Republican Party is not behind in any away. Of the $765.6 million donated so far to support Republican candidates, 55 percent has been raised by super PACs and other independent groups.
This is a blow to democratic governance. It means that the political process in this country is going to be up for sale. It allows billionaires to buy the political process. Businesses all over the place want to do away with regulation on business practices. The banks and finance companies are for deregulation. They don’t want government regulation. The corporations that do not want government regulators to monitor their shady deals could pour in millions of Dollars to elect a President or a Member to the Congress or a Senator of their choice and who would favor their unregulated plundering and mismanagement of wealth and ways to generate profits. This is also true with the elected Judiciary members, where there are cases where corporations have poured millions into an election to oust or have a Judge favorable to deregulation elected to the Courts.
It was of some relief to note Justice Stephen Breyer sharing his unwillingness to accept the majority’s belief, expressed in Citizens United, that independent expenditures do not give rise to corruption or even give the appearance of corruption. He also pointed out that the majority conservative Justices had made it plain that they did not have the slightest interest in reconsidering or altering its (unjust) decision.
Democracy is of the people, by the people and for the people, where a majority decide the type of government and leaders they want to rule over the country. However, when money decides who the winner is and the ruling party is going to be, it is not true democracy. A small minority with its money power is able to buy votes, influence elected officials and ultimately has a greater say in policy making. The more the money the rich spend, the more chance they have, they think, of getting their way and of getting policies that are more to their liking. Billionaires come in and spend tens of millions of dollars to defeat a candidate they don’t like or to support a candidate they do like.
The First Amendment is about freedom of speech. It’s not about freedom to spend unlimited amounts of money in an election to buy votes and influence elections and policies. There’s a difference between speaking freely and the sort of influence-peddling that campaign finance reform laws attempt to protect. And in allowing unlimited political spending, this court has opened the door to corruption and to special interest domination of politics. David Axelrod, President Obama’s political strategist, recently invoked a common perception about the 2012 campaign by blaming the Supreme Court for empowering 21st-century “robber barons trying to take over the government.” And that’s not democracy.
New York, NY: “Punjab is undergoing difficult times at the present, and these difficulties can only be resolved and Punjab’s progress put back on track when Congress government comes back to power,” said Captian Amarinder Singh, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President and former Chief Minister of Punjab, while addressing a rally in New York on Saturday May 7, 2016. Stating that the conditions in Punjab are very bad, Capt. Amarinder Sigh said, Sikh leaders themselves are causing harm as some of them will go to any extent for the sake of titles.
He listened to personal issues and general complaints of the nearly 2,000 people in attendance at the rally. He declared that the properties of NRI Punjabis that have been illegally occupied or confiscated will be freed and given back to the rightful owners. Once the Conmgress government is established, new rules and procedures will be put in place to resolve NRI problems. He said he was fully familiar with the problems of the NRIs and has great sympathies for them.
He warned that one has to be cautious of 3 things: White liquor, White Fly and White Topi. He was critical of both the AAP government in Delhi and the Badal government in Punjab. He lamented that Badal family had ruined Punjab with corruption. In addition, talking about Punjab, he said, inattention to agriculture, joblessness and drug addiction by youth were among the major problems which required careful and urgent social and governmental intervention. He said Punjab was in a dire need for a creative and far-sighted Government and the Congress will be able to deliver that. The backbone of Punjab, the farmer, is in dire shape as their situation is deteriorating and farmers are being forced to commit suicide in alarming numbers.
Capt. Amarinder Singh was on his last leg of his journey in the United States and was addressing a large crowd at the Hilton Hotel in Melville, New York organized under the aegis of the Indian National Overseas Congress, USA headed by President Mohinder Singh Gilzian.
Hon. Sangat Singh Gilzian, MLA from Tanda who, among others, accompanied Capt. Amarinder Singh from Punjab also gave a brief narrative of the deplorable conditions in Punjab and said that Punjab now needed a great leader like Capt. Amarinder Singh to save it from drowning. Hon. Sukh Sarkaria, MLA, Hon. Kewal Dhillon, MLA and Dr. Surinder Malhotra also spoke on the occasion.
Mohinder Singh Gilzian, President of the Indian National Overseas Congress, USA, thanked the audience for coming and participating in the discussions and said that this event brought historic crowd together in New York. Gurmit Singh Gill said that he would take thousands of Punjabi NRIs from USA to Punjab for the 2017 elections. Amongst those who played an active role in organizing the event and making it a grand success included Karamjit Singh Dhaliwal, President Malwa Brothers Association and Vice-President of INOC, USA, Tejinder Gill and Jasvir Singh Nawanshahr.
According to a press release issued here, George Abraham, Chairman, Mohinder Singh Gilzian, President, and Harbachan Singh, Secretary-General, together with several senior officers of INOC, USA met with Capt. Amarinder Singh before the event, where they discussed some of the important issues and strategies pertaining to the work of the INOC, USA and its resolve to assist in the furtherance of the goal of Capt. Amrinder Singh in his campaign processes. Captain Amarinder Singh expressed deep appreciation for the hard work the group was doing especially in bringing the community together and encouraged Mohinder Singh Gilzian to continue with his good work.
Washington, DC: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the annual gala of US-India Business Council on June 7th during his next official visit here, the advocacy group announced here last week. In addition to addressing to the USIBC before who’s who of American corporate sector, he is expected to participate in a roundtable with leading global CEOs, USIBC said.
“It’s a privilege for USIBC to welcome Prime Minister Modi on his fourth visit to the US, particularly in light of the advancement of our countries’ relationship over the past two years,” USIBC president Mukesh Aghi said. “India became the top global FDI destination in 2015 – attracting USD 63 billion – fuelled by Modi’s ability to attract foreign investors and to build a globally competitive environment in India,” Aghi said.
During the annual gala, USIBC will present its Global Leadership Award to the Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, and founder and MD of Sun Pharmaceuticals Dilip Shanghvi.
“Jeff and Dilip are two leaders that are shaping the US-India trade ties with their incredible business acumen and have made a lasting impression in integrating India into the global economy,” Aghi said. “We couldn’t think of more qualified icons that are emblematic of the immense potential of our trade relationship. We are honored to be presenting the 2016 Global Leadership Award to them,” he said.
The bilateral relationship has matured significantly over the past a few years, and extends beyond the leadership of the two countries, he said in a statement. Though there has been no official confirmation of Modi’s visit either from the Prime Minister’s Office or the White House, he is expected to visit the US at the invitation of President Barack Obama, who is likely to host him for a State dinner. US House of Representative Speaker Paul Ryan has already invited him to address a joint meeting of the Congress on June 8.
Rina Shah Bharara, an Indian American Republican convention delegate, who had said she might prefer Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump has been stripped of her slot. Bharara, 32, was one of 19 people elected at the D.C. party convention in March to serve as delegate to the national GOP convention. She ran as a Marco Rubio delegate and was the second-leading vote-getter.
Republican Party officials also said, Bharara had lied about her residency. According to reports, an investigation determined Bharara is a Virginia resident and therefore ineligible to be a D.C. delegate, said Patrick Mara, executive director of the District of Columbia’s GOP.
Bharara is reported to have acknowledged that she has homes in northern Virginia and the District and that she splits her time between the two, but said her District residency is legitimate. She said the residency issue is a pretext for removal by party officials upset she said she might prefer Clinton over Trump. “This is all because they’re trying to appease people from other states in response to my anti-Trump comments,” she is said to have told the media.
In an interview with The Associated Press Bharara was quoted to have said that she would vote for Clinton over Trump. “I think Hillary would be better for our country,” she said then. “I personally think she is safer than this renegade crazy person.”
Washington, DC: Even as both the leading political parties in the United States are wooing the influential Asian American community and seeking to win their trust and votes, Democratic Party’s leading presidential contender, Hillary Clinton has promised to appoint more members of the Asian community in her administration, is she were to win the White House in the upcoming Presidential elections to be held on November 8th this year. “I want to let you know that I will make sure that you are well represented in my administration if I am fortunate enough to be your president,” Clinton said, according to news reports.
In a video snippet of her speech on the Web, the presidential hopeful urged the enthusiastic audience which shouted her name repeatedly, that they needed to join her campaign, adding, “I want you to be involved not just in my campaign, but more importantly, really governing our country in a way that keeps alive the promise of America,”
Indian Americans have been nominated to several key position under the current Obama administration as never been before. Urging them to be more politically active, President Obama praised the Asian community in his keynote address, and took credit for hiring more Asian-Americans than any past administration. “You’re part of the lifeblood of this nation. You are our teachers and our faith leaders, our doctors, our caretakers, our artists, our shopkeepers, our police officers and firefighters,” Obama said. “You are our soldiers and our sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardsmen, defending our freedom every day. And, increasingly, you are a powerful, visible force in American political life.”
According to Sekhar Narasimhan, founder of the super-PAC AAPI Victory Fund, the takeaway for him from the President’s message was that Asian Americans needed to get moving, get to the polling booths, to make a difference. “Only 56 percent of Asian-Americans are registered to vote, and Indian-Americans probably even less,” said Narasimhan who is also co-chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Indo-American Council. “Indian-Americans are very apathetic, even in the simple act of voting. Our data shows that in the 6 swing states, Nevada, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, we are the margin of victory.”
Comedian and author Aziz Ansari was presented with the Vision Award at the gala, along with actor Alan Yang who was the co-star in his latest feature documentary “Master of None. “We need more minority creators,” Ansari said in his acceptance speech, NBC News reported. “Don’t wait for white people to open the door for you,” he added.
The event was emceed by two Indian-Americans, actor Parvesh Cheena and economist and entrepreneur Sonal Shah. Cheena best known for his role on NBC’s sitcom Outsourced and as the voice of the Transformer Blades on Discovery Family Channel’s “Transformers: Rescue Bots.” Shah is currently executive director of the Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation and previously was the director of the White House office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. The 22nd annual gala was attended by more than 1,000 guests including members of Congress, among them Rep. Ami Bera, D-California, political activists, community leaders, and celebrities as well as White House Champions of Change.
Washington, DC: Donald J. Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee on Tuesday, May 1st, with a landslide win in Indiana that drove his principal opponents, Senator Ted Cruz and Governor John Kasich of Ohio from the race and cleared the way for the polarizing, populist outsider to take control of the party.
After months of sneering dismissals and expensive but impotent attacks from Republicans fearful of his candidacy, Trump is now positioned to clinch the required number of delegates for the nomination by the last day of voting on June 7.
In the Democratic contest, Senator Bernie Sanders rebounded from a string of defeats to prevail in Indiana over Hillary Clinton, who largely abandoned the state after polls showed her faring poorly with the predominantly white electorate. But the outcome was not expected to significantly change Clinton’s sizable lead in delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.
According to analysts, Trump’s victory was an extraordinary moment in American political history: He is now on course to be the first standard-bearer of a party since Dwight D. Eisenhower, a five-star general and the commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, who had not served in elected office.
Trump, a real estate tycoon turned reality television celebrity, was not a registered Republican until April 2012. He has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats, including his likely general election opponent, Mrs. Clinton. And, at various points in his life, he has held positions antithetical to Republican orthodoxy on almost every major issue in the conservative canon, including abortion, taxes, trade, and gun control. But none of this stopped him.
While some called for unity, many Republican leaders refrained from falling in line behind Trump, with dozens avoiding inquiries about where they stood or saying they wanted Trump to detail his policies or tone down his language first.
Harmeet Dhillon has become the first ever woman of Indian Origin to be a member of the powerful Republican National Committee. With election to the nation office during the California state GOP convention, Dhillon is expected to be charged with representing the California Republican Party during July’s national convention.
The election to the national committee is another milestone to Dhillon, after she had become the first woman to be elected as the party’s vice chair, where she is currently serving in her third year. Her campaign for committeewoman was unopposed, she did receive the endorsement of nearly every major member of the party within the state. Dhillon, who was born in Chandigarh, and is a Sikh, got elected at the California Republican Party convention.
“I don’t particularly like the way that our debates have been structured,” Dhillon said. “I don’t particularly like the timing and the sequence of the primaries in some states, and I think that we need some changes there.”
According to her, “Donald Trump, seems to be very popular amongst Indian-American first-generation immigrants. I think when a lot of them came to this country they wanted to become millionaires and they wanted to be real estate barons and (they see him and think) ‘look, that guy did it,’ so there’s a lot of admiration for his business acumen and his success story.”
A nationally recognized trial lawyer, Dhillon, 47, was born in India, but raised in rural North Carolina after her Sikh parents moved to the US. “For the next four years starting in late July, I will help shape the policies of the party of Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman, the party of liberty and opportunity,” Dhillon said in a statement, after the election. Based in San Francisco, Dhillon among other things also sat on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union, and once made a financial contribution to Kamala Harris’ campaign for local office.
Following her clerkship with Paul V Niemeyer of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Dhillon’s practice in New York, London, and the San Francisco Bay Area has focused on federal and state commercial litigation and arbitration, with a particular emphasis on unfair competition/trade secret misappropriation, intellectual property (including trademark litigation and internet torts), complex contractual disputes, and First Amendment litigation.
“I could not have done this without the support of a huge number of friends old and new and my family, who have brought me to where I am today. Thank you to my parents Parminder Kaur Dhillon and Tejpal Singh Dhillon for instilling conservative values in me. I am truly honored,” she said.
This year’s Democratic presidential primary contest has been surprisingly competitive, and it’s not over yet. As the race enters its final weeks, Bernie Sanders and his supporters are stepping up their efforts to pry loose some of the “superdelegates” who are backing rival Hillary Clinton. Which made us wonder: Just who are these 700-plus party officeholders and insiders who automatically get delegate spots at July’s convention and can vote for whomever they want?
In short, they’re the embodiment of the institutional Democratic Party – everyone from former presidents, congressional leaders and big-money fundraisers to mayors, labor leaders and longtime local party functionaries. Nearly six-in-ten are men, close to two-thirds are white, and their average age (as best we could tell) is around 60.
Superdelegates (not an official designation, by the way; their formal name is “unpledged party leaders and elected officials”) will account for just under 15% of all delegate votes at July’s Democratic National Convention. We worked from a list made public by the national Democratic Party (originally to Vox), and updated and corrected it to account for deaths, resignations and, in at least one case, criminal conviction. We came up with a total of 713 named superdelegates (a handful of slots are still vacant), then used a mix of official biographies, news reports, social-media postings and other sources to determine each superdelegate’s gender, race/ethnicity and, in most cases, age.
Not just anyone gets to be a superdelegate. Under party rules, all sitting Democratic governors (21, including the mayor of Washington, D.C.), senators (47) and representatives (193) automatically get their convention tickets punched. So do 20 “distinguished party leaders” – current and former presidents and vice presidents, retired House and Senate Democratic leaders, and all past chairs of the Democratic National Committee, the party’s governing body.
But most superdelegates gain that status because they’re DNC officers or members. That includes the chairs and vice chairs of each state and territorial Democratic Party; 212 national committeemen and committeewomen elected to represent their states; top officials of the DNC itself and several of its auxiliary groups (such as the Democratic Attorneys General Association, the National Federation of Democratic Women and the Young Democrats of America); and 75 at-large members who are nominated by the party chairman and chosen by the full DNC. (Most of those at-large members are local party leaders, officeholders and donors or representatives of important Democratic constituencies, such as organized labor.)
Overall, the superdelegates skew male (58%) and non-Hispanic white (62%). Blacks account for about a fifth of the superdelegates, and Hispanics about 11%. (We could not determine the race and ethnicity of 13 superdelegates.)
The party’s official policy of encouraging gender equity and racial/ethnic diversity is most reflected among the superdelegates coming from the DNC itself: The male-female split is nearly equal (220-212), and non-Hispanic whites make up less than 60% of the total. The House members are similarly diverse on racial and ethnic lines, but two-thirds are men. Two-thirds of the senators and governors are white men, as are all but two of the distinguished party leaders.
Part of the “super” in superdelegates is that they’re not bound to support any particular candidate, and are free to shift their allegiance – or refrain from committing to anyone – right up to the convention’s roll-call vote on the nomination. While many Sanders supporters say the entire superdelegate system is undemocratic, the Sanders campaign wants to turn their flexibility in his favor, arguing that Sanders’ recent primary victories (most recently in Indiana) are reasons superdelegates should back the senator rather than Clinton.
But based on their public endorsements to date, that looks to be a heavy lift. According to our count, 500 superdelegates are backing Clinton against just 42 for Sanders; that translates into 498 and 41 convention votes, respectively, because the superdelegates representing overseas Democrats have a half-vote each. (Fair warning: Any such counts are inherently imprecise – the Associated Press, for instance, has similar but slightly different numbers.) More than 85% of Democratic governors, senators and representatives are supporting Clinton, as are 61% of superdelegates from the DNC.
Thirty-two of Sanders’ superdelegate supporters, or 76%, are white, versus 62% of Clinton’s superdelegates. About 41% of her superdelegates are women, versus 26% of Sanders’.
Although we could find age information for only 547 superdelegates, what we do have suggests that Sanders’ superdelegates are a bit younger, on average, than Clinton’s: The average age of superdelegates backing Sanders was 58.9, versus 60.8 for Clinton’s supporters; their median ages were 60.8 and 61.9, respectively.
Washington, DC: April 28, 2016: Narendra Modi has achieved yet another milestone during his tenure as the Prime Minister of India. Modi has been invited to address a joint meeting of the US Congress on June 8 during his visit here, Speaker of the US House of Representative Paul Ryan said on Thursday, April 28, 2016.
“The friendship between the United States and India is a pillar of stability in an important region of the world,” Ryan told reporters during his weekly press conference. “This address presents a special opportunity to hear from the elected leader of the world’s most populous democracy on how our two nations can work together to promote our shared values and to increase prosperity. We look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Modi to the US Capitol on June 8,” he said. Modi was invited by President Barack Obama for a bilateral visit when he was in Washington, DC for the nuclear summit.
India has not announced the PM’s visit yet, but Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar is in Washington to finalize the agenda of the visit that is reportedly at the behest of U.S. President Barack Obama. If Modi accepts the invitation and addresses the Congress, he will be the fifth leader of India to have the honor to address the joint session of the US Congress. Earlier, Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh (July 19, 2005), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (September 14, 2000), P V Narasimha Rao (May 18, 1994) and Rajiv Gandhi (July 13, 1985) addressed the joint meeting of the US Congress.
The tradition of foreign leaders and dignitaries addressing Congress began with the Marquis de Lafayette of France, who spoke in the House chamber on December 10, 1824. Ronak D Desai, a Fellow at New America and an Affiliate at the Belfer Center’s India and South Asia Program at Harvard University, has been quoted to have said, “an invitation to Prime Minister Modi to address a Joint Meeting of Congress is significant, given past US policy towards Modi during his time as Chief Minister of Gujarat.”
In a bipartisan initiative, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, the Ranking Democratic member Eliot Engel and Representatives George Holding, and Dr. Amerish ‘Ami’ Bera had written to the speaker on April 20, requesting him to invite Modi to address Congress.
Top U.S. House of Representatives from the Foreign Affairs Committee had called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address a joint meeting of Congress during a visit to Washington in June this year. Invitations to address the Senate and House are considered a great honor. There have been only two in the past year: Pope Francis, on September 24, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on April 29, 2015.
The invitation would be a sharp turnaround for a leader who was once barred from the United States over massacres of Muslims. In 2002, when Modi had just become Gujarat’s chief minister, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in sectarian riots in the state. The administration of President George W. Bush denied Modi a visa in 2005 under a 1998 U.S. law barring entry to foreigners who have committed “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
“Given the depth of our relationship with India across a range of areas – defence, humanitarian and disaster relief, space cooperation, conservation and innovation – we believe this is an ideal opportunity for the Congress to hear directly from the prime minister,” Representatives Ed Royce, the Republican committee chairman, and Eliot Engel, the panel’s ranking Democrat, wrote to House Speaker Paul Ryan. The letter to Ryan was also signed by Republican Representative George Holding and Democrat Ami Bera, the co-chairmen of the Congress Caucus on India and Indian Americans. A spokeswoman for Ryan said she had no announcement at this time about whether Ryan would extend the invitation.
Modi’s visit is likely to be the last official meeting between the two leaders during President Obama’s final year in office.
Geeta Pasi, a career foreign service diplomat, has been nominated by President Barack Obama, as the next US ambassador to Chad. The Indian-American Pasi, who served as US Ambassador to Djibouti from 2011 to 2014, is a career member of the Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counsellor. She is at present the Director of the Office of Career Development and Assignments in the Bureau of Human Resources at the Department of State.
Pasi’s nomination as the next US envoy to the central African nation of Chad came along with several other appointments to a key administration post, from the State Department. “I am pleased to announce that these experienced and committed individuals have decided to serve our country. I look forward to working with them,” Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.
Pasi was also the Director of the Office of East African Affairs in the Bureau of African Affairs from 2009 to 2011, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Dhaka, from 2006 to 2009, and Deputy Principal Officer at the US Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany from 2003 to 2006.
Since joining the Foreign Service in 1988, Pasi has also served at posts in Cameroon, Ghana, India, and Romania. Pasi received her BA from Duke University and an MA in French Studies from New York University.
Chad, home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups, with Arabic and French as the official languages, and having Islam and Christianity as the most widely practiced religions, is a landlocked country in northern Central Africa. Since 2003, the Darfur crisis in Sudan has spilt over the border and destabilized the nation, with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in and around camps in eastern Chad.
Washington, DC: Kumar Barve, the lonest serving Indian American in the state legislature of Maryland, lost his bid for the Democratic Party nomination for his Congressional race from District 8 in the state of Maryland in the April 26 primary election, accruing only two percent of the total votes.
Nine Democratic candidates vied for Maryland’s 8th Congressional District seat, which was left open by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who is running for the U.S. Senate. Maryland state Senator Jamie Raskin won the Democratic primary with 33 percent of the vote, and will face off against Republican attorney Dan Cox in the Nov. 8 general election. “I ran the best race I could run under the circumstances,” Barve was reported to have told the media. He noted that the race was one of the most expensive in the country, with fellow Democrat David Trone – who came in second – pouring more than $12 million of his own money. Raskin raised almost $2 million, while news anchor Kathleen Matthews, who came in third, raised $2.5 million. Barve had raised more than $600,000.
Barve, who had received a significant endorsement from UNITE-HERE, an international labor union representing 275,000 hospitality workers around the country, among many others, shocking defeat in the primaries held in the state.
During his campaign, Barve, 58, who was born in Schenectady, N.Y., and lived for many decades in Maryland, had stressed his Indian heritage and the example set by his grandfather. “The government tried to strip my grandfather of his citizenship because he wasn’t white, but my grandfather stood strong and fought to defend his rights all the way to the Supreme Court,” Barve says on his website. “His story inspired my journey into public life and I follow in his footsteps and stand up for those who need a voice.”
Barve, 58, is the first Indian-American to be elected to a State Assembly in the history of this country back in 1990. He is credited with authoring several key bills that became law in the heavily Democratic state. He has led his Montgomery County delegation. He served as Majority Leader from 2002 to 2015, and is currently chairman of the House Environment and Transportation Committee.
Former chairman of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee George Leventhal, indicated that the seasoned Indian-American legislator’s defeat was a gain for the Assembly. “Montgomery County is fortunate to have both Ana Sol Gutierrez and Kumar Barve serving us so well in the Maryland General Assembly. Although both fell short in their congressional campaigns, they will return to Annapolis with their reputations enhanced and their understanding of our constituents’ needs deepened. I have great respect for both of them,” Leventhal posted on his Facebook page after the primary. Another constituent, Alan Banov commented, “Kumar Barve and Ana Sol Gutierrez were much better qualified than the “money” candidates! they had paid their dues and knew how to legislate.”
Barve said, he will support Raskin in the general election, as well as Van Hollen, and the Democratic presidential nominee. Raskin is virtually certain to win, said Barve, noting that two-thirds of voters in the 8th district are registered as Democrats.
Barve said he did the best he could under the circumstances. He lamented that he was able to secure only 2 percent of the votes despite having some 4,000 Indian-Americans in the state. “Only 300 were registered to vote in a Democratic primary,” Kumar said about his Indian-American constituents.
Barve urged Indian Americans to register to vote in the primaries and state their party preference, noting that primary elections largely determine the fall general election. A large number of Indian Americans are registered as independents, which does not allow them to vote in certain states during the primary elections.
Raleigh, NC: Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina has officially appointed Jay Chaudhuri to finish the term of Democratic Sen. Josh Stein of Raleigh, who resigned last month because he’s running for attorney general. Wake County Democrats last week picked Chaudhuri who won the primary but faces a Republican in November.
Sen. Chaudhuri, 46, who won the Democratic Party primary last month, will face the sole Republican candidate, Eric Weaver, in November, in a district that historically elects Democrats. “I’m honored that the voters have chosen me to be the Democratic nominee for the election in November,” Jay Chaudhuri said. “We’re going to fight hard to continue Josh Stein’s tradition of being a champion for progressive values, and I look forward to bringing everyone together to work toward providing a world-class education for all our students and building an economy that works for all North Carolinians.”
The Senate seat for the district, which encompasses much of western Raleigh and Cary, has been vacant since Sen. Josh Stein decided to run for attorney general. Chaudhuri resigned as general counsel to North Carolina Treasurer Janet Cowell May 1, 2015, and later announced his candidacy for the state Senate June 2, 2015.
The Democratic primary for Stein’s seat was one of the more expensive legislative races with both candidates raising six figures. The race heated up when Chaudhuri sent campaign mailers publicizing some of Hankins’ donations to Republicans in the 1990s. Hankins, 62, former executive director of the N.C. League of Municipalities, responded with a “voter alert” confirming that he made the donations at the request of a former employee to improve relationships with Republicans. He criticized his opponent, saying they had a gentleman’s agreement to run a clean campaign.
Chaudhuri said in a press release that, while serving as general counsel to Cowell, he helped recover more than $100 million for state pension and unclaimed property funds and led efforts to establish the first ever Innovation Fund, a $230 million fund to support and invest in businesses with significant operations in North Carolina.
The Indian American candidate said that education is the overriding issue in his campaign. The Republican-dominated General Assembly in North Carolina, he charged, has “not made its focus on investing in public education. Teachers are leaving (North Carolina) for other states,” he had told India-West, adding that he views public education funding as “investing dollars in economic development.”
In addition to serving as general counsel and a policy adviser to Cowell, he was also Cooper’s special counsel and legislative counsel when Cooper was state Senate Majority Leader. Before that, Chaudhuri clerked for now Chief Judge Linda McGee of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and was Jacob K. Javits Fellow for former U.S. Sen. Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin.
Born in Chattanooga, Tenn., and a resident of Cameron Village in Raleigh, with his wife, Sejal Mehta, a former New York prosecutor, and their two children, Chaudhuri has an extensive background in state government. Chaudhuri’s parents, Debi and Mithu Chaudhuri, left India 50 years ago and settled in Fayetteville, N.C., where his father worked at the Veteran Administration Hospital.
Chaudhuri graduated from Davidson College in Charlotte, N.C., the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs in New York and the North Carolina Central University School of Law.
Jersey City, New Jersey: “Indian-Americans are overwhelmingly supporters of Democratic party. But unlike African-Americans these groups are open to persuasion,” Sangay K Mishra, author of the book ‘Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans’ said in a recent interview.
The new book about voting patterns in the United States authored by Mishra seeks to explain how the Indian American community has switched its party support over the past decade and a half. Mishra’s book delves into how the Republican Party’s anti-immigrant stance following the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. has leaned the Indian American community towards Democrats.
Explaining the reason for Indian-Americans voting overwhelmingly towards Democratic party, Mishra said it has to do with developments after the recent terrorist attacks on American soil. “Post 9/11 the whole racial hostility has really pushed them towards the Democratic party, because the Republican party has the consistently taken anti-immigrant position. Post 2001, they have moved away from the Republican Party, which is seen more as a party which is opposed to immigrants, which is opposed to immigrant integration,” he said.
At a time, when candidates are fighting for each delegate in closely-contested primary elections in both the parties, Indian Americans in some of the key states like New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California, where they have a sizeable presence, can tilt the equation one way or the other, the author said. “Indian Americans are overwhelmingly supporters of the Democratic Party. But unlike African Americans these groups are open to persuasion,” Mishra said.
Mishra said despite two Indian-Americans – Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley – gaining top positions in the Republican party, this has not made much difference. “The way in which election has developed in the last few months, Republicans have not shown any inclusive side of their party. Anti-immigration, anti-Muslim rhetoric has been very very high. Given this kind of rhetoric, I do not expect much shift in the way the Indian Americans are voting,” Mishra said.
Referring to a survey, Mishra, an assistant professor of political science at Drew University in New Jersey said, “So more than 80 percent of Indian Americans who voted, voted for Democrats. That goes against the idea that Indian Americans since they are affluent they tend to vote more Republican.” Mishra specializes in immigrant political incorporation, Indian diaspora, global immigration and racial and ethnic politics.
The economic downturn that shook the nation nearly eight years go has had its influence on everyone. Just as any other community in the US, Indian Americans, a mostly affluent Immigrant community in the US, has been affected by the recession that hit the economy as well as by the recovery that is underway today.
Eight years after one of the largest the financial crisis America has ever faced, today, unemployment is at 5 percent, the country’s deficits are down and G.D.P. is growing. However, a majority of Americans feel left behind, writes Andrew Ross Sorkin, a financial columnist for The New York Times, founder and editor at large of DealBook and co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
When Obama took office in early 2009, the U.S. economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month and the Dow was under 7,000. Today, the unemployment is 5 percent, the deficit is under 3 percent, AIG, the world’s biggest insurance company, has turned profitable and the government made all the money back on the banks.
Andrew Ross Sorkin draws to the impact of Obama policy in the past seven years. Overall, the U.S. economy is in much better shape than the public appreciates, especially when measured against the depths of the financial crisis and the possibility — now rarely even considered — that things could have been much, much worse. The economy has certainly come further than most people recognize. The private sector has added jobs for 73 consecutive months — some 14.4 million new jobs in all — the longest period of sustained job growth on record. Unemployment, which peaked at 10 percent the year Obama took office, the highest it had been since 1983, under Ronald Reagan, is now 5 percent, lower than when Reagan left office. The budget deficit has fallen by roughly $1 trillion during his two terms. The U.S. economic growth has significantly outpaced that of every other advanced nation.
In spite of all the progress in the past few years under Obama, Andrew Ross Sorkin says, despite the gains of the past seven years, many Americans have been left behind. A large swath of the nation has dropped out of the labor force completely, and the reality for the average American family is that its household income is $4,000 less than it was when Bill Clinton left office.
Economic inequality, meanwhile, has only grown worse, with the top 1 percent of American households taking in more than half of the recent gains in income growth. “Millions and millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of America he painted and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives,” Bill Clinton himself said of Obama’s economy in March. “People are upset, frankly; they’re anxiety-ridden, they’re disoriented, because they don’t see themselves in that picture.”
Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard economics professor and co-author of “This Time Is Different,” a well-regarded history of financial crises, said, “We had a systemic financial crisis since World War II. I mean this was like nothing we’ve experienced since World War II. The 1982 Volcker recession was nothing compared to this, and so you have to look at the nature of the shock.”
Charles Homans, the politics editor for the New York Times magazine, says, on one end of the “middle class” spectrum is a dream inexorably receding from view; on the other is a pair of socioeconomic blinders obscuring the harsher economic realities of those further down the scale. Summarizing today’s economy, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, said, “Many are still barely getting by,” while Donald Trump said that “we’re a third-world nation.”
Richard V. Reeves, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, argues that the most significant dividing line in recent American experience isn’t between the 99 percent and the 1 percent, but between the 80 percent and the 20 percent — a group that includes not just the very rich but also people most Americans would identify as upper middle class. The top 20 percent saw its average real household income rise to $185,000 in 2013 from about $109,000 a year in 1967. The middle 40 percent saw their real incomes rise, too, but to only $68,000 from $52,000 — the equivalent of a $348-a-year raise. The top 20 percent is also more likely than the middle 40 percent to believe that hard work gets you ahead in life.
According to a Brookings study released last year, men and women with bachelor’s degrees earned a median of 7 percent and 16 percent more in 2013 than they did in 1990. Women who either didn’t attend college or attended but didn’t graduate made just 3 percent more — up to a meager $29,500 — and those men made 13 percent less: a median of $40,700 a year, down from $47,100 a year.
President Barack Obama, recalling his efforts to rebuild the U.S. economy from the 2008 financial crisis, in spite of the criticisms and non-cooperation from the left, right and center, laments that his efforts were vastly underappreciated. “If you ask the average person on the streets, ‘Have deficits gone down or up under Obama?’ probably 70 percent would say they’ve gone up,” Obama said, with some justifiable exasperation — the deficit has in fact declined (by roughly three-quarters) since he took office, and polls do show that a large majority of Americans believe the opposite.
“I actually compare our economic performance to how, historically, countries that have wrenching financial crises perform,” he said. “By that measure, we probably managed this better than any large economy on Earth in modern history.” Obama said, “Anybody who says we are not absolutely better off today than we were just seven years ago, they’re not leveling with you. They’re not telling the truth.”
Parth Bharwad, a teenager in Cupertino, Calif., has joiond the race to win a city council seat to instill a youthful voice and bring a fresh perspective into the city’s government. According to reports, Parth Bharwad, 19, announced he is running for the council seat in the city he’s called home for the past eight years. Currently a sophomore at Cupertino-based De Anza College, majoring in political science and finance, the young Indian American believes he can change the landscape of the city.
“I believe that you are never too young to make a difference in your community,” he wrote on his webpage. “Since my freshman year of high school, I have been active in the community through volunteering and club activities. I was treasurer and then president of Monta Vista’s Indo-American Student Association and have helped raise over $15,000 for non-profit organizations. We hosted multiple events throughout the Bay Area and at Monta Vista which is how we raised the money. We brought together hundreds of students for cultural dance events, concerts, and talent shows,” he added.
His campaign themes include three fundamental issues: youth empowerment; smart energy; and growth & development. “Cupertino is famous for many things, but what generally tops the list if being the headquarter of Apple Inc. Apple is building a wonderful new campus in Cupertino that is going to bring thousands of new jobs to the city. I believe that growth and development is key for Cupertino but has to be done with proper planning and execution. I have laid out my views on growth and development including support and reservations on various projects,” he says.
“The youth in Cupertino are some of the finest students across the United States with outstanding school ranking and test scores. I believe that local government should be more involved in providing students with the right opportunities to grow and explore in their field of choice,” the teen candidate says. “Protecting the environment is a job that everybody on this Earth has. Similar to how we clean our homes and ensure they are in the best condition, we have to make sure that our planet Earth is taken care of as well. I believe that the first step in protecting the environment is to be aware of the issues. Cupertino is already doing a great job at protecting the enviroment and we need to continue to support eco-friendly initiatives.”
While Hillary Clinton has promised to get tough on companies that offshore U.S. jobs, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has ratcheted up his criticism of her jobs record. Campaigning to clinch the Democratic Party nomination battered by offshoring, he has keyed on Clinton’s support for trade deals that he says helped companies move jobs overseas, and he has pointed to a 2012 video showing Clinton telling an Indian audience when it comes to outsourcing American jobs, there have been aspects that “benefited” America.
In 2004, though, it was Clinton who was slamming outsourcing as she led Democrats’ criticism of the Bush administration. Back then, Greg Mankiw, President George W. Bush’s top economic adviser, touched off a firestorm when he declared “outsourcing is a growing phenomenon, but it’s something that we should realize is probably a plus for the economy in the long run.”
“Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade,” Mankiw said. “More things are tradable than were tradable in the past — and that’s a good thing. A few days later, Clinton took to the Senate floor to reject those comments.
“I do not think outsourcing American jobs is a new kind of trade,” she said. “I do not think we should be thinking of our people as commodities, and I certainly do not believe it is a good thing. If the other end of Pennsylvania [Avenue] believes it is a good thing to have companies shift jobs from America to the rest of the world, then maybe they do not have a clue about what it is going to take to bring jobs back to this country and create the kind of economic prosperity that will put our people back to work again.”
Clinton said the comments from Bush’s adviser represented “a strategy for decline. This is a strategy for the destruction of the American job market.” She pledged to present a Senate resolution “to stand against this philosophy in the White House that turns a blind eye to the damage that is being done to the American economy: The loss of jobs, the loss of income, the loss of self-confidence and prestige that is now sweeping our land.”
The following day, Clinton introduced that resolution, which called on the Senate to “(1) oppose any efforts to encourage the outsourcing of American jobs overseas; and (2) adopt legislation providing for a manufacturing tax incentive to encourage job creation in the United States and oppose efforts to make it cheaper to send jobs overseas.” The measure was not successful.
Five years later, however, Clinton’s rhetoric shifted. In a 2009 interview with an Indian television outlet, she lauded President Obama for opposing efforts to protect domestic U.S. jobs, saying he was trying to “speak against protectionism and to make sure that our administration does not in any way give credence to it.” She also said while Americans were concerned with job losses, Obama administration officials were determined to avoid taking actions that might fundamentally alter international commerce.
“Outsourcing is a concern for many communities and businesses in my country,” she said. “So how we handle that is something that, you know, we are very focused on doing in a way that doesn’t disrupt the great flow of trade and services that go between our countries.”
Then came the 2012 comments that Sanders is now criticizing. During her trip that year to India, Clinton was asked about job outsourcing, and replied: “Well, it’s been going on for many years now, and it’s part of our economic relationship with India. And I think that there are advantages with it that have certainly benefited many parts of our country, and there are disadvantages that go to the need to improve the job skills of our own people and create a better economic environment. So it — like anything, it’s about pluses and minuses.”
Raj Shah, an Indian American entrusted with the Republican National Committee’s opposition research arm, a beehive of two dozen tech-savvy idealists who have already spent two years searching through decades of government documents, tax filings, TV footage and news archives, has been leading research on Hillary Clinton, the possible Democratic Party candidate in the US General Elections this year.
Searching in the Clinton presidential library to probe the Clintons’ accumulated past, and requesting more than 330 Freedom of Information Act, the teamhas netted 11,000 pages of records, and counting. Clinton “may not like those of us willing to hold her accountable, but she only has herself to blame,” Shah says. “We’re simply citing her own past words, positions and actions.”
“In this political cycle Republican investigators have been given a rare gift: a clear front-runner with a long and public history,” The New York Times wrote of Hillary Clinton. The Republicans boast that their research shop is bigger and better than the Democratic National Committee’s, but in fact the Republicans’ biggest advantage is Mrs. Clinton herself. Over 40 years of public life, she has changed roles, funding mechanisms, policy positions, even regional accents.
“We’ve got all sorts of fun and interesting things that reinforce” Clinton’s image as “untrustworthy, dishonest … whether its policy flip-flops, secret emails, and things about her life story,” Raj Shah, the deputy communications director at RNC, who wrote an operational handbook on GOP strategy against Clinton, said on the nationally syndicated “The Alan Colmes Show” on Fox News Radio April 19.
Clinton, Shah said, was the “architect” of seemingly unpopular policies relating to Libya and the nuclear deal with Iran and other Obama administration policies she staunchly supports even after leaving office. Add to that, her administration of the State Department which he said, showed “failure after failure” revealed in reports such as those routinely issued by the Government Accountability Office, on various government operations. “Donor and special interests rather than those in need … get in the front of the line,” those reports show, Shah contended.
Denying that his work digging the dirt on Clinton supported her contention of a “right wing conspiracy” Shah countered all parties have “professionalized opposition research.”
While admitting that Republican candidates such as billionaire Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz had negatives, he said, “But Hillary Clinton is extremely well defined, and defined in a negative way.
Shah also said the GOP has a big file on Sen. Bernie Sanders, and explained why the GOP plans to focus on the negative aspects of the Iran nuclear deal. “We are prepared for several scenarios including the potential ‘White Night’ scenario with (Vice President) Joe Biden stepping in,” Shah said, “But we are most prepared for Hillary Clinton.”
These revelations can be very damaging to any candidate who is running for public office. For instance, when Mrs. Clinton said recently that she is opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a trade pact she called a “gold standard” when she was secretary of state — they were able to send out her contradictory quotes on social media almost instantly. They did the same thing when she introduced a broad plan for gun control after largely opposing it in her last presidential run.
In New Hampshire this month, when Mrs. Clinton repeated a questionable story about wanting to join the Marines in her youth, the Republicans could catalog the times she made that claim in the past and the shifting reasons she gave. Recently they compiled a list of all the groups with ties to the financial sector and other industries with business before the federal government that paid Bill and Hillary Clinton millions in speaking fees well before the Clintons released lists on their own.
Americans may hate what this dredging enterprise says about modern campaigning, but it’s a legitimate part of the process, and any seasoned politician is likely to have inconsistencies, failures and embarrassments. What really keeps the opposition research machine humming are efforts by the candidates themselves to be all things to all voters, sacrificing their credibility.
Top U.S. House of Representatives from the Foreign Affairs Committee called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address a joint meeting of Congress during a visit to Washington in June this year. Invitations to address the Senate and House are considered a great honor. There have been only two in the past year: Pope Francis, on September 24, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on April 29, 2015.
The invitation would be a sharp turnaround for a leader who was once barred from the United States over massacres of Muslims. In 2002, when Modi had just become Gujarat’s chief minister, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in sectarian riots in the state. The administration of President George W. Bush denied Modi a visa in 2005 under a 1998 U.S. law barring entry to foreigners who have committed “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
“Given the depth of our relationship with India across a range of areas – defence, humanitarian and disaster relief, space cooperation, conservation and innovation – we believe this is an ideal opportunity for the Congress to hear directly from the prime minister,” Representatives Ed Royce, the Republican committee chairman, and Eliot Engel, the panel’s ranking Democrat, wrote to House Speaker Paul Ryan. The letter to Ryan was also signed by Republican Representative George Holding and Democrat Ami Bera, the co-chairmen of the Congress Caucus on India and Indian Americans. A spokeswoman for Ryan said she had no announcement at this time about whether Ryan would extend the invitation.
The Treasury Department has decided to place a portrait of Harriet Tubman on the new $20 bill and keep Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. The choice of Tubman for the $20 bill makes a lot of sense, by contrast, The New York Times wrote. Tubman’s list of achievements is long and distinguished. She escaped slavery and helped scores of others to flee to freedom on the Underground Railroad. She worked as a scout and spy for the Union during the Civil War, gathering intelligence that proved incredibly useful. And she was a suffragist who helped fight for women’s right to vote after the Civil War.
In addition to the decision to place Tubman on the $20 bill, the Treasury secretary, Jacob Lew, also announced that the back of the $10 bill would feature images of five suffragists – Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony – and the back of a new $5 bill will have an image of Marian Anderson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt. Designs for the three bills will be unveiled in 2020 and the first to go into circulation will be the new $10, followed by the $20 and the $5.
Although it will take years before these bills go into circulation, as Lew says designing anti-counterfeiting measures takes time, and for the first time the Treasury will add tactile features to the notes for blind and visually impaired people, Lew and the Federal Reserve, which orders currency notes from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, are expected to do everything they can to speed up the introduction of these bills.
Jackson has been on the $20 bill since 1928 and it is not clear exactly why he was put there in the first place. That seems like quite a lot of time to have one highly controversial and destructive personality on American currency. And Lew says that Jackson will remain on the back of the $20 bill in some form, so he won’t exactly be gone and forgotten.
Continuing with their intent to kill those with moderate opinions on Islam, ISIS, known for its notorious killing of innocents, has targeted Huma Abedin an Indian-American aide to Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Abedin is listed with a number of other Western Muslim leaders in a lengthy article, which called extremists to “kill the Imams of Kufr (the infidels) in the West,” according to The Clarion Project, a nonprofit that monitors Islamic extremists.
As per media reports, the list put out in the ISIS magazine Dabiq names Huma Abedin, Clinton’s woman-Friday for more than a decade. It also targets other prominent Muslims among them, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, and British politicians Sayeeda Warsi and Sajid Javid.
The magazine describes them as “overt crusaders” and “politically active apostates” involved “in the politics and enforcing laws of the kufr,” or disbelievers. The spokesman for Clinton’s campaign told the New York Post he had no comment about the ISIS hit list.
Abedin began as an intern in the White House 15 years ago, and worked at the State Department when Clinton was secretary of state, is married to disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner. “I have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it would [be] Huma,” Clinton is quoted saying at a celebration for Abedin’s wedding in 2010, the Washington Post reported. Born to an Indian father and Pakistani mother, Abedin was brought up in Saudi Arabia.
The latest issue of the magazine celebrates the Brussels attacks and identifies the key culprits behind the bombings, which killed 31 people. “Paris was a warning. Brussels was a reminder,” the magazine said, according to the New York Post. “What is yet to come will be more devastating and more bitter by the permission of Allah, and Allah prevails.”
New York, NY: Kshama Sawant, the only Socialist on the Seattle City Council, traveled to New York seeking support for Bernie Sanders On April 9th. Sawant, a member of the Alternative Socialist Party, identifies with Sanders who describes himself as an avowed Democratic Socialist with the watchword “political revolution” as his main campaign slogan.
In a “Clinton v Sanders” New York proxy debate between supporters of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Sanders, held at the Judson Memorial, a radical church on Washington Square in the Big Apple, opponents lined up in a vehement debate about their respective candidates’ positions, Slate.com reported. Seated among prominent nationally recognized personalities, Sawant, sought New Yorkers to support the Vermont Senator to be th next President of the nation.
Kshama Sawant had addressed one of Bernie Sander’s biggest rallies to date last month, the evening before Washington State voters delivered a whopping 73% victory for Sanders. Kshama Sawant fired up the crowd with a fist of solidarity before saying “Sisters and brothers, are you feeling the Bern?!”
She went on to say, “It’s really amazing how Bernie’s campaign has transformed the entire landscape of US national politics. His anti-corporate insurgent campaign has made gains that have been stunning enough to deny Hillary (the Wall Street and Wal-Mart candidate) the straight up coronation she thought she deserved….It’s not just young people in general, it’s young women. Women who were told by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, ‘If you don’t support Hillary, you’re becoming complacent about reproductive rights.’ Women who were told by Madeline Albright that ‘there was going to be a special place in hell for them’ if they supported Bernie against Hillary.’ I think there’s a special place in hell for Madeline Albright. Look at the results in Michigan which defied all polls, where both black and white working class people, when they cast their vote for Bernie, spoke out against the massive de-industrialization that has gone through the mid-West because of NAFTA and those shitty trade deals the Clinton’s were responsible for. And Arab Americans, Muslims, voted in large numbers for Bernie, because they respect a real challenge to imperialism. But, my sisters and brothers, the most profound sign of our times, is the support for Socialism. This is America, this is the belly of the capitalist beast and we have millions of people saying socialism is not a dirty word, capitalism is a dirty word.”
Writing in the Huffington Post on March 2, under the headline, “Bernie vs Hillary, What’s a Feminist to do?” Sawant argued fervently for Sanders. She sees women’s rights clashing with ‘corporate interests’ time and again, she said, even on issues such as $15 minimum wage where women council members voted for ‘sub-minimum’ wages most affecting women. “Do these women not consider themselves feminists? I think they do, though I won’t speak for them.”
“If the question is one of policy and not of identity, can there be any doubt that Bernie Sanders is the real feminist in this race?” Sawant proclaims, declaring that “Feminism, solidarity and socialism are interconnected and inseparable.”
(WASHINGTON) — For Americans of nearly every race, gender, political persuasion and location, disdain for Donald Trump runs deep, saddling the Republican front-runner with unprecedented unpopularity as he tries to overcome recent campaign setbacks.
Seven in 10 people, including close to half of Republican voters, have an unfavorable view of Trump, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. It’s an opinion shared by majorities of men and women; young and old; conservatives, moderates and liberals; and whites, Hispanics and blacks — a devastatingly broad indictment of the billionaire businessman.
Even in the South, a region where Trump has won GOP primaries decisively, close to 70 percent view him unfavorably. And among whites without a college education, one of Trump’s most loyal voting blocs, 55 percent have a negative opinion.
Trump still leads the Republican field in delegates and has built a loyal following with a steady share of the Republican primary electorate. But the breadth of his unpopularity raises significant questions about how he could stitch together enough support in the general election to win the White House.
It also underscores the trouble he may still face in the Republican race, which appears headed to a contested convention where party insiders would have their say about who will represent the GOP in the fall campaign.
“He’s at risk of having the nomination denied to him because grass-roots party activists fear he’s so widely disliked that he can’t possible win,” said Ari Fleischer, a former adviser to President George W. Bush.
Beyond their generally negative perception of Trump, large majorities also said they would not describe him as civil, compassionate or likable. On nearly all of these measures, Trump fared worse than his remaining Democratic or Republican rivals.
Not that voters have all that much love for those rivals. But their negative perceptions don’t match the depth of the distaste for Trump. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is seeking to catch Trump in the Republican delegate count, is viewed unfavorably by 59 percent, while 55 percent have negative views of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Another problem for Trump is that his public perception seems to be getting worse. The number of Americans who view him unfavorably has risen more than 10 percentage points since mid-February, a two-month stretch that has included some of his biggest primary victories but also an array of stumbles that suggested difficulties with his campaign organization and a lack of policy depth.
A survey conducted by Gallup in January found Trump’s unfavorable rating, then at 60 percent in the their polling, was already at a record high level for any major party nominee in their organization’s polling since the 1990’s.
Clinton’s campaign believes Trump’s sky-high unfavorable ratings could offset some questions voters have about her own character, and perhaps even give her a chance to peel off some Republicans who can’t stomach a vote for the real estate mogul.
More than 60 percent of all registered voters and 31 percent of Republicans said they definitely would not vote for Trump in the general election. One group that is still with him includes those who describe themselves as both Republicans and supporters of the tea party movement. Sixty-eight percent of them have a favorable view.
New York, NY: United States has a much bigger global agenda with India in contrast to Pakistan, and Washington has moved far beyond looking at its relations with the South Asian neighbors as linked, according to US Defence Secretary Ash Carter.
“We have much more to do with India today than has to do with Pakistan.” Carter said Friday. “There’s important business with respect to Pakistan, but we have much more – a whole global agenda with India, an agenda that covers all kinds of issues.” He was answering a question from the audience during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations about how the growing US ties with India will impact Washington’s relations with Islamabad.
In his address on the eve of leaving on a visit to India, Carter said US relations with India was “destined to be one of the most significant partnerships of the 21st century.” He said there would be “exciting new projects” and a “strategic handshake” with India encompassing military cooperation and defence co-production.
“The days are gone when we only deal with India as the other side of the Pakistan coin, or Pakistan as the other side of the India coin,” he said. “I know that there are those in India and Pakistan who are still glued to that dyad way of thinking. But the United States put that behind us some time ago.” While describing Pakistan as “an important security partner,” he said, “We have a big set of issues having to do with the border with Afghanistan, where we continue to operate; with terrorism, both on the territory of Pakistan and also obviously cross-border into Afghanistan, including affecting US service members there.” He added, “I’m sure I’ll be asked about it in India. It’s long past – we’re long past the point in US policymaking where we look at the India-Pakistan dyad as the whole story for either one of them,” he said.
America is strongest when we recognize our many traditions, says First Lady Michelle Obama
WASHINGTON: “We think America is strongest when we recognize our many traditions, when we celebrate our diversity, and when we lift each other up,” First Lady Michelle Obama said during Nowruz celebrations at the White House on April 6th. “And in times like these, when we think all — that’s more important than ever before, right now and today with what’s going on. Right now, when we’re hearing so much disturbing and hateful rhetoric, it is so important to remember that our diversity has been -– and will always be -– our greatest source of strength and pride here in the United States,” Obama said.
Criticising the “disturbing and hateful” poll rhetoric, First Lady Michelle Obama has asserted that America is a “nation of immigrants” and diversity will always be its greatest strength. “In times like these, when we think all– that’s more important than ever before, right now and today with what’s going on. Right now, when we’re hearing so much disturbing and hateful rhetoric, it is so important to remember that our diversity has been — and will always be — our greatest source of strength and pride here in the United States,” she said. “We are a nation of immigrants. And we should cherish the talent and energy and the beautiful traditions and cultures that come with that heritage, not just today but every day,” she said.
In her remarks, she underscored the number of festivals of various cultures now White House has been celebrating. “I’m proud that here at the White House, we host special events to mark the holidays but we celebrate St Patrick’s Day, Diwali, Cinco de Mayo. And with your help, today, we’re celebrating Nowruz, which is one of our newest White House traditions,” Michelle said.
Nowruz, she said, is a time to visit loved ones. It’s a time to reflect on the past year, and to renew hopes for the New Year to come. Nowruz is a traditional Iranian festival of spring and considered as the beginning of the New Year among Iranians.
New York, April 6: Pakistani Christians and their supporters demonstrated outside the United Nations headquarters here Tuesday asking for the protection of minorities in Pakistan and help for hundreds of Christian asylum-seekers from that country detained in Thailand.
At the protest that comes in the wake of the Easter bombing by the Pakistani Taliban directed against Christians in Lahore, an organiser, Tariq Javed, said that the community was under constant threat in Pakistan, both from the government through measures like the anti-blasphemy laws and from terrorist organisations and extremist politicians. The Lahore bombing was only the latest in a series of attacks on Christians and their places of worship, he said.
Javed, who is the president of the International Community Care Foundation, said the UN and the United States should work to end the persecution of Christians in Pakistan. Islamabad should be made to “take measures to provide security and protection to Christians in the light of recent terrorist attacks and continual religious persecution,” he said.
He said that of about 4,000 Pakistani Christians who fled to Thailand, about 500 have been put in detention centers with illegal immigrants under harrowing conditions and not treated as asylum-seekers. Eleven of them have died so far in detention, he added.
Pakistani Christians are unable to get asylum in Thailand because that nation has not signed the Refugee Convention and has no formal framework for asylum. Javed appealed to the UN and its High Commissioner for Refugees to intervene to have those in detention released and arrange for their resettlement elsewhere.
Wilson Chowdhury, the chairperson of the British Pakistani Christian Association, said that if Thailand returned the asylum-seekers to Pakistan they would face persecution from the government and violent retribution from extremists. The anti-blasphemy were being used as a legal guise to attack Christians and to even settle private scores.
A problem the Pakistani Christians fleeing persecution in their homeland faced was that Britain defined their status as facing “severe discrimination” rather than “persecution” and this made it difficult for them to get asylum, Chowdhury said. Many European countries deferred to Britain on this and his organization was working to change this, he added.
About 50 people, including non-Pakistani Americans, were at the protest. Hubert George, the chairman of Hope for Persecuted Christians, said that they were also appealing to Washington to provide asylum to the Pakistani Christians stranded in Thailand.
Not withstanding that Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s leading contender in the Primaries had said that Mexicans are rapists and drug dealers, suggested a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and called for the deportation of the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, there are some immigrants supporting him for reasons that are “intensely personal and, not surprisingly, are often aligned with their politics back home.”
As the entire nation is looking upto New York for the upcoming crucial Primaries on April 19th, The New York Times reports that “some small groups of immigrants have come forward to support him.” A group of Latino Republicans in Rockland County is planning to endorse him, and some older Indian-American professionals and young Hindus in the region already have.
Quoting a recent informal poll conducted by a Russian-language radio station in New York City, the Times wrote that more than 80 percent of 5,000 callers preferred Trump, the Republican front-runner, to Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s likely nominee.
Anand Ahuja, a lawyer in his mid-60s on Long Island, who was a founder of Indian-Americans for Trump 2016, a political action committee, has his own reasons to support Trump. Ahuja visited the United States in his 20s on a tourist visa from India, is reported to have said that “friends were marrying for green cards. They stayed and prospered, but he returned to India and waited nine years to immigrate legally.”
Ahuja is said to have praised Trump for wanting to stop immigrants from entering the country illegally. “You should not reward people who have broken the law,” he said. “You follow the law, you get punished. That’s why I like Donald Trump when he says, ‘Let’s build a wall.” He added, “I believe anybody who came in this country illegally should be deported.” Ahuja, however, added that showing support for Trump also invites backlash and criticism. “You become a subject of mockery and fun and criticism,” Ahuja said, adding that he faced a lot of flak on social media for supporting Trump.
Adity Sharma, 30, a law student, and one of about 20 members of Hindus for Trump, a Facebook group that occasionally meets in cafes in Brooklyn, was quoted in the report that her Indian-American family supported Hillary Clinton. “To each his own,” she said, adding of Trump: “He’s a strong candidate, he’s different than the others. By him not being so politically correct, it does make people sit up and listen.” She and the group’s other members believe that current American policy is too friendly toward Pakistan and that Trump could change that to benefit India. They also approve of Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim refugees.
Raju Bathija, 56, another member of the group, said she no longer trusted Mrs. Clinton or her foreign policy in India. But more than 15 years ago she said she attended a fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton’s Senate race, as a member of the Indo-American Democratic Party. Now, she supports Trump, because, “You go where your bread is buttered,” Ms. Bathija said.
However, these are individuals and their personal views. It looks to be seen if the larger community will go behind the billionaire turned politician. Devesh Kapur, director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, was quoted in the report in The Times as saying that Ahuja’s group was an outlier in an Indian diaspora that had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats. “It has no reflection of representativeness by a long, long shot,” said Mr. Kapur, who is an author of a coming book about Indian immigrants’ success in the United States. “Whether it’s Sikhs for Trump, Hindus for Trump, in each of them you would say: ‘Really? How can that be?’ It’s a really tiny fraction. They represent themselves, not all Sikhs.”
Chicago IL: “Pakistan, which is the biggest victim of terrorism, has been courageously fighting this menace, and in the process making huge sacrifices, including losing innocent lives”, said Faisal Niaz Tirmizi, Consul General of Pakistan at the Vigil Organized by the Lahore Chapter of Chicago Sister City International, in collaboration with Consulate General of Pakistan and Pakistani-American community, at Devon Avenue in Chicago, in the memory of victims of the heinous terror attack that took place on March 27th, 2016 in Lahore’s crowded Gulshan-I-Iqbal Park resulting in killing 75 and injuring 340 innocent people.
“Pakistan, which is a resilient nation, has been ever ready to counter such acts of the forces of evil and bigotry. These dark forces of terrorism would soon be defeated by Pakistani nation’s resolve to eliminate terrorism and extremism from the country. The people of Pakistan are extremely brave and they would never waver or be deterred insofar as protecting the strategic interest of their homeland is concerned”, said Timizi with a sense of confidence and pride.
Tirmizi added that the security forces of Pakistan have successfully destroyed all the sanctuaries and infrastructure of the terrorists in the north-west and the operation Zarb-e-Azb is on the threshold of fully achieving its cherished goals. Tirmizi thanked the people and the US officials for their gesture of sympathy, solidarity, and support for the people of Pakistan. “Pakistan needs and deserves the international community’s support and understanding in its fight against terrorism, which is aimed at making not only Pakistan but the entire world a safer place. The international community must be together in this fight against terrorism as we belong to one human family”, added Tirmizi.
Dr Tariq Butt, Chair of Lahore Chapter of Chicago Sister City International said that Pakistani-Americans stand firmly with the people of Lahore at this challenging time. “We pray for their fast recovery from this terrible tragedy”, he added. The vigil was attended by scores of people from all walks of life. In addition to Pakistani and American community, significant number of US officials, including Mr. Jesse White, Secretary of State showed up at the event. Messages of the Governor Rauce Bruner, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Attorney General Lisa Madigan were read by their special representatives. Dennis Jung, Lisa Kohnke, and Nettie Lasko represented Governor Bruce Rauner, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Attorney General Lisa Madigan, respectively.
The participants at the vigil unanimously expressed their strong support for the people and Government of Pakistan in their fight against terrorism. They said that the terrorists, who have no faith and religion, are defaming Islam, which is a peaceful religion. “We condemn the Lahore terror attack and express sympathy and solidarity with the people of Pakistan”, said the participant.
President Barack Obama on Friday last week counselled India and Pakistan not to pursue aggressive military doctrines and nuclear arsenals as he wrapped up the fourth Nuclear Security Summit, his signature international effort to curtail the spread of nuclear weapons and source material.
During a press conference at the end of the summit that attracted leaders from all major powers, Obama sought to “see progress in Pakistan and India, that subcontinent, making sure that as they develop military doctrines, that they are not continually moving in the wrong direction.” He also expressed concern about “nuclear arsenals” expanding in some countries, “especially those with small tactical nuclear weapons that could be at greater risk of theft.”
The reference clearly was to Pakistan’s expanding nuclear arsenal with the addition of mini-nukes, but the US President also drew India into the picture with his reference to military doctrines, seen in some quarters as an allusion to New Delhi’s much-discussed but never implemented Cold Start Doctrine, a military manoeuvre that purportedly seeks to launch punitive armored strikes deep into Pakistan in a quick reaction response to egregious acts of terrorism by Pakistan inside India.
New Delhi has repeatedly said it has not implemented the Cold Start doctrine, and that Pakistan has historically been the aggressor with a military doctrine of terrorism and “death by thousand cuts” aimed at changing the status quo between the two countries. Still, there was a degree of surprise in Indian quarters that the US President’s lecture came despite the restraint exercised by the Modi government in what has been an extension of the UPA government’s Pakistan policy.
The Cold Start doctrine, a largely theoretical construct that has been debated in Indian strategic circles but not implemented, has rattled Pakistan to such an extent that it has developed and deployed battlefield nuclear weapons or tactical mini-nukes for use against an invading armored corps, even if it means nuking its own territory.
President Obama and other leaders have expressed fears that these mini-nukes dispersed to field commanders could be easy picking for terrorist groups that all too frequently infiltrate Pakistani military establishments, as evident in several attacks on military cantonments and garrisons. The concern was widely discussed by world leaders and their aides at the summit, both in the main session and on the margins.
Fearing a public dressing down, the Pakistani leadership bailed out from attending the Nuclear Security Summit, citing the Lahore terrorist attack as an excuse, thus forcing Obama to publicly voice the international concern.
Pakistan has repeatedly maintained that its nuclear weapons are safe and well-protected, but the assertion carries little credibility in the international community that has seen its blueprints and technology in the hands of countries such as Libya and Iran, and witnessed its nuclear scientists supping with al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
There is an increasing anger among the majority of the people in the country towards the American establishment, the mainstream American politicians and both the political parties. The rise and growing popularity of unconventional politicians with varied ideologies and outlook to the future of the United States in both the Republican and the Democratic Parties may be explained, to some extent, due to this growing frustration among the middle class and the poor in the country.
Income inequality is one of the major global issues talked about today. It is the bane of the working class’s existence. It’s more evident in the United States today than ever before. In the US, income inequality increased the most among all the developed nations – the richest 1% growing by 275%, while wages of the poor grew by only 20% in 30 years. The Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, states that the total net worth of those on the list in 1982, the first year the list was compiled, was $93 billion. In 2014, that number was $2.3 trillion, up 2,400%. At the same time, median household income in the United States rose only about 180%.
The American middle class has been shrinking relative to upper- and lower-income groups, both of which represent bigger shares of the population than at any time since at least 1971, a new Pew Research Center report finds. The increased income inequality since the 1980s is due to a decreasing real minimum wage, which means, the real wages were growing slower than inflation, contributing to increase in the inequality.
Shawn Donnan of the Financial Times says, “We’re seeing a real divergence in American society. What’s interesting about these numbers that have come out from the Pew Research Center and that we’ve built our series around is that, really, this is the broadest measure in terms of income of the American middle class out there.”
In inflation-adjusted terms, the real value of the minimum wage is lower today than it was at its late-1960s peak. This decline in the real value of the minimum wage, coupled with the decline in unionization and the rise of automation, accounted for much of the growth in income inequality in the 1980s.
While there is a push to increase the minimum wages, there is also a demand to increasing income taxes on top earners, and in turn giving those funds to those on the bottom. Both income inequality and the minimum wage have become hot-button political issues in recent years, particularly since the rise of the Fight for $15 campaign. Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders talk about income inequality as a major economic problem and advocate for raising the minimum wage as one possible solution for the issue.
It sounds like simple math, and has an allure for many politicians and American families alike, but a new Brookings research suggests that this proposal would actually do little to reduce inequality.
This growing inequality has immense consequences for the nation’s future. As the children of the rich are getting better services, and in turn, a higher likelihood of social and cognitive development, which means that they are more likely to take up the high paying executive positions than the others, whose parents are perhaps not so lucky. Unequal starting points only mean that the finishing points will be unequal as well. The exact cause of income inequality is up for debate.
Kim Weeden, director of the Center for the Study of Inequality at Cornell University, says while raising the minimum wage will unlikely decrease the levels of income inequality, it would make a huge difference for those struggling to make ends meet.
However, there are those in the Republican Party and others, who think that increasing the minimum wages will not help in diminishing income inequality. According to Heritage Foundation expert James Sherk, labor economists have found no correlation between higher minimum wages and lower poverty. Raising the minimum wage simply would not reduce poverty.
Sherk says, raising the minimum wage will not affect many poor families. Higher minimum wages cost some workers their jobs. Raising the minimum wage makes these entry-level jobs harder to find. That makes it harder for less skilled workers to gain the skills necessary to get ahead. And finally, the raising wages will disqualify millions from receiving federal grants that are eligible to them now. As workers’ incomes rise they qualify for less and less aid—effectively an additional tax on their income.
Another suggestion put forth is to tax the rich more. It’s a popular idea on the 2016 campaign trail, but a new study says that won’t do much to dent inequality in America. Many of America’s uber rich, including billionaires Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon, have said they would be willing to pay more in tax.
Bernie Sanders has proposed a “billionaire surtax” of 10% that he says would only impact the nation’s 530 billionaires. He also wants to increase the inheritance tax — what people pay when they transfer land or money to their kids — from 40% to a top rate of 55%. Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton have all proposed eliminating the “carried interest loophole” that allows many hedge fund managers to tax their investment income at a lower tax rate (20% versus 39.6%).
A new paper from Brookings Economics Studies found that raising the top income tax rate to 50 percent would mean an additional $6,464 in taxes owed for households in the 95-99th percentiles of income and an additional $110,968 for households in the top 1 percent. Extremely wealthy households in the very top 0.1 percent could expect to experience an average income tax increase of $568,617. As per the analysis, increasing the top marginal tax rates for those in the 95th percentile and up had a “trivial effect on overall income inequality.” only lowering the gap modestly.
Researchers looked at what would happen if all the extra money raised from the tax hike on the rich were given to America’s poorest. Lower-income families would receive about $2,650 a year, they found. That kind of redistribution would lessen inequality a little bit more, but the country would still remain far more unequal than it was in the 1970s.
The reality is that that tax hikes for top earners could raise critical revenue for the federal government, and redistribution policies would still provide substantial benefits to low-income households, if not economic mobility as a whole.
The need to close the gap between the rich and the poor and according the majority poor, lower middle class and the middle class their right to thrive is a basic necessity. They need to be able to meet their daily needs and offering them resources to grow and become productive citizens rather than become a burden on the nation, means, investing in the present by raising the minimum the income, redistributing the wealth of the nation to invest in the products and services that will enhance the quality of the lives every citizen.
“It is expected that the Indian Prime Minister is accorded the respect befitting a head of state. However, conferring of the highest civilian award on Mr. Modi by those who claim to be the custodians of the two Holy Mosques is a slap in the face of survivors of the Gujarat pogroms of 2002. It is also a demonstration of indifference to the increased attacks and threats against the religious minorities and Dalits in India,” said Umar Malick, President of IAMC.
Modi and the Saudi monarchy have much in common. As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi presided over one of the worst episodes of sectarian violence in independent India, when over 2,000 people were massacred by mobs instigated by the Hindu-supremacist groups. The horrific killings were accompanied by rape and pillage, resulting in the displacement of over 150,000 Muslims from their homes, many of whom are still struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives. Modi continues to have a case pending against him in the Gujarat High Court and a tainted Special Investigation Team failed to initiate prosecution of Mr. Modi. The handful of convictions in the cases related to the pogroms in Gujarat have happened as a result of tireless and courageous work by activists and whistleblowers, whom the Modi government has harassed and intimidated.
Since coming to power, the Modi administration has worked steadily to erode religious freedom and India’s long-cherished traditions of tolerance among its diverse populace. Ranging from attacks on churches and mob violence against Muslims and Dalits, to felicitating the killer of Mahatma Gandhi, Mr. Modi’s administration and its supporters have relentlessly pursued a divisive agenda, that is antithetical to the country’s Constitution and its egalitarian ideals. The demonization of intellectuals, the vigilantism encouraged by the state, and the weakening of institutions are all indications of a besieged Indian democracy.
Saudi forces are conducting indiscriminate airstrikes in Yemen that are widely acknowledged to have caused huge loss of civilian lives, creating an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Incidentally, the monarchy had conferred the same award given to Mr. Modi, on Mr. Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt.
“Coming from the Saudi monarchy, which is known for its repressive domestic policies and human rights violations, the award itself is of dubious value. It diminishes, rather than enhances the office of the Prime Minister of India,” added Malick. Indian-American Muslim Council is the largest advocacy organization of Indian Muslims in the United States with chapters across the nation. For more information, please visit our website at: http://www.iamc.com
Indian Americans joined hands with the larger community in New York to raise funds for Washington State Senator Pramila Jayapal (37th District in Seattle, Washington) who is running for the seat being vacated by long term Congressman Jim McDermott in Washington state’s 7th Congressional District. The event was hosted by socialite Claire White in Manhattan. There was a good presence of Indian Americans for the fundraiser.
Jayapal moved from India to the United States as student when she was sixteen. Jayapal founded Hate Free Zone after the September 11 attacks in 2001 as an advocacy group for Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans targeted in the wake of the attacks. The group went on to become a political force in the state of Washington, registering new American citizens to vote and lobbying lawmakers on immigration reform and related issues. It changed its name to OneAmerica in 2008.Jayapal stepped down from leadership in the group in May 2012. A year later, she was recognized by the White House as a “Champion of Change” for her work on behalf of the immigrant community.
Jayapal, a resident of Columbia City, Wash., near Seattle, was able to get her feet wet in politics with the Senate, but feels her voice is better served on a national level. “Many of the challenges working-class and middle-class Americans face, require a national solution,” the Chennai native said. “I believe our system of government is rigged to favor big corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.”
Included in her accomplishments were passing two bills, helping fund a new Southeast Economic Opportunity Center that will bring higher education to the Rainier Valley for the first time, putting $5.25 million in pre-apprenticeship support for women and people of color, and fighting against payday lending. Additionally, she has fought for gun law reform, sponsoring two bills on the matter, and pushed a measure to increase minimum wage to $12 an hour.
Despite all her successes and efforts, the Democrat has faced a number of challenges in the Republican-dominated state Senate. “As a member of the minority (party), you are constantly being creative and strategic about how to get things done. Relationships and power are relative to your position in the minority,” she explained.
“I’m both the only woman of color and the first ever South Asian American member of the Legislature. That makes a big difference,” she added. “My background as an activist and a woman of color means I bring with me the perspective that race touches almost every single issue. There are, sadly, not nearly enough elected officials at any level of American government willing to acknowledge and respond to this simple truth.”
“I had long believed, as many advocates do, that it was only after a process of organizing and activism on the outside that we could demand change from our elected officials on the inside,” she told India-West, adding that the process proved frustrating as seat holders – Democrats and Republicans alike – were fearful of confronting uncomfortable social issues. I came to recognize that we don’t get a more representative government unless we run for office and create it from the inside,” Jayapal added.
The Indian American earned her bachelor’s in English language and literature/letters at Georgetown University and her M.B.A. from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She moved to Seattle in 1991 and began working for an international public health nonprofit, PATH. Additionally, while working for an organization she founded called OneAmerica, she got to know the people of the district and understand their values – which she shares, also as a member of the community.
Among Jayapal’s challengers in the Democratic primary are state Rep. Brady Walkinshaw, King County councilman Joe McDermott, and Donovan Rivers Jayapal’s primary is on August 2nd. The fundraiser event in New York was supported by community veteran leader Dr. Thomas Abraham, Attorney Appen Menon, SaberCloud principal Saji George and Comedian Dan Nainan.
WASHINGTON: An Indian-origin journalist with a CBS, a major US television network, was heckled by Donald Trump’s supporters and arrested by police during a protest at the Republican presidential frontrunner’s campaign rally here, media reports said.
CBS News reporter Sopan Deb was detained by police while covering the protest that broke out last night following the cancellation of Trump’s rally in Chicago. Deb was covering the clash between protesters and the Republican front-runner’s supporters when he was detained, the news organisation said.
“Deb was filming video of a man whose face was bloody and laying on the ground near police at the time of his arrest,” according to a ‘CBS This Morning’ report.
Deb alleged that he was thrown to the ground and handcuffed without notice or warning, the CBS news reported. Illinois State Police charged Deb with resisting arrest though the network reported that neither his video, nor that of a nearby film crew, showed any sign of resistance.
“I have never seen anything like what I am witnessing in my life,” Deb tweeted after the incident. Deb, who has been covering Trump’s campaign ever since he announced his presidential run last June, said “A Trump supporter just asked me at Reno event if I was taking pictures for ISIS. When I looked shocked, he said, ‘yeah, I am talking to you’.”
The president of CBS News is standing by one of the network’s journalists who was arrested outside a Donald Trump rally that was canceled amid violence between Trump supporters and protesters.
David Rhodes tweeted that journalist Sopan Deb, who was covering the rally at the University of Illinois’ Chicago campus on Friday, was handcuffed and charged with resisting arrest. “On tape you see he did not resist, identified himself as working press,” Rhodes said in his tweet.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to questions. Trump cancelled his campaign rally here citing security concerns after hundreds of people gathered at the arena to protest against his ‘politics of hatred’ and scuffled with his supporters in the largest-ever demonstration against the Republican presidential front-runner.
Of late journalists have been at receiving end at the Trump campaign. Foreign journalists have been made totally out of bound while the domestic media are put inside an enclosure at all his rallies and are not allowed to move out of that.
In the last few weeks, several journalists have been scuffled by security agents and Trump’s supporters. The developments forced the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) to issue a rare statement.
“Broadly speaking, the WHCA unequivocally condemns any act of violence or intimidation against any journalist covering the 2016 campaign, whether perpetrated by a candidate’s supporters, staff or security officers. We expect that all contenders for the nation’s highest office agree that this would be unacceptable,” WHCA president Carol Lee said in a statement early this week.
“We have been increasingly concerned with some of the rhetoric aimed at reporters covering the presidential race and urge all candidates seeking the White House to conduct their campaigns in a manner that respects the robust back-and-forth between politicians and the press that is critical to a thriving democracy,” said Lee, White House correspondent of The Wall Street Journal.
Neil Makhija, a young Indian-American is running for Pennsylvania state Assembly from District 122, and as a son-of-the-soil born and raised in Carbon County, he hopes to build a grassroots campaign. Neil Makhija, 29, is a first-generation American, a Harvard Law School graduate and former aide to U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, and to Vice President Joe Biden.
“Neil is a stellar candidate in his own right, but he’s also from an incredibly competitive district that Democrats can win,” according to Manan Trivedi, an Iraq War veteran who has tried twice to win a seat in the U.S. Congress. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party has identified Makhija’s hometown region as a top pickup opportunity in 2016, Trivedi notes.
The 122nd district, just north of Allentown in the Lehigh Valley, was held for decades by the former Democratic Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Keith McCall. When Speaker McCall retired, the GOP won the seat in the Republican wave of 2010. “The county still is Democratic and 2016 is the right time to take back this seat,” Trivedi says.
On his election website neilforPA.com, Makhija says his parents witnessed the power of the American Dream in just one generation. “My father worked in a thread factory in India for under a dollar a day, and was determined to provide his children with a better way of life,” His parents left India and moved to a small town in Pennsylvania thirty five years ago, the place where he was born and brought up.
Makhija says he learnt the values of hard work, empathy, and resilience from his parents, and growing up worked small jobs and rose up the ladder – from scooping ice cream at Leiby’s Restaurant and washing bikes at Pocono Whitewater, to working for the Office of Vice President Joe Biden and in the United States Senate.
He attended Harvard on a scholarship endowed by a Carbon County coal magnate. “That gift – a reminder of our region’s role powering America’s Industrial Revolution – inspired me to use my education to fight for a new vision of economic prosperity in Carbon County,” he says, and he is now ready to give back.
His priorities he says are to invests in the people and harness 21st-century innovation, fight for the middle class, and for world-class education for children, helping seniors, as well as for protecting the environment.
Athens, Ga. – Divided political parties rarely win presidential elections, according to a study by political science researchers at the University of Georgia and their co-authors. If the same holds true this year, the Republican Party could be in trouble this presidential general election.
The study, which examined national party division in past presidential elections, found that both national party division and divisive state primaries have significant influence on general election outcomes.
In this election cycle, the nominee of a divided Republican Party could lose more than 3 percent of the general election vote, compared to what he would have gained if the party were more united.
“History shows that when one party is divided and the other party is united, the divided party almost always loses the presidential election,” said Paul-Henri Gurian, an associate professor of political science at UGA. “Consider, for example, the elections from 1964 through 1984; in each case the divided party lost.” The study measures party division during the primaries and indicates how much the more divided party loses in the general election.
The study found that divisive state primaries can lead to a 1 to 2 percent decrease in general elections votes in that state. For example, Hillary Clinton received 71 percent of the Democratic vote in the Georgia primary, while Donald Trump received 39 percent of the Republican vote. According to the historical model, a Republican-nominated Trump would lose almost 1 percent of the Georgia vote in the general election because of the divided state primary.
National party division has an even greater and more widespread impact on the national results, often leading to decreases of more than 3 percent nationwide.
Looking again at the current presidential election cycle, Trump had received 39.5 percent of the total national Republican primary vote as of March 16, while Clinton had received 58.6 percent of the Democratic vote. If these proportions hold for the remainder of the nomination campaign (and if these two candidates win the nominations), then Trump would lose 4.5 percent of the vote in the general election, compared to what he would have received if the national Republican Party was not divided.
“In close elections, such as 2000, 2004 and 2012, 4-5 percent could change the outcome in terms of which party wins the presidency,” Gurian said.
The results of this study provide political analysts with a way to anticipate the impact of each primary and, more importantly, the impact of the total national primary vote on the general election results. Subtracting the percent of the Republican nominee’s total popular vote from that of the Democratic nominee and multiplying that by 0.237 indicates how much the Republican nominee is likely to lose in the November election, compared to what would otherwise be expected. The 4.5 percent figure calculated through March 16 can be updated as additional states hold their primaries. (The same can be done for each individual state primary by multiplying by 0.026.) The study was conducted by Paul-Henri Gurian and Audrey Haynes, together with Nathan Burroughs, Lonna Atkeson and Damon Cann.
Washington, DC: Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a three – nation tour to Belgium, United States and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, March 29, 2016 from the Indian capital.
According to Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup, the Prime Minister will reach Brussels, the capital of Belgium on Wednesday. Nandini Singla, Joint Secretary (Europe West) said, the Prime Minister will take part in a series of activities at Brussels apart from addressing Indian diaspora.
The Prime Minister will also take part in India-EU summit where he will take forward the ongoing consultations with the European Union, EU on finalization of Broad based Trade and Investment Agreement, BTIA. The Prime Minister is the first foreign dignitary who will be on the state visit to Belgium just a week after the deadly terror bombings which rocked Brussels.
In his second leg of the tour, the Prime Minister will attend the fourth Nuclear Security Summit at Washington DC on Thursday and Friday this week. He will present national progress report outlining the measures being taken by New Delhi for strengthening nuclear security and safety of nuclear technologies and devices. He is also likely to have bilateral meetings with heads of some countries.
The final stop over of his trip is to Saudi Arabia where 2.96 million Indians are residing. Modi will visit office of two Indian companies besides holding talks with Saudi leadership’s on trade and investment among other issues. Some agreements are expected to be signed in Brussels and Saudi Arabia during the Prime Minister’s Modi’s visit.
Sacramento, CA: Having served two four-year terms on the San Jose, Calif., City Council, Ash Kalra has filed his nomination to run for state Assembly in California’s 27th district. The Indian American candidate’s candidature will appear on the ballot for the June 7 primary. “This was an exciting moment for me,” Kalra said in an email statement, adding he was proud to have his father on hand for the filing. “We have come so far since I first announced my campaign and the momentum just continues to build.”
In addition to the news of Kalra running for Assembly, the politician also recently opened his new campaign headquarters on Monterey Highway in San Jose, which was attended by a number of local dignitaries including Sen. Jim Beall, Assembly member Kansen Chu and supervisors Dave Cortese and Cindy Chavez.
“Our grassroots effort is constantly growing and we need your help to deliver my message to San Jose voters,” Kalra said. The district has been represented the past six years – three terms – by Democrat Nora Campos, who cannot run again as she has reached the term limit.
Ash Kalra has called San Jose home for over 37 years. In that time, he has developed a passion for serving his neighbors and making sure that our government is solving problems – not creating them.
Ash made history by becoming the first Indian-American to be elected to the San Jose City Council, where he currently represents District 2. In his time as a Councilmember, he has fought against cuts to public safety including standing up in favor of restoring the SJPD burglary unit and Violent Crimes Enforcement Team, worked to provide incentives for companies to locate and grow in San Jose and has been a champion for more transit options including the BART to Silicon Valley extension. Ash has been one of the foremost advocates of clean energy and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels while preserving our open spaces and protecting our surrounding habitat. Ash has been a voice for public safety, better schools, improved public transportation and a healthier environment.
Since 1999, Ash has been a law professor at Lincoln Law School of San Jose. Previously, he also taught at San Jose State University and at inner city Washington, DC high schools.
Prior to serving on the City Council, Ash was an attorney for the Santa Clara County Public Defender’s Office for 11 years. Most of his time was spent in drug treatment court where clients were given the opportunity to complete a rehabilitation program and turn their lives around. In addition, Ash served on numerous non-profit boards, including Somos Mayfair, the Asian Law Alliance, the South Asian Bar Association, Fresh Lifelines for Youth and the Santa Clara County Bar Association. Ash also helped to found the Hayes Neighborhood Association in the neighborhood in which he grew up and still lives today. Ash Kalra earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Law Degree from Georgetown University.
Not long ago, a group of Indian-Americans had formed a political action committee to campaign for Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner and had assured that they would everything possible to help him win the party nomination and the elections in November this year.
They had formed a group called, ‘Indian-Americans for Trump 2016’, which was registered as a political action committee (PAC) on January 21st with the federal election commission, with the aim of garnering support of Indian-Americans to have Trump become the next US President. Dr. Sudhir Parikh, CEO of Pariskh Media, A.D. Amar, a business professor with Seton Hall University in New Jersey and a New York-based Attorney Anand Ahuja had initiated the group.
Anand Ahuja, Attorney and Counselor at Law and Vice President for Indian Americans for Trump 2016, had said that there is a “wrong media created perception that Trump is against Muslims and minorities. And as far as being against H1B visas – either you can increase H1B visas or you can say invest in India – you cannot have it both ways.”
However, Dr. Sudhir Parikh has released a short statement through news agencies, withdrawing his support for Trump and disassociate himself from the PAC: “I allowed myself to be identified with that group because some members of the group are friends of mine. I wish to clarify that I no longer belong to the group and I do not support the candidacy of Mr. Donald Trump.
“For over three decades I have supported both Democrat and Republican candidates based on their individual merits and their commitment to the interests of the Indian-American community and US-India relations. I remain committed to this course,” Parikh added.
The front runner in the Republican Primaries has been criticized, among others by leading Indian American political leaders. Former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, had described Trump as a “madman”. Jindal had criticized his Republican Party colleague as a “non-serious, unstable, substance-free narcissist.” Other phrases Jindal had used to describe are: “egomaniac,” a “carnival act,” “shallow,” “insecure,” “weak” and of course, a “madman.” South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is a rising star in the Republican Party had described Trump’s character and qualities as “everything a governor doesn’t want in a president.”
US President Barack Obama said that the real estate tycoon is exploiting people’s fear amid a stagnant and rapidly changing economy. “I think somebody like Mr Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign,” Obama told National Public Radio (NPR) in an interview. “When one combines the demographic change with all the economic stresses that people have been going through because of the financial crisis, because of technology, because of globalization, it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration and fear,” said the president.
Traditionally Indian Americans have voted for the Democratic Party. In 2008, nearly 90 per cent of Indian Americans voted for President Barack Obama. According to Dr. Parikh, he feels that Indian Americans have far more in common with the Republicans than the Democrats as “Our family values are the same as what the Republican Party is talking about, against abortion and same sex relationships. We are the most affluent community in America, with higher per capita income than even the Jews… it makes sense to vote Republican.”
Winning Asian American votes is very critical to winning the presidency. Although, they are not as larger as the Hispanics or the Blacks, Asian/Indian Americans are an influential group in the national and statewide elections. No one can win the presidency with the White votes alone. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of white voters and won a landslide victory of 44 states. In 2012, Mitt Romney won 59 percent of whites and lost with 24 states. According to reports, in the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama won 73 percent of the Asian American vote. The Democratic presidential vote share among Asian Americans has steadily increased from 36 percent in 1992, to 64 percent in the 2008 election to 73 percent in 2012.
Both the parties have been working hard to win the Asian American votes, except for that Trump has been critical of the Muslims, has spoken against H-1B Visa, which has helped mostly Asians to immigrate to this country. Trump said: “They are taking our jobs. China is taking our jobs. Japan is taking our jobs. India is taking our jobs. It is not going to happen anymore, folks!”
Sacramento, CA: Harmeet Dhillon, vice chair of the California Republican Party, is currently running unopposed to represent the state as committeewoman for the Republican National Committee. The RNC allots each state a chairman to the National Committee, along with one committee man and one committee woman. The state’s delegates will vote for the posts April 30, during the upcoming California Republican Party convention in Burlingame, Calif.
Linda Ackerman, who has held the post for eight years, earlier this month said she would not run again this year. Her term will end after the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, which begins July 18.
Indian American attorney Dhillon’s term as vice chair of the state party ends this year. She told India-West it was “a natural progression” for her to take on a role at the national level. The role entails determining the party’s policy for the next four years and deciding the party’s presidential candidate during the 2020 election cycle.
Dhillon has previously served as the GOP’s chairman in San Francisco County and has served as vice chair of the state party since 2013, the first Indian American to serve in that role. In a Feb. 22 statement announcing her candidacy, Dhillon said she has worked tirelessly to build a strong Republican Party in the state.
“I’ve fought hard for the party and for the future of California in just about every way a volunteer can – and as I have been doing since I was a teenager in the conservative movement,” she said.
“It’s time that California had a strong advocate in the RNC, to promote California’s interests at the national party level. For too long, California has been neglected by our national party,” said Dhillon.
Dhillon has won the endorsement of almost all members of the California State Senate and Assembly Republican Caucuses. She has also won the endorsement of the California Republican Party’s Board of Directors and a majority of county chairmen. She has assembled a team of volunteers who plan over the next six weeks to speak to every delegate in the state to pledge their support. Dhillon said she hopes for a unanimous vote.
The 2016 presidential election cycle poses some interesting challenges for the Republican Party, Dhillon told India-West, noting that billionaire contender Donald Trump has brought more interest and a greater number of people to the polls.
“Trump as the leading candidate is not in keeping with the image of our party. There is a lot of hand-wringing going on, because he’s ‘not one of us,’” said Dhillon. “But a lot of Republicans equally feel that the party has not done its job” in keeping the Obama administration in check, she said.
The veteran politician — who has run unsuccessfully for the state Assembly and Senate — said obliquely that she differs from Trump’s ideology, leaning more towards the late Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan’s style of conservative policy. “I will support the nominee of the party,” she added, noting that she is not supporting anyone at this juncture.
California will more than likely determine the party’s nominee, said Dhillon, noting there was no chance that Republican contenders Texas Senator Ted Cruz or Ohio Governor John Kasich would drop out of the race before the national convention. Kasich has stated his support for a brokered convention, even if one candidate does have the necessary number of delegates to get the party’s nomination.
If Trump continues to amass delegates at his current rate, no one will have the required number of delegates — 1,237 — to win the nomination outright. After the Mar. 15 primaries in Illinois, Ohio, Florida, Missouri and North Carolina, Trump had amassed 673 delegates, while Cruz had 411 and Kasich 143.
A total of 885 delegates still remain un-allotted. Trump would have to win 564 more delegates to get the party’s nomination outright, a feat which Dhillon predicts is mathematically impossible.
Washington, DC: The foreign trips of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet colleagues cost the Indian exchequer Rs. 567 crore in the last financial year (2015-16), an increase of more than 80% from the previous year, budget documents show. This is besides the over Rs. 500 crore his bureaucrats spend on their travel each year on an average.
The total tour expenses of the PM and his ministers went up from Rs 269 crore as estimated in the budget at the beginning of the 2015-16 fiscal to Rs 567 crore, as per the revised estimates towards the end of the year. In addition, the total tour expenditure of bureaucrats was over Rs 1,500 crore in the three years up to 2014-15.
The UPA-2 Cabinet and its PM spent almost Rs 1,500 crore on travel between 2009-10 and 2013-14. In comparison, the travel bill of the NDA government in three years (between 2014-15 and 2016-17) is estimated at Rs 1,140 crore.
The PM, however, has pledged to slash his expenditure on foreign trips by over 54% in the next financial year which will restore it to the level of UPA’s expenditure towards the end of its term in 2014.The travel bill of the Cabinet and the PM includes expenditure on travel by ministers, ministers of state and ex-PMs and the aircraft used by VVIPs — the PM, President and Vice-President.
Though Modi flaunts a leaner Cabinet, with 64 members compared to UPA’s 75 members, the salary bill of his ministers went up by more than 25% last year compared to 2013-14, the UPA’s last year in office. The allowances of his ministers also shot up to Rs 10.20 crore, which shows an increase of 8% over the expenditure made by theUPA Cabinet.
The cabinet secretariat, which assists the PM, has added a strength of at least 300 since 2015. The strength of the cabinet secretariat as on March 1, 2015 was 900 which increased to 1,201 in 2016, according to the budget.
The travel bills of successive governments have not been impacted by the downturn in the economy since 2008-09. Every year, the finance ministry comes out with a press note announcing a 10% cut in non-plan expenditure that imposes restriction on first class travel by bureaucrats and a cut on foreign delegations of Union ministers besides restrictions on conferences in five-star hotels. Interestingly, the curb on first class travel by senior bureaucrats is lifted in the second half of the fiscal every year.
HOUSTON, TX – March 14, 2016 – Houston’s global community, including the crème de la crème of the bayou city’s business, political and society circles, gatheredWednesday evening (March 9) for Asia Society Texas Center’s Tiger Ball 2016, celebrating contemporary Korea. A record crowd of more than 700 guests strolled into the grand Chevron Gala Pavilion, named for the event’s presenting corporate sponsor. Reception hosts, Kathy and Glen Gondo, welcomed the throng of guests into the grand tent with tantalizing sushi, provided by Sushic, the Sushi Company. While Taiko drummers with Memorial Jumbo Group performed, guests flowed from a magnificent tent into the world-class Yoshio Taniguchi-designed building, where volunteers modeling Jasmine Shinhyo Park’s stunning traditional gowns greeted them as they entered the Fayez Sarofim Grand Hall to enjoy the Yeesookyung exhibition. Then, it was on to a lavish dinner catered by City Kitchen. Patrons finished the evening with dancing and an auction in which they bid on once-in-a-lifetime experiences including throwing out the first pitch at a Houston Astros game to sparkling diamond earrings and luxurious travel and dining packages.
Gala Co-Chairs, Lou Ann and Alexander C. Chae and Susan and Michael K. Jhin, and guests honored Asia Society Texas Center’s Board Chairman Edward “Eddie” R. Allen III and wife Chinhui Juhn. Asia Society’s Executive Director Bonna Kol and Joni Baird of Chevron presented the honorees, Eddie and Chinhui, with the Tiger Ball 2016 award for their continued support of Asia Society.
Among the supporters in attendance were Anne and Albert Chao, Y. Ping Sun and David Leebron, Andrea and Bill White, Isla and Thomas Reckling, Claudia and Roberto Contreras, Lily and Charles Foster, Margeret Alkek Williams, Joanne Herring, Phoebe Tudor, and Asia Society’s grand patron Nancy C. Allen.
The $1.2 million raised by Tiger Ball 2016 benefits exhibitions and programs, which promotes mutual understanding between the U.S. and Asia and strengthens the partnerships of all of Houston’s diverse communities.
Next year, Tiger Ball 2017 celebrates the magnificence of India, honoring long-time supporters Sushila and Durga Agrawal, who were also in attendance last night. To inquire about 2017 sponsorships, please contact Sadhavi Chauhan at Schauhan@AsiaSociety.org.
With 12 locations throughout the world, Asia Society is the leading educational organization promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among the peoples, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. Asia Society Texas Center executes the global mission with a local focus, enriching and engaging the vast diversity of Houston through innovative, relevant programs in arts and culture, business and policy, education, and community outreach.
Washington, DC: Attorney Jay Chaudhuri won the March 15 Democratic primary election for the 16th district state Senate seat in North Carolina to advance to the general election Nov. 8, beating Ellis Hankins with a two-third margin. Chaudhuri received 19,844 votes, or 63.14 percent, while Hankins got 11,584 votes, or 36.86 percent.
Chaudhuri, 46, a lawyer with ties to state government, will face the sole Republican candidate, Eric Weaver, in November, in a district that historically elects Democrats. “I’m honored that the voters have chosen me to be the Democratic nominee for the election in November,” Chaudhuri said. “We’re going to fight hard to continue Josh Stein’s tradition of being a champion for progressive values, and I look forward to bringing everyone together to work toward providing a world-class education for all our students and building an economy that works for all North Carolinians.”
The Senate seat for the district, which encompasses much of western Raleigh and Cary, has been vacant since Sen. Josh Stein decided to run for attorney general. Chaudhuri resigned as general counsel to North Carolina Treasurer Janet Cowell May 1, 2015, and later announced his candidacy for the state Senate June 2, 2015.
The Indian American candidate said that education is the overriding issue in his campaign. The Republican-dominated General Assembly in North Carolina, he charged, has “not made its focus on investing in public education. Teachers are leaving (North Carolina) for other states,” he had told India-West, adding that he views public education funding as “investing dollars in economic development.”
Born in Chattanooga, Tenn., and a resident of Cameron Village in Raleigh, with his wife, Sejal Mehta, a former New York prosecutor, and their two children, Chaudhuri has an extensive background in state government.
In addition to serving as general counsel and a policy adviser to Cowell, he was also Cooper’s special counsel and legislative counsel when Cooper was state Senate Majority Leader. Before that, Chaudhuri clerked for now Chief Judge Linda McGee of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and was Jacob K. Javits Fellow for former U.S. Sen. Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin.
Chaudhuri’s parents, Debi and Mithu Chaudhuri, left India 50 years ago and settled in Fayetteville, N.C., where his father worked at the Veteran Administration Hospital.
Chaudhuri graduated from Davidson College in Charlotte, N.C., the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs in New York and the North Carolina Central University School of Law.
Chaudhuri said in a press release last June that, while serving as general counsel to Cowell, he helped recover more than $100 million for state pension and unclaimed property funds and led efforts to establish the first ever Innovation Fund, a $230 million fund to support and invest in businesses with significant operations in North Carolina.
The Democratic primary for Stein’s seat was one of the more expensive legislative races with both candidates raising six figures. The race heated up when Chaudhuri sent campaign mailers publicizing some of Hankins’ donations to Republicans in the 1990s. Hankins, 62, former executive director of the N.C. League of Municipalities, responded with a “voter alert” confirming that he made the donations at the request of a former employee to improve relationships with Republicans. He criticized his opponent, saying they had a gentleman’s agreement to run a clean campaign.
Washington, DC: Niraj Antani, R-Ohio, fighting to retain his Ohio State Assembly seat, won the GOP primary after running unopposed on March 15. Antani, who recently was named the second most influential Republican under the age of 30, announced he was running for re-election in December. “I think I’ve been able to be effective for my community,” the Indian American legislator told the media in the January report. “The legislature has been able to cut taxes, prevent overall increased spending and increase education spending.”
A graduate of Ohio State University, receiving a bachelor’s in political science, as well as a juris doctorate degree from the University of Dayton School of Law, Antani was previously the communications director for the Ohio State University College Republicans during the 2012 presidential election, as well as the chair for the Young Americans for Romney in Ohio.
Antani was named to Forbes Magazine’s list of the top “30 Under 30” people in the United States for Law and Politics in 2015. In addition, he was named to the “Top 30 Conservatives Under Age 30 in the United States” list by Red Alert Politics. And in 2013, the Montgomery County Republican Party named him the “Republican Man of the Year.”
The young GOP candidate will be campaigning against Patrick Merris, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. “I was grateful that I was unopposed in the Republican primary and was glad to have received nearly 15,000 votes in the primary,” Antani was quoted to have said. “I look forward to the campaign in the fall, so I can continue my work to expand the American Dream to all those who work for it.”
He represents the 42nd District, which covers most of southern Montgomery County. At age 24, he is the youngest currently serving member of the House. In addition, he is the second Indian-American state elected official in Ohio history, and the first Indian-American Republican. During the Romney campaign in 2012, Antani worked for the Ohio State Director & Senior Adviser to the campaign. In 2010, he worked for U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Washington, DC. In Ohio, Antani worked for then State Representative – now State Senator – Peggy Lehner in 2009, as well as U.S. Congressman Mike Turner in his Dayton office in 2007.
A strong conservative, Antani is a member of the NRA and volunteers for Dayton Right to Life. He is a member of the Rotary Club of Miamisburg, serves on the executive board of the non-profit Dayton International Festival, Inc., and he chairs the Ohio Republican Party Asian Pacific American Advisory Council. Antani has appeared on Fox News, PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff, C-SPAN, CNBC, and Chuck Todd’s radio show. In addition, he has appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, and Newsmax.
Antani said a lot of people have criticized him for his age, but he sees it as an advantage. “I believe our generation should have a voice. The legislature in Columbus should look like who they serve, they should not all just be one age demographic,” he said. “A lot of people who told me to wait to run, they told me I was too young, too inexperienced. I did not believe that. Candidates should be chosen on their merit, on who is going to be the best candidate.”
Washington, DC: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join the ranks of prominent global leaders at Madame Tussauds in London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok next month, the world famous wax museum announced March 16th.
Describing him as a “hugely important figure in world politics,” the museum said the Indian prime minister had given the museum’s team of artists and experts a sitting at his residence in New Delhi earlier this year.
“Madame Tussauds has crafted figures of very distinguished dignitaries from around the world — how could I regard myself worthy of being alongside them? But when I was informed that your decision had emanated from public opinion and public sentiment, I was comforted,” Modi said in a statement to the museum.
“During my sitting, I observed the team carefully and was deeply impressed by its dedication, professionalism and skill. I have visited Madame Tussauds three or four times and had the pleasure of getting myself photographed standing next to the figures of various dignitaries,” he said.
The wax figures at each of the museum’s locations around Europe and Asia will be dressed in Modi’s “signature kurta” in cream with a jacket and he will be featured in a traditional pose “making a namaste gesture.”
“Prime Minister Modi is a hugely important figure in world politics, a position supported by his place in the top 10 of Time Magazine’s ‘Person of the Year List 2015’,” said museum spokesperson Kieran Lancini.
“His massive social media presence — he is currently the second most followed politician on twitter after President Obama — also confirms the intense interest the public have in him, a fact supported by the requests our guests have made for us to create his figure.
“We are delighted to be including the prime minister’s figure in our attractions in London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok,” he said. Each figure took a team of Madame Tussauds’ artists four months and cost around 150,000 pounds to create.
“Guests will be able to stand shoulder to shoulder and measure up to one of the most powerful men in the world – and even grab a selfie when the figures arrive in their locations,” the museum said. The launch in London and all other centers is expected around late April and it is yet to be confirmed if Modi would be personally unveiling himself in wax at any of the four locations.
A new branch of Madame Tussauds is also set to open in New Delhi as part of the India-UK Year of Culture in 2017, announced during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the UK last November.
Washington, DC: The Indian National Overseas Congress I(INOC) accorded a warm reception to former External Affairs Minister of India and Senior Congress Leader Shri Salman Khurshid in Washington DC on March 19th.
INOC(I) President, General Secretary and member met Salman Khurshid and briefed him of the activities of the Organization and also spoke to him on the issues and concerns of the Diaspora in the USA. Salman Khurshid was on a visit to address the Prestigious George Washington University and took time off to attend the meeting with INOC(I).
President INOC(I) – Lavika Bhagat Singh spoke on the several initiatives that she and Chairman Shudh Parkash Singh undertook – especially the Chalo Punjab campaign that was successful and she hoped that this initiative could be again taken up during the forthcoming Punjab Elections. She also spoke on the past events on literature and culture that she had hosted on the Capital Hill and were attended by the Congress leaders like Dr. Karan Singh and Shashi Taroor. She hoped that INOC(I) can host an event in the near future to help build stronger economic cooperation between USA and India. She was hopeful that the event will involve successful and renowned economists in this initiative that she is planning.
Rajender Dichpally briefed Salman Khurshid on the successful elections to INOC(I) conducted for the first time ever. He said we are grateful to our true leader Shudh Parkash Singh for his decision to hold elections democratically. Rajender also spoke on the activities of various chapters like Kerala, Punjab and Telangana that are helping spread the Congress ideology in the USA.
He hoped that the Indian National Congress will work closer with INOC(I) in helping spread the message of Pluralism and Nationalism among the Diaspora and hoped to see more meaningful visits of Congress Leaders to the USA like the present visit of Shri Salman Khurshid. There were other prominent economists, entrepreneurs and thinkers who attended the meeting between INOC(I) and Shri Salman Khurshid.
Attached Photo: Shri Salman Khurshid *Former External Affairs Minister of India) with Smt.Lavika Bhagat Singh (President – Indian National Overseas Congress(I)) and Rajender Dichpally (National General Secretary – Indian National Overseas Congress(I))
Washington, DC: Raja Krishnamoorthi , who won the Democratic Party primary on March 15, 2016 is all set to join the 11th Congress in the Nation’s Capital from the 8th Congressional District in the state of Illinois, that includes the Chicago suburbs of Hoffman Estates, Schaumburg and Palatine.
Krishnamoorthi won the Democratic primary, defeating his two opponents, Michael Noland and Deborah Bullwinkel. Krishnamoorthi believes he has a very good chance to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois’ 8th Congressional District, and is now focused on winning the general election in November. “So far, the dynamic has been favorable, but we can’t take anything for granted,” Krishnamoorthi said. “We have to make sure we get our message out.”
Krishnamoorthi is currently president of Sivananthan Labs, where he works on leading research teams developing semiconductor technologies, improved military technologies, solar cells and biosensors to detect weapons of mass destruction. He was formerly the Illinois Deputy Treasurer and served as the policy director for Barack Obama’s successful U.S. Senate campaign in 2004.
Raja Krishnamoorth
Krishnamoorthi noted that he has received endorsements from many politicians, including Democratic Representatives Jared Polis ’96 of Colorado and Derek Kilmer ’96 of Washington, local community leaders and advocacy groups in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Sunil Bhave, a member of the District 59 School Board, explained that Krishnamoorthi is a very genuine person who is able to get along with people who have different opinions, which is a very rare quality that is needed in Congress. “Within a minute of talking to him, you just want to shake his hand and give him a hug,” Bhave said. “He listens to what people have to say.”
Born in New Delhi, India, Krishnamoorthi moved to the United States when he was three-months-old so that his father could complete a graduate degree in industrial engineering. He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., and moved to Peoria, Ill., where his father was a faculty member at Bradley University. There, he graduated from Richwoods High School.
He explained that he decided to apply to the University because of the strong engineering school, which was where he intended to major. He also said that the liberal arts component and the presence of the Wilson School was key, because it would enable him to take humanities and science classes at the same time. “Princeton’s structure accommodated all of those interests at the same time,” he said. “I could not find that anywhere else.”
Krishnamoorthi graduated summa cum laude from the University. Krishnamoorthi received a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a certificate from the Wilson School. His independent project dealt with natural gas powered engines and his senior thesis for the Wilson School dealt with foreign directed investment in India, due to his interest in economic development.
He explained that he transferred from Electrical Engineering to Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering because of his interest in the large number of practical applications, such as combustion engines and solar cells. “I was able to take courses where the professors and the teaching assistants were available to mentor and shepherd me through some very difficult coursework,” Krishnamoorthi added. “They allowed me to excel.”
After graduating, Krishnamoorthi spent two years as a strategy consultant and dealt with how a business should grow, whether through increasing revenue or cutting costs. He had always wanted to go to law school because of his interest in government and public policy. “There’s nothing like law school that prepares you for that,” Krishnamoorthi said. “You really learn about the bones of our legal system and the Constitution, and how the federal government operates.”
He then graduated from Harvard Law School in 2000, clerked for Judge Joan Gottschall at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois for a year. He assisted Judge Gottschall in deciding cases, and dealt with procedural motions arising in the cases. “It’s a real workout in terms of researching and writing and learning to express yourself persuasively,” he said.
Krishnamoorthi then joined law firm Kirkland and Ellis in Chicago, Ill., as an attorney. He dealt with many different types of law, including contract law, securities law, white-collar criminal prosecutions and bankruptcy litigation. In addition, he did some pro-bono work and was particularly proud of helping a man who had been persecuted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Krishnamoorthi was then appointed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to be the Special Attorney General with the Public Integrity Unit. He took this position after a former colleague at Kirkland and Ellis became the head of the Public Integrity Unit and asked Krishnamoorthi to come and join him.
Krishnamoorthi’s first foray into politics occurred in 1999, when he worked on Barack Obama’s Democratic primary campaign for the 1st Congressional District of Illinois. Obama lost, but asked Krishnamoorthi to become policy director for his Senate campaign in 2004. As a policy director, he educated Obama on various issues and formulated policy that would set him apart from his competitors. He also helped Obama prepare for debates.
In 2007, Krishnamoorthi left Kirkland and Ellis to become the Deputy Treasurer of Illinois. He was appointed by the Treasurer, who was formerly the banker of Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign. Krishnamoorthi focused on writing the policies aimed at promoting economic development, and was impressed by the amount of money managed by the state.
His first foray into elected office came in 2010, when Krishnamoorthi sought the Democratic nomination for Illinois State Comptroller, who maintains the state’s accounts and authorizes checks and payments. He noted that he possessed a unique set of skills that would help him in this position.
“One the one hand, I was an attorney who had investigated ethics abuses,” he said. “On the other hand, I had some financial training as the Deputy Treasurer.” Krishnamoorthi lost to David Miller in the Democratic primary by just over a percentage point. He said that he was able to meet great people during his bid, which encouraged him to try again for elected office. From his first run, he learned that he needed to raise more money to get his message across.
In 2010, Krishnamoorthi joined Sivananthan Laboratories as the president after meeting Dr. Sivalingam Sivananthan, the founder of Sivananthan Labs, when Krishnamoorthi was running for Comptroller.
In 2011, Krishnamoorthi decided to run for the House of Representatives in the 8th District of Illinois. He noted that he jumped into the race because he wanted to defeat then Rep. Joe Walsh, a Tea Party Republican. “He was then the Donald Trump of the U.S. Congress,” Krishnamoorthi said. “He was a horrible guy who played on people’s fears and tried to demagogue on the issues.”
Krishnamoorthi said that his second attempt at elected office was a positive experience because the discussions he had with his opponents were civil and ideas-focused. However, he lost the Democratic nomination to Tammy Duckworth, who went on to become the Representative for the 8th District. Krishnamoorthi then became an advisor to Rep. Duckworth. Last year, Rep. Duckworth announced that she would step down from the House of Representatives to run for the U.S. Senate. Krishnamoorthi subsequently declared his candidacy for the 8th District in 2015, and won the Mar. 15 Democratic primary.
“South Asians turned out in higher numbers than normal this time,” Krishnamoorthi said, hoping that would be the “new normal” in the future. During an event organized by the South Asian community, Raja Krishnamoorthi in his stirring eloquence spelled out his vision –when elected – to usher a new day in the United States Congress with pressing legislative agenda that seeks to strengthen working families, making college affordable, bolstering small businesses, reforming immigration system, improving America’s infrastructure. More importantly Raja Krishnamoorthi assured that he would passionately pursue critical agenda for Americans in bringing about economic equality, protecting Social Security, Medicare and fiercely advocating policies to help working families and raising minimum wage.
Keerthi Kumar Ravoori, Event Convener in his welcome remarks said that we as Indian Americans stand on the precipice of a shining hope and brighter promise with Raja Krishnamoorthi nearing to enter the portals of the U.S. Congress with comprehensive legislative goals. Keerthi Ravoori characterized Raja Krishnamoorthi as a ‘legislative genius’ who would passionately pursue meaningful legislative agenda by hitting the ground running when elected.
Dr. Vijay Prabhakar, Event Co-Chair in his remarks vociferously emphasized that the candidacy of Raja Krishnamoorthi represents a chance of a life time for the current and the future generations. He stridently challenged every Asian American to rise up and stand shoulder to shoulder to help Raja cross the finish line victoriously so that all Americans can see this eminent political personality as a shining inspiration for the entire nation.
His campaign has mainly revolved around keeping people in the middle class and strengthening the middle class and he has advocated for a set of policies to achieve this. Krishnamoorthi wants to raise the minimum wage, pass paid maternity leave, reduce student debt burdens and focus on building a clean-energy economy.
Krishnamoorthi noted that many of his policies have bipartisan support, and he wants to work to find common ground. He explained that there are many Tea Party Congressmen who support expanding solar energy. “Some folks believe that solar energy has become a liberty and independence issue in the Southwest and Florida, because they can cut the cord with their utilities,” he said. “It has the promise of combatting climate change and creating jobs.”
Some other races that would affect Indian-Americans’ political standing nationally and at state levels include California state Attorney General Kamala Harris’ run for the U.S. Senate; incumbent California Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, running for his third term from District 7; Maryland state Assemblyman and former Majority Leader Kumar Barve, the first Indian-American to win a state assembly seat back in 1990, still seeking his party’s nomination in his bid for the U.S. Congress from District 8; civil rights advocate and Washington state Assemblywoman Pramila Jayapal’s run for the Senate from District 7; attorney Neil Makhija, chosen by the Democratic Party to run for the Pennsylvania state House from District 122; and three-term Vermont state Rep. Kesha Ram’s bid for Lt. Governor, among others.
WASHINGTON, D.C: There have been studies that have found that America gains much by attracting talented, educated and resourceful workforce from among the world through its popular H1-B Work Visa, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump stoked another controversy by vowing to abolish the visa program, popular among Indian techies. IT professionals from India and major Indian IT companies are major beneficiary of H-1B, a non-immigrant visa in the US which allows US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in speciality occupations.
Donald Trump has said the H-1B visa programme he uses to employ highly-skilled foreign workers at his own businesses should end as it is “very unfair” for American workers and has been taking away their jobs. The last Republican presidential debate in Miami began with all the four White House aspirants slamming the H-1B visa system — popular among Indian techies, with Florida Senator Marco Rubio even naming Tata and India as part of his anti- H-1B rhetoric.
“I know the H-1B very well. And it’s something that I frankly use and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We shouldn’t have it. Very, very bad for workers. It’s very important to say, well, I’m a businessman and I have to do what I have to do,” Trump said while responding to a question on foreign workers, in particular H-1B visas. “When it’s sitting there waiting for you, but it’s very bad. It’s very bad for business, it’s very bad for our workers and it’s unfair for our workers. We should end it,” he said.
Trump’s website calls for eliminating the H-1B class of visas that allow companies to import high-skilled workers from countries like India. “We do need highly skilled, and one of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges,” Trump said.
However, Trump had recently said in political rally, “They’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, they’ll go to Wharton, as soon as they’re finished they’ll get shoved out. They want to stay in this country,” he said. “They want to stay here desperately, they’re not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country,” Trump said in response to a question.
“I’m changing. I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have,” Trump, 69, said during the Republican presidential debate in Detroit. Responding to a question on his views on immigration in particular highly skilled people, Trump said America needs highly skilled professionals.
“So you abandoning the position on your website…?” he was asked. “I’m changing it, and I’m softening the position, because we have to have talented people in this country,” Trump said.
However, within an hour of his statement, which was interpreted differently by immigration experts, Trump clarified his position. “The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay,” Trump said.
“I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements,” he said in his statement.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio immediately slammed Trump for his policy change. “Tonight, Donald Trump finally took an actual position,” Rubio said in a statement provided by his campaign. “But as soon as the debate was over, his handlers made him reverse himself. The Republican nominee cannot be somebody who is totally clueless on so many issues, including his signature issue,” he said.
Muslims and Sikhs in Maryland have joined the camp of Donald Trump claiming that the Republican presidential frontrunner is not actually against their communities. Members of the two groups – “Sikh Americans for Trump” and “Muslim Americans for Trump” – whose members are mostly South Asians, held its first meeting in a Maryland suburb that was addressed by a representative from the Trump campaign. According to media reports, the organizers of the meeting argued that the view of Trump about minority community has been “twisted” and “taken out of context” by the mainstream media. They also said that the billionaire real estate magnet would create more jobs in the country which would benefit the minorities.
“He (Trump) is not at all against the Sikhs or the Muslim community. What he says is given spin. The mainstream media gives a spin because they are scared of him. He is not the status quo. He is not taking anybody’s money,” Jasdip Singh, who helped organize the “Sikh Americans for Trump” in Maryland, was quoted as saying in a news agency report widely published in Indian newspapers.
A prominent member of the Sikh community, Singh is chairman of the Maryland governor’s Commission on South Asian Affairs and chairman of the Board of Sikh Associations of Baltimore. He said when Trump talks about Muslims, he does not talk about all Muslims or American Muslims. “He spoke in the context of the refugee crisis that was happening in Syria. We (Sikhs) agree with him. Muslim Americans agree with him that we should not bring people into this country before we can vet them. And this was a temporary measures proposed by him,” Singh said.
Trump is not against the minorities, he said, adding that he believes that his presidency will be good for India. Sajid Tarar, a Pakistani-American, who helped organize the Muslim Americans for Trump, said that of all the presidential candidates, Trump is the only one who has achievements to show.
“We believe, he has the ability and capacity to change America. He has built a huge empire. He is self-funding the campaign. There is no special interest behind him,” Tarar said. “There is a war going on against Trump. Every message and speech of his has been twisted,” he said referring to the Trump’s call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country.
Kesha Ram, 29, an young Indian American, is seeking to win a statewide election in Vermont to be this north eastern state’s next Lieutenant Governor. Having served four two-year terms as a state representative in the Legislature, Ram is now shifting her focus to the post of lieutenant governor.
“When I first ran for the legislature, it was the start of the great recession,” Ram said of her first campaign when she was just 21 and ending her college career. “We were lucky if we could shape our future. It felt important to be a voice for our experience.” During her four terms and eight years in the state House, Ram has dedicated herself to improving civic engagement opportunities for residents of Vermont, as well as helping vulnerable populations get access to much-needed services.
Inspired by then Senator Barack Obama whom she introduced in 2006, at a rally when he came to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ram now she feels she accomplished enough in the legislature since 2008, and that it’s time to move on. But it’s a crowded field with at least three Democrats and a Republican vying in the Aug. 9 primaries.
But this time to the Lieutenant Governor’s office, a part-time post with a just a couple of ceremonial duties. She however, plans to change that. Vermont is one of 11 states that uses an open primary system, in which registered voters do not have to be members of a party to vote in that party’s primary.
Vermont’s current Lieutenant Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, is running for governor in a state that has elected presidential candidate and avowed Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders to the U.S. Senate for many years now. Ram, vying for the seat being vacated by Phil Scott, R-Vt., who is running for governor in 2016, is up against fellow Democrats Garrett Graff, Brandon Riker and Sen. David Zuckerman. Former Sen. Randy Brock is the only declared Republican running, while Dr. Louis Meyers has declared his candidacy as an independent. The primary election for the lieutenant governor seat in Vermont is set for Aug. 2; the general election is Nov. 8.
“I feel I’ve accomplished quite a bit in my time in the state legislature,” said Ram, the daughter of a white mother and Indian father, and great-great granddaughter of renowned civil engineer Sir Ganga Ram.
Born to a father who immigrated to the U.S. from India and mother born-and-raised in Illinois, Ram grew up in the Los Angeles area, where her parents met while they attended UCLA. “My father had a passion for opening a small business,” Ram said. Her parents started an Irish pub, McGinty’s Irish Pub, and the hard work it took her father to get that going was instilled early on in Ram. She chose to direct that passion and energy into political work.
Even while she was attending the University of Vermont, which she chose because she felt a “strong sense of community” during a visit prior to committing to the school, she had developed her political voice. The young Indian American served as the university’s student body president and was still enrolled as a senior when she ran for, and won, a spot as state representative eight years ago.
“As lieutenant governor, I’m able to create an opportunity agenda for the entire state,” Ram said, adding that the office is open part-time but she is devoted to working the position full-time, even when not in session. “(The position) relies on relationships and brings people together for a common goal. I have proven I can do this during my time in the legislature.”
She counts among those accomplishments expanding incentives for first-time home buyers; protecting victims of sexual abuse, leading the move to pass human trafficking laws, revenge porn laws, and stalking laws; as well as getting Vermont to recognize the Native American Abenaki tribe so that it qualifies to apply for benefits.
“I am seen as a consensus lawmaker,” Ram says. And the youth she wanted to represent then now face newer problems, which she claims she could address better from her new perch as Lt. Governor.
“The reason I got into politics was because our generation was struggling in the height of the recession, where we hardly had a place on our parents’ couch,” she said. “Now our young people are facing problems as first time-homebuyers, meeting student debts etc. There are very few people who can speak for them.” Work for the past eight years on making higher education affordable, dealing with debt, evidently was not enough, she concedes.
“The position is what you make of it,” Ram counters. “I see myself as a ‘Connector-in Chief’” –bringing people together.” Vermont, unlike many other states, requires the governor and Lieutenant Governor to run on separate tickets and not the same slate. It may end up having different party leaders occupying those offices. She believes her consensus building skills will be important.
In a bid to gain advantage in the Democratic presidential primary, Bernie Sanders’s campaign has distributed a video last week showing Hillary Clinton on television in India in 2012 saying there are “pluses and minuses” to outsourcing U.S. jobs. Appearing on Indian station NDTV during her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton was asked during a town hall-style public affairs program for her thoughts on outsourcing from the United States to India.
“Well, you know, it’s been going on for many years now,” Clinton said on the program, “and it’s part of our economic relationship with India, and I think there are advantages with it that have certainly benefited many parts of our country, and there are disadvantages that go to the need to, you know, improve the job skills of our own people and create a better economic environment, so it’s, like anything, it’s, you know, got pluses and minuses.”
The two Democratic campaigns offer very different interpretations of her comments and their broader significance. Sanders’s camp is prepared to argue that Clinton’s words, spoken abroad, show an insensitivity to the plight of U.S. workers, including those in trade-battered Michigan, which has shed far more than its share of manufacturing jobs.
Clinton’s team, meanwhile, says that there’s really nothing to see here: that what Clinton said is consistent with her view that trade can be a mixed bag and the president needs to work to maximize its advantages for the United States.
Sanders’s campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said he’s convinced Clinton’s comments will not play well in Michigan “when so many communities like Detroit and Flint have been hurt so badly by outsourcing. Secretary Clinton should explain to the people of Michigan how they have benefited from outsourcing of their manufacturing jobs,” Weaver said.
Clinton’s aides argue that during the campaign she has demonstrated a much deeper commitment than Sanders to rebuilding the U.S. manufacturing sector. “Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in this race with a comprehensive agenda to create jobs, revitalize manufacturing communities and break down barriers for small businesses to start and grow,” said Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson. “Rather than attacks on the past, Senator Sanders should tell Michigan voters how he will create manufacturing jobs and grow our economy.”
Sanders said, he has consistently opposed “disastrous” trade deals, starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s, that Clinton supported during her tenures as first lady, a senator from New York and secretary of state. Sanders has also been critical of the length of time it took for Clinton to reach her current opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership, a pending pact championed by President Obama that Sanders opposed from the outset.
WASHINGTON — President Obama is reportedly vetting Sri Srinivasan, 49, federal appellate judge who has enjoyed substantial support from Republicans in the past, as potential nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy that has set off a brutal election-year fight.
Jane L. Kelly and Merrick B. Garland, both federal appellate judges, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a federal trial judge, are among others, reportedly being vetted by President Obama for the vacancy in the highest Court in the country. Reports state that they are undergoing background checks by the F.B.I. The White House has not given any indication in this regard.
“President Obama is vetting Merrick B. Garland and Sri Srinivasan, federal appellate judges who have enjoyed substantial support from Republicans in the past, as potential nominees for a Supreme Court vacancy that has set off a brutal election-year fight,” The New York Times reported March 5.
Taken together, the names help flesh out a list of potential nominees for an appointment that could reshape the court and the country. A replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon who died on Feb. 13, could hold the deciding vote on matters of abortion rights, guns, the environment, campaign finance and a wide range of other issues.
Srinivasan is currently the U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which many call as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. He is not only considered a favorite of Obama, who called him a trailblazer, but also his nomination was confirmed by a record 97-0 vote.
Srinivasan was sworn in as judge Sept. 26, 2013, making him the first Indian American to be on the bench of the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit. Retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor has called Srinivasan “fair, faultless and fabulous.” He received the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Furthering U.S. National Security in 2003, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence in 2005.
Amidst protests from Republicans, President Obama has said he has an obligation under the Constitution, which says he “shall” nominate Supreme Court justices, to fill the vacancy. Public opinion polls indicate that large majorities of Americans believe that the Senate should hold confirmation hearings.
New York, NY: A coalition of groups representing women in politics is pushing for Jenifer Rajkumar to replace former New York State Assemblyman Sheldon Silver in a special election. Rajkumar, an attorney and district leader in the 65th Assembly district, previously sought a city council seat. Sheldon Silver, 71, lost his seat recently when he was convicted on all seven felony counts of corruption, including extortion, money laundering and theft of honest services.
Rajkumar is one of several Democrats seeking to replace Silver in his lower Manhattan Assembly district. The former speaker stepped down from the top post in January following his arrest, but retained his seat in the back of the Assembly chamber. Rajkumar is optimistic despite the Democratic County Committee in the 65th Assembly District overwhelmingly endorsing someone else for the Special Election.
Seven Democrats are in the running to fill the vacant seat. Democratic District Leader Alice Cancel has been endorsed by the Democratic County Committee of the 65th District, where Rajkumar trailed 3rd in the vote count. Others include Working Families Party candidate Yuh-Line Niou, chief of staff to Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim, who has been endorsed by the chairman of the state Assembly’s Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus; District Leader Paul Newell; and a local community board chairwoman Gigi Li.
Rajkumar practices civil rights law, with a specialty in employment discrimination, worker’s rights, class actions, and whistleblower lawsuits. She was part of the litigation team in Velez v. Novartis, on behalf of a class of 5,600 women in their disparate pay and pregnancy discrimination claims. The U.N. named this one of the top ten cases in the world advancing women’s equality, and it resulted in the largest ever jury award in an employment discrimination case.
Rajkumar has helped represent whistleblowers taking a stand against corporate greed and corruption in multiple qui tam actions under the Federal False Claims Act, where she has helped secure millions of dollars for her firm’s clients. She recently originated an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of NOW, Equal Rights Advocates, and other national women’s groups where her firm argued for equality for women in nontraditional fields such as construction, firefighting, and mining. Rajkumar graduated from Stanford Law School. She was named a “Rising Star” by City & State and received a “Young Woman of Achievement Award” from WIN in 2012.She was selected as a 40 Under 40 Rising Star by City & State, one of New York’s premier news soures for politics, in its annual 40 Under 40 Rising Stars list., Rising Star, City & State, 2012.
The young Indian American was selected from an extremely competitive pool for a 2012 WIN Young Woman of Achievement Award, awarded annually to five high achieving women below the age of 35 by national nonprofit that seeks to train the next generation of women leaders. Selectors included WIN Advisory Council Members who are women at the top of their fields in government, nonprofit, law, and politics. Presented award in Washington, DC at a ceremony attended by about 300 people., Young Women of Achievement Award, WIN (Women’s Information Network), 2012. She was declared a “Local Heroine’ by the Battery Park paper The Broadsheet.
The Indian-American has been an elected Democratic Leader since 2011 and has deep roots in the area, which she emphasized would carry her through. Rajkumar has been endorsed by the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club named after the well-known gay rights advocate. Last December, a coalition of national women’s groups endorsed Rajkumar, including the Women’s Campaign Fund. A few weeks ago, a coalition of Latino leaders in the Lower East Side endorsed her as well.
“In a nation now ranked 86th in the world in the number of women in elected office and dropping, it is essential that we support the political ascendancy of women like Jenifer Rajkumar,” said Siobhan “Sam” Bennett, the author and political advocate who is a former president and CEO of the Women’s Campaign Fund. “Beyond her obvious qualifications, as a young minority woman she embodies exactly what is needed to correct our nation’s long-term electoral course. I’m proud to support her current candidacy and to have been one of those to encourage her to run for office at the beginning of her bright political career.”
Former Deputy Mayor Ninfa Segarra also endorsed Rajkumar’s Assembly bid, calling her an “ideal candidate.” “She has the ability to unite the many different communities in the district and provide a strong voice fighting for the district’s needs. Jenifer has the skill sets and temperament to succeed in New York State government,” Segarra said.
If elected, Rajkumar would be joining a Legislature that has seen an increasing number of women holding seats, with female representation hitting a new high of 55 members this year. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to call a special election for Silver’s seat for April 19, the same day as the presidential primary in New York.
Washington, DC: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, resigned on Sunday in order to endorse presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Gabbard — who was the first Hindu and first American Samoan to be elected to Congress, as well as the youngest person ever elected to the Hawaii legislature, at age 21 — commended the leftist Vermont senator for his foreign policy, and his opposition to the hawkish policies of fellow presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“After much thought and consideration, I’ve decided I cannot remain neutral and sit on the sidelines any longer,” she wrote in an email to fellow DNC officers obtained by Politico.
“There is a clear contrast between our two candidates with regard to my strong belief that we must end the interventionist, regime change policies that have cost us so much,” Gabbard said.
“This is not just another ‘issue.’ This is THE issue, and it’s deeply personal to me,” Gabbard continued. “This is why I’ve decided to resign as Vice Chair of the DNC so that I can support Bernie Sanders in his efforts to earn the Democratic nomination in the 2016 presidential race.”
Gabbard, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has condemned U.S. policy in Syria. In late 2015, she introduced a bipartisan bill that called for “an immediate end to the illegal, counter-productive war to overthrow” Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Washington, DC: March 7, 201: The coming of age of the Indian American community is evident all over with the tiny less than 1% of the US population leading in several areas of American life. With the record number of Indian Americans holding high jobs in the Obama administration, many more are even trying to take an active role in the politics of the country by trying to get elected to public offices across the nation. They are the most affluent and best educated of any immigrant group in the country, according to Pew. They include doctors, engineers, tech entrepreneurs and educators, and form a rich donor base. However, Indian-Americans are more spread out than other ethnic groups, and Indian-American candidates in expensive races often have to go out of state to raise funds.
With only one sitting US Congressman of Indian origin in the US Congress, many more are now vying to enter the US Congress. Kamala Harris in California is expected to win the US Senate race in November. With veteran House of Delegates member Kumar Barve running for Congress in Maryland, and Rep. Ami Bera currently ensconced representing a congressional district in Northern California, if the stars align themselves fortuitously, the Indian American community could have many more members elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016.
The Indian American presence on the political stage was delayed until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which opened up the quotas preventing Indians from migrating to the United States and sharply increased the presence of Indians in America. Dalip Singh Saund was the first Indian American member of the House of Representatives, a Sikh who converted his PhD in math to a successful farming career in California, garnering support for a brief Congressional career. But the Indian American presence in Congress since then has been limited, the only blip being former Congressman—and the former governor of Louisiana—Bobby Jindal and the rising star in the Republican Party, Nikki Haley, the governor of North Carolina.
They lean strongly toward Democrats, yet two Republican governors, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, are of Indian descent. Harris will have to seek contributions to run in a state with some of the costliest media markets in the country. Asian-Americans could form a crucial part of her campaign.
Indian Americans are also aligning with presidential candidates of their choices across the nation. “By mid-March, we will have a clear Democratic nominee,” Indian American political activist Saif Khan, a volunteer for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign, told the media. “After ‘Super Tuesday,’ we will see a significant lead in delegates and the delegate allocation will show who the clear front runner is,” he said. Khan, an Iraq war veteran, is joining “Operation Rolling Victory,” a campaign initiative in which former war veterans come out to support Clinton at various rallies throughout the country. “When it comes to political contributions, that aspect of her identity will become important,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, associate dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside.
People from New York and New Jersey have got busy this election year to give some time from work to party candidates. While it was difficult to get an exact count of how many Indian-American volunteers are working from the Tri-state area for the Democratic campaign, some young political activists, put the figure of leading volunteers in leadership roles close to 100. There are many others giving some of their time and energy to campaigns.
Sampat Shivangi, founder of the Indian American Forum for Political Education, has expressed disappointment over former Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s decision to drop out of the race, following the Republican primary Feb. 20 in South Carolina. Bush had fared dismally throughout the battle, trailing far behind Republican contenders Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah, a long-time supporter of the Bush family, also expressed dispaoointment: “I am very disappointed that Governor Bush has decided to get out of the race. I have great admiration for him. He is a fantastic human being.” Zachariah, also a long-time Republican Party leader, said he was “perplexed” as to how to move forward. “This is a new game. I have no idea what happens next.” “The extreme right wing of the Republican Party has hijacked the party. Trump is preying upon the angriest of people and dividing the electorate,” said Zachariah.
Calling Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump as the “best hope for America”, some Indian-Americans in the New York Tristate area have formed a Political Action Committee (PAC) to support and raise funds for him. Headed by Dr. AD Amar, a business professor with Seton Hall University in New Jersey, the ‘Indian-Americans for Trump 2016’ was registered as a PAC with the Federal Election Commission last month. Its sole goal is “to garner actively the support of all Americans, but particularly Indian-Americans, to have Donald J. Trump become the next President of the USA,” the PAC said in a press release.
Ash Kalra, a member of the San Jose City Council, is vying to become the first Indian-American elected to the California legislature. “The longer the Indian-American community has been in this country, the more it has matured,” Kalra said. “And part of that maturity is becoming more politically active.”
Last year, technology lawyer Ro Khanna, a Democrat, sought a seat in Congress, while former U.S. Treasury Department official Neel Kashkari, a Republican, ran for governor. Though both challenged popular incumbents and lost, their efforts are emblematic of the rise in Indian-American political engagement.
The election results could have major consequences for India and the Indian Americans. The average Indian American may be more interested in a US president who keeps the “golden door” open for immigrants, students and temporary hi-tech workers. They would also be reassured if the White House has a person who upholds traditional liberal democratic views on religious minorities and multiculturalism as a whole.
The populists in both parties, whether Trump or Sanders, have been the most vocal against migrants. Trump has targeted Muslims and Mexicans, Sanders H-1B visa workers. But their rhetoric would worry migratory birds the most. India, however, gets only a passing mention by even the most extreme candidates. Ultimately, says Twining, “the fact that India, unlike China, will not be an election issue should be reassuring to New Delhi.”
Says Sanjay Puri, head of the US-India Political Action Committee, “Indian-Americans tend to be more Democrats than Republicans and it has not changed much this election cycle, especially with Clinton running as she has long-standing relationships with the Indian-American community.” But, he notes, no candidate is allergic to Indians. “Each candidate has a support base in the Indian-American community.”
Washington, DC: March 7, 2015: Of the many choices in endorsing candidates for the March 15 primary, the Chicago Tribune editorial board wrote that the decision for Congress in the 8th District of Illinois “isn’t close at all” and that the “Tribune endorses [Raja] Krishnamoorthi” for the seat to represent the voters of the northwest Chicago suburbs.
“Krishnamoorthi’s amalgam of business and government experience makes him the best candidate, hands down,” the Chicago Tribune editorial board stated. “A Harvard Law School grad who lives in Schaumburg, he’s been a deputy state treasurer and an assistant attorney general. He’s president of two high-tech firms focused on military security and renewable energy. Those overlapping experiences give him a valuable perspective on how government policy affects businesses and workers.”
The Chicago Tribune endorsement makes it a clean sweep of Chicago-area newspaper endorsements for the progressive Democrat Krishnamoorthi following the earlier endorsements from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Herald, the largest suburban newspaper in the Chicago area.
Raja Krishnamoorth
“We were impressed with Krishnamoorthi’s command of specifics about the tax code and the Affordable Care Act — and even more impressed when he emailed us after our meeting to correct himself on a minor point,” the Chicago Tribune editorial board wrote. “We like that he’s already scoped out opportunities to join in bipartisan initiatives on criminal justice reform and alternative energy. We agree with his maxim that government must do everything ‘faster, cheaper, smarter.’”
Raja Krishnamoorthi, the former deputy state treasurer of Illinois, an Indian American Democrat, who had lost to Rep. Tammy Duckworth in the Democratic primary for Congress in 2012, has announced his bid to join the fray to take the seat one more time. The 41-year-old Indian American has been campaigning to succeed Duckworth in Congress as the representative for the 8th District in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Duckworth has declared her candidacy to the US Senate from the state of Lincoln.
The United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 881, has endorsed Raja Krishnamoorthi. In their endorsement, Ronald Powell, President, Local 881 and UFCW International Vice President said, “Local 881 United Food and Commercial Workers are proud to give Raja Krishnamoorthi our endorsement. Raja is the only candidate in the 8th District race with a working families agenda that offers a significant increase in the minimum wage, equal pay for equal work and guaranteed paid sick leave and maternity leave for workers.”
In the race to replace Tammy Duckworth in Congress, Raja Krishnamoorthi has opened up a double-digit lead. A live poll of 400 likely Democratic voters taken February 9-11 by GBA Strategies asked 8th District voters in the northwest Chicago suburbs which candidate they would vote for if the election were held today.
Krishnamoorthi had the support of 41 percent of voters with State Sen. Mike Noland at 27 percent and Villa Park President Deb Bullwinkel with 5 percent. Undecided voters accounted for 26 percent of the poll. The margin of error was +/- 4.9 percentage points.
Raja said, “I’m encouraged that voters are responding to our message of protecting Social Security and Medicare, fighting for sane gun laws and standing up for policies to help struggling working families.” A capable fundraiser who raised about $1.3 million for his 2012 run, he said in a press release that he wants to continue Duckworth’s advocacy for working families, with a focus on helping more people to succeed in the new economy. I will work hard to provide education and job opportunities so more families can achieve the economic security they need.
According to Krishnamoorthi, “The one issue that continues to resonate with voters is the economic insecurity of the middle class.” There is growing importance, he added, to gain access to jobs that pay a living wage and access to the right kind of jobs in the 21st Century. He said he knows he needs to raise at least as much money as he did in 2012 to win in the March 2016 Democratic primary in what could be a crowded field.
A resident of Schaumburg, Ill., where he lives with his wife, Priya, a doctor at a local hospital, and their sons Vijay, 9, and Vikram, 5, who attend public schools in school District 54, Krishnamoorthi is president of Sivananthan Labs and Episolar, small businesses selling products in the national security and renewable energy sectors.
In 2006, he was appointed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan as a Special Assistant Attorney General in her public integrity unit and he served as a member of the Illinois Housing Development Authority. When he ran in 2016 against Duckworth, who had the support of many in the Democratic leadership, Krishnamoorthi lost by a 66.6% to 33.4% margin.
Co-founder of InSPIRE, a nonprofit providing training to Illinois students and veterans in solar technology, he is a former vice chair of the Illinois Innovation Council, a group supporting economic growth and job creation in Illinois.
Krishnamoorthi pointed out that when he served as deputy treasurer of Illinois, where he helped revamp the state’s unclaimed property system by using technology to increase the amount of property returned to taxpayers while cutting the program’s costs. Raised in Peoria, Ill., he has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Princeton University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. Krishnamoorthi clerked for a federal judge in Chicago, became a partner in an Illinois law firm and was an issues director for Barack Obamaâ’s successful United States Senate campaign in 2004.
“We need people in Congress who understand the opportunities provided by the new economy and how to make sure more Americans are prepared to seize them,” the Indian American candidate said in a press release. “That requires practical, pragmatic ideas and far less partisanship and politics. I want to help provide this leadership and ensure that the same opportunities that my family had to escape tough economic times exist for other working families today and into the future,” he said.
“I am excited to have the support of the hardworking men and women of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 881,” Raja said. “UFCW, Local 881 represents more than 34,000 members employed in retail food, drug stores and grocery stores. Winning another labor union endorsement shows that my campaign’s message of helping more Americans find good jobs and help grow and strengthen the middle class is resonating with voters throughout the northwest Chicago suburbs.”
California’s 17th Congressional district seat remains hotly-contested between Honda and Khanna. The two squared off in the 2014 election cycle in which Honda prevailed by less than 5,000 over the Indian American Stanford professor.
The endorsement for Honda at the state’s Democratic Convention, held Feb. 26 through Feb. 28 in San Jose, Calif., comes just a month after the delegates were unable to endorse a candidate at the Jan. 28 pre-endorsement conference.
The campaign of Honda’s Democratic challenger, Indian American Ro Khanna, however, was encouraged by the developments simply because Honda had to go to the convention to get the endorsement. “The entire (endorsement process) is rigged to protect the incumbent,” Khanna campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan told the media. The endorsement process has three rounds for the party to give its endorsement, with incumbents not getting endorsed if more than 20 percent, 30 percent or 50 percent oppose each round, respectively.
Honda did not receive 80 percent support in the first round, setting up the pre-endorsement conference in which he failed to secure the 70 percent needed. The fallout from that led to the February convention in which he needed 50 percent of the delegates’ support. “It’s embarrassing for Honda that it even got to this point,” Sevugan said, adding that the majority of the delegates voting are appointed by Honda or his allies.
Despite receiving the endorsement, Honda continues to lose support of many dignitaries, who are siding with Khanna in his campaign efforts. Among those shifting gears in 2016 are California Secretary of State Alex Padilla and the Laborers International Union of North American Pacific Southwest Region.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen and Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone have endorsed Democratic challenger Ro Khanna to represent the 17th Congressional District — a triple blow to Rep. Mike Honda.
None of the three prominent local Democrats endorsed either candidate last year during their first showdown that ended with Honda, D-San Jose, beating Khanna by 3.6 percentage points. And none, at least in their initial statements, hinted that the House Ethics Committee’s ongoing probe of blurred lines between Honda’s office and campaign influenced their endorsements.
The state’s 17th Congressional district includes much of California’s Silicon Valley cities such as Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Santa Clara, as well as north San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont and Newark. Many Indian American Silicon Valley luminaries have thrown their support behind Khanna. The primary election is scheduled for June 7 with the general election on Nov. 8.
Sacramento, CA: Rep. Ami Bera, D-Sacramento, who is seeking reelection to US Congress and California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, have received endorsements from the California Democratic Party, during the state convention on February 27th.
Bera, who has been in an ongoing battle with Sikh Americans and labor groups in his district – CD-7 – handily won his endorsement, gaining nearly 90 percent of the vote. Fifty people voted for the sole Indian American in Congress, while six voted against him. Bera – who is seeking his third term in office – is running unopposed in the primary election June 7. He will face Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones – a Republican – in the general election Nov. 8.
“I’m proud that local Sacramento County Democrats voted to award me the state party’s endorsement,” Bera said after the vote. “I came to Washington to fix Congress, and to help the working parents, business owners, seniors, and many others in my district get ahead and, today, these fine people recognized this. They know that I went to DC to fix a broken Congress, something I will never stop working to do,” said the physician, who formerly served as the chief medical officer for Sacramento County.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, told party delegates before the endorsement vote was taken that Bera’s position on TPA was different from her position, but that his vote on the issue should not be the sole basis for his re-election. “He is a valued member of the Congress. He has a great base of support at the grassroots level and I think he will win,” said Pelosi.
Kamala Harris also handily won her endorsement from the California Democratic Party, winning more than 78 percent of the vote. Harris is battling Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Orange County, and Republican contender Duf Sundheim, an attorney who formerly served as the state’s Republican Party chairman. California’s open primary allows the top two vote getters from either party to go on to the general election.
In her speech before the endorsement vote, Harris – who served as San Francisco’s District Attorney before ascending to the post of Attorney General in 2012 – chronicled her youth growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, as the daughter of two civil rights activists. She spoke about the hateful rhetoric spewing out of the Republican Party and vowed to protect the fundamental rights of all U.S. residents. “For far too many, liberty and justice for all is a promise we have failed to keep,” said Harris.
After the vote, Harris’s campaign sent out a statement late Feb. 27. “I’m incredibly honored to have the endorsement of the California Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate race, and I’m so proud of the support our campaign has received from every corner of our state,” she said. “We know there is more that unites us than divides us, and I’m grateful to the Californians who joined together to send that message this weekend,” said Harris.
Congressman Ami Bera, running for reelection in the state of California has come under attacks by his own party men, this time, surprisingly by a group led by an Indian American, “Sacramento Democrats For Truth.” Led by Amar Shergill, a former Bera supporter an Indian-American, the new group has launched an attack on Rep. Ami Bera, D-California, on grounds he has “refused” to provide documentation about his overseas trips and that donors to his campaign had overseas interests.
Bera’s support among local Democrats in his district suffered a blow when local unions refused to endorse him for his vote in favor of President Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact. Bera is now relying on getting enough support at the state party convention Feb. 26-28, to get re-nominated for his third term race. He is unopposed.
California’s District 7 is almost equally divided along party lines and has a significant uncommitted voter base, has proved a tough seat and Bera has won with small margins. Republicans have targeted the district for takeover.
Ami Bera won reelection over a year ago with a razor thin margin. Now with strong opposition from both Democrats, Labor Unions and Republicans, his reelection bid in the November 2016 election has come to be recognized as even harder. The National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) ad has tried to distort Bera’s record of finding bipartisan solutions and protecting and strengthening Medicare and defending against efforts to privatize Social Security.
“Congressman Ose’s DC Republican backers are just repeating the same tired old lies,” said Bera spokesperson Allison Teixeira. “They are resorting to more misleading attacks to try to distract voters from Ose’s partisan record of voting with his political party nearly 95 percent of the time while helping enrich himself and his Wall Street friends, and voting to privatize Social Security.”
According to Rep. Bera’s website, Bera has a clear record of finding bipartisan solutions to our nation’s challenges as a leader of the Problem Solvers’ No Labels coalition, and is one of the most moderate members of Congress. He is also an ardent defender of Social Security and Medicare, recently announcing the support of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) and the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) because he has been “a leader in the fight to preserve and protect Social Security and Medicare,” and has “a proven record of fighting plans that would end the Medicare guarantee for our seniors.”
In a press release, the Sacramento Democrats For Truth said that despite requests from some party delegates, Bera “has refused to provide documents describing payments for his overseas trips, with whom he meets and his political contributors with more than $1 million in assets overseas.” The group said they had gone through Bera’s campaign finance filings, and remain “troubled by contributions from those that appear to be closely connected to foreign investment funds and foreign nations.”
Bera calls the accusations unfounded and that all regulations relating to foreign trips had been complied with and quarterly filings with the Federal Elections Commission were public. Even Shergill conceded that Bera would get the state party endorsement this coming weekend. “At the state convention, it’s very likely the party establishment will rescue his endorsement and he will get it even though he is rejected by his local Democrats,” Shergill said.
Shergill’s list of 9 contributors to Bera, virtually all of them venture capitalists, showed none of them had given money to SuperPACs with overseas interests. Rather, they had contributed the maximum allowed, $2,700 to Bera and given large amounts to Democratic Party or Democratic candidate SuperPACs.
“All of the Congressman’s contributions are publicly available and disclosed on a quarterly basis, and as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee he complies with all travel disclosure rules,” Congressman Bera’s campaign manager Jerid Kurtz said. “It’s unfortunate that the same detractors that worked against the Congressman since 2014 are continuing to lob baseless accusations,” Kurtz added.
Indian American politician Swati Dandekar, who was nominated as executive director to Asian Development Bank (ADB) with ambassadorial rank by US President Barack Obama in November last year, began her Congressional hearings by Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on February 11, 2016. If confirmed by the US Senate, Dandekar will replace Robert M. Orr who held the position since 2010.
Obama announced his intention to nominate Dandekar to the top position in Asian Development Bank (ADB) along with eight other key administration posts. “I am confident that these experienced and hardworking individuals will help us tackle the important challenges facing America, and I am grateful for their service. I look forward to working with them,” Obama said.
Dandekar, a Nagpur and Bombay University alumni, is a former Iowa state legislator and a member of the Iowa Utilities Board, according to her White House biography. She was the first Indian-American citizen to win a state legislature seat in the United States. Dandekar was a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in the 2014 elections in the 1st Congressional District of Iowa, but lost in the primaries.
Dandekar, the nominee for U.S. Executive Director for the Asian Development Bank with Rank of Ambassador U.S., in a prepared statement before the Senate Committee, stated, “I am honored to have been nominated by President Obama to be the next United States Executive Director with the rank of Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank.”
Recalling her immigration to this land of opportunities, Danekar, who came to the United States as an immigrant in 1973 after she I married her husband of 43 years, Arvind Dandekar , who is is President of Fastek International, a software development company, said, “During my nine years in the Iowa House and Senate, from 2003 until 2011, I had the chance to work at the state level. I am excited by the potential opportunity to work internationally as the U.S. Executive Director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).”
Stating that as a legislator, she has always worked with both sides of the aisle to develop consensus positions that were acceptable to all interested parties. Over the years, she gained insight in to state finances and budgets, and she also has had extensive experience serving on a variety of boards in Iowa, such as the Linn-Mar School Board, Vision Iowa Board, Iowa Values Fund, Iowa Power Fund, and Iowa Utilities Board. “These experiences have provided me with a firsthand look at the transformative power of appropriate use of development funds. My extensive background in managing projects and cultivating partnerships will help me to carry out the responsibilities of the U.S. Executive Director at the ADB, which is dedicated to reducing poverty in the Asia Pacific region through sustainable and inclusive economic growth, investments in human capital, and good governance,” she said.
“If confirmed, my first priority will be to advance U.S. policy interests at the ADB. Additionally, I will work to ensure that the U.S. Commerce Department and other entities that publicize opportunities for U.S. businesses to compete for business overseas include information on how to compete for contracts from the ADB,” Dandekar said.
She also credited her upbringing in India to provide her with an excellent understanding of the Asian culture, pointing to her ability to speak in English and Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi, as well as having working knowledge in Urdu, Punjabi and Bengali languages. “My language skills and cultural awareness will position me well to address challenges facing the ADB and communicate how ADB is fueling positive economic development and stability throughout the region,” she said. Dandekar said, “I look forward to representing the United States at ADB and ensuring that our country’s priority initiatives are advanced.”
Nikki Haley, the popular Governor of South Carolina has dismissed rumors of her running for Vice President of the United States in the upcoming presidential elections. Amid reports that she was emerging as a “fantastic choice” to be the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate, Indian American Governor has ruled out any such possibility, saying her “plate is full.” She said she is quite “content” with her responsibilities as the governor of South Carolina and the mother of two kids.
When asked about the latest media reports that Rubio-Haley would be a dream Republican ticket, Haley told Fox News in an interview: “Not at all. I have said my plate is full. I am not only a mom, my daughter is going to college next year, and my son is in middle school. I got a state that I love. We have not finished all the work we want to finish here.
“So I am totally content and happy in South Carolina. What I do want to see is that America gets a great president,” the 44-year-old said in a joint appearance with Rubio on Fox News in South Carolina.
“I think we can do that with Marco Rubio,” she said, responding to questions of her potential campaign as the vice presidential mate of Rubio, which is being reported by some major media outlets.
Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina said that he is “all for” Haley being picked for vice president. Haley is articulate and a strong leader who went “through the fire” during a tragic 2015 in the state, he said. “She would be a fantastic choice and one that I think the country would be quite responsive to,” Scott said.
However, The Washington Post offered a word of caution. “A Rubio-Haley ticket might be many things. But a panacea for the GOP’s sundry political and demographic challenges? It certainly is not,” it said. But for The New York Observer, a Rubio-Haley ticket would be Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare.
“The sight of Florida Senator Marco Rubio standing side-by-side with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley after her blockbuster endorsement of his candidacy for president days before the South Carolina GOP primary gave the appearance of a presidential ticket that would be a game changer for the 2016 campaign,” it said.
“Maybe a Hispanic-Asian ticket with one candidate who’s rediscovering his tea-party roots and another who’s made herself into the top union-hater in the country is the best they can do,” The New Yorker wrote.
Eight U.S. Senators and 26 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have raised “grave concerns about the increasing intolerance and violence experienced by members of…religious minority communities,” in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing threats to Christians in Chhattisgarh and vigilantism over beef that has led to the murder of four Muslims.
Applauding India’s commitment to pluralism and tolerance, and reminding the PM that he had promised to ensure complete religious freedom in the country, the lawmakers urged him to “turn these words into action by publicly condemning” such violence.
“Of particular concern is the treatment of India’s Christian, Muslim and Sikh communities,” the lawmakers –several of them consistently pro-India — have written to the PM. “Our strong support of this partnership encourages us to relay our grave concerns.” The lawmakers said they were also concerned about the lack of recognition of Sikhism as a distinct religion.
The Modi’s government’s drive against civil society organisations receiving foreign donations in India has been an irritant in bilateral relations for sometime now. The lawmakers’ letter on religious violence, specifically naming Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal that share the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) ideological universe with Mr. Modi, could be potentially embarrassing for the PM. Mr. Modi will be in the U.S. on March 31 and April 1, to attend the nuclear security summit being convened by President Barack Obama. The letter also comes against the backdrop of the Centre’s unprecedented steamrolling of political dissent in the country, which is increasingly a talking point in the U.S. capital.
“On June 17th, 2014, more than 50 village councils in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh adopted a resolution banning all “non-Hindu religious propaganda, prayers, and speeches” in their communities. The Christian minority community has been dramatically affected: the ban effectively has criminalised the practice of Christianity for an estimated 300 Christian families in the region one day after a mob, which included members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, seriously injured six Christians in the village of Sirciguda. Since the ban was implemented, Christians in the Bastar District reportedly have been subjected to physical assaults, denial of government services, extortion, threats of forced expulsion, denial of access to food and water, and pressure to convert to Hinduism,” the letter said.
“We also are concerned that the nearly country-wide beef ban is increasing tensions and encouraging vigilante violence against the Indian Muslim community. On Monday, November 2nd, a Hindu mob killed Mohammed Hasmat Ali, a married father of three, in Manipur, India, after he was accused of stealing a cow. Mr. Ali reportedly is the fourth Muslim murdered in just six weeks by Hindu mobs angered over allegations of cows being slaughtered or stolen. We understand that the September 28th murder of 52-year-old Mohammed Saif in Uttar Pradesh sparked a national outcry over rising intolerance toward religious minorities which culminated in hundreds of prominent academics, business leaders, and authors protesting.”
“We want to raise additional concerns about the lack of recognition of Sikhism as a distinct religion, which prevents members of the community from accessing social services and employment and educational preferences available to other religious communities. Sikh community members reportedly are harassed and pressured to reject religious practices and beliefs distinct to Sikhism. On October 14, security forces killed two Sikhs and injured scores of others in Punjab who were protesting peacefully against the desecration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism’s holy book,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Mr. Prime Minister, we applaud India as a pluralistic society with a long-standing commitment to inclusion and tolerance. We also applaud your statements about religious freedom and communal harmony, including your promise in February 2014 that your government would “ensure that there is complete freedom of faith…and not allow any religious group, belonging to the majority or the minority, to incite hatred against others.” We urge you to turn these words into action by publicly condemning the ban on non-Hindu faiths in the Bastar District of Chhattisgarh, and the violent assaults and other forms of harassment against religious minorities throughout India. We also urge you to take steps to control the activities of groups, such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and instruct Indian security forces to enforce the rule of law and protect religious minority communities from religiously-motivated harassment and violence.
Such steps would demonstrate your government’s commitment to fostering a stable and inclusive society and respecting international obligations on the rights of religious minorities, including religious freedom. We await your response,” the letter concluded.
Senators Roy Blunt (R-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Al Franken (D-MN), James Lankford (R-OK), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Tim Scott (R-SC) and Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MI), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Mark Walker (R-NC), Doug Collins (R-GA), Tim Walberg (R-MI), Ted Poe (R-TX), Adam Schiff (D-CA), John Conyers, (D-MI) have signed the letter.
Kamala Harris, California Attorney General, wants to be a U.S. Senator, and she has already been campaigning for a seat for more than a year. Wednesday, February 24th, she formally and legally declared herself a candidate, filling out the official paperwork at the registrar’s office in Norwalk. The Democratic attorney general is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Boxer, who retires from her post at the end of her term in 2017.
“We got in early, we’ve been running hard, and this makes it official. So I’m very excited,” Harris said. Since announcing, Harris has been the frontrunner, leading in the polls. If Harris wins the seat, she would be the first Indian American to ever serve in the Senate and the second-ever African-American woman. She says her strategy is to truly connect with voters. “Sitting and talking with them and listening, most importantly, and then hopefully, this work will result in a successful bid for the United States Senate,” Harris said.
Harris says there are some key issues she’s focusing on, including education, the economy, the environment and equality. “That’s everything from what we need to do around continuing to fight for the rights for our LGBT brothers and sisters, to what we need to do around immigration reform, to what we need to do around protecting a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body,” Harris said.
Luis Vizcaino, a campaign spokesman for Harris’ Democratic rival Rep. Loretta Sanchez, maintained that Sanchez is the most qualified for the seat. He released the following statement: “California needs an experienced and proven leader to tackle the full range of economic, educational and foreign relation challenges we face today. Our next U.S. Senator must have an extensive legislative and national security background and share the life experiences of working families – and that’s Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, who last year was named one of the 25 most influential women in Congress by CQ Roll Call because she knows how to work with members from both sides of the aisle. She is the most qualified candidate for the job of U.S. Senator.”
Republican candidate lawyer Duf Sundheim says he disagrees with Harris’ stances but welcomes her into the race. His campaign released the following statement: “I welcome Ms. Harris into the race. Elections are about choices. The contrast between our candidacy and Ms. Harris’ could not be clearer.”
When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, her name surfaced as a potential nominee, but Harris made it clear she did not want to be considered for that position. “I’m not putting my name in for consideration. I do not wish to be considered. I am running for the United States Senate,” Harris told reporters at a recent campaign stop.
Harris is viewed as a rising Democratic star. She campaigned for Obama in both his presidential bids, and he returned the favor by holding a fundraiser for Harris during her successful 2010 campaign to become California’s first female and first minority attorney general. California’s June 7 primary will send the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, to the general election in November.
Born of an Indian mother — Shyamala Gopalan, who emigrated from Chennai in the ‘60s — and Jamaican American father, Stanford University economics professor Donald Harris, she is the first ever Asian American and African American to be elected to this top position in California.
So far, only three Indian Americans have been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives — Dalip Singh Saund, Bobby Jindal and Ami Bera, who was re-elected for his second term last November.
NEW YORK, NY: The Muslim Democratic Club of New York (MDCNY), on February 16, 2016, voted to endorse United States Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Presidential Primary. Sanders received unanimous support in a vote held at the club’s membership meeting on Tuesday evening.
“MDCNY is proud to make its first ever endorsement in a national race by supporting Bernie Sanders. His honesty, integrity, and progressive agenda are in line with the principles of our club,” said MDCNY President Murad Awawdeh. “For too long, anti-Muslim rhetoric in this election has attempted to push our communities to the margins. Our voice and vote will be felt as we activate our members throughout New York to mobilize our communities to vote for Sanders in the April primary. We also plan to volunteer remotely to provide support in the earlier primary states.”
MDCNY Secretary Mohammad Khan remarked “the Sanders campaign offers a refreshing break from the establishment politics that favor the wealthy and well-connected. For communities like ours, which have long been marginalized, we need someone with a transformative vision for change.”
After a virtual tie in Iowa and a decisive win in New Hampshire, the Sanders campaign is picking up increasing momentum going into the remaining primary elections.
The Muslim Democratic Club of New York is a city-wide organization dedicated to increasing the civic empowerment of Muslim New Yorkers and advancing progressive policies in the Democratic Party.NY
The recent dispute between FBI and Apple pits three important principles against one another. On the one hand, it’s about the right of the U.S. government to investigate thoroughly the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, in order to prevent the nation and the world from future terrorists attacks. The dispute has raised questions about the need and importance of maintaining the privacy of every individual. It is also about the right of the most valuable (and iconic) American company to go about its business without the government undercutting the key promise it makes consumers — that their most private communications are kept safely under lock and key.
A federal judge’s order to help the FBI hack into the encrypted iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, who in December, together with his wife, killed 14 of his co-workers at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, has been rejected by Apple. The couple carried out the attack on behalf of ISIS, although there is no evidence they did so at the direction of the group. The US Justice Department has been on the offensive, criticizing Apple for refusing to help unlock a phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who died after the terror attack that killed 14 people in December.
The dispute between FBI and Apple has set the stage for what promises to be one of the great commercial battles of the next years, between the U.S. government and the tech companies that are the most important engine of the booming American economy. Big tech companies argue that if it is known Apple has given the U.S. government such an access, then consumers around the world will be leery of using Apple and Google and other U.S. technology products. Thus, it could result in many tens of billions of dollars being lost and, therefore the business is at stake.
The FBI has argued for years that it faces a “going dark” problem, that its investigations of everything from child pornographers to terrorists are hampered, or even completely undercut, by the fact that so much Internet communication is now encrypted to a level that the U.S. government can’t break. As a result, the FBI wants a “backdoor” into the encrypted communications platforms engineered by American tech companies.
Federal prosecutors in a motion las week have asked a judge to compel Apple to cooperate, saying CEO Tim Cook had made it clear the company wouldn’t willingly comply with an earlier order to help unlock the phone used by Farook. “Rather than assist the effort to fully investigate a deadly terrorist attack … Apple has responded by publicly repudiating that order,” prosecutors wrote in the filing in federal court in Riverside, Calif. Apple’s resistance is “based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy,” prosecutors wrote. Apple “is not above the law.”
The motion offers a sharply worded response to Cook’s public message earlier this week, where he refused to “hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers.” Cook said that providing prosecutors with software to unlock the terrorist’s iPhone would provide a “back door” to its devices. Prosecutors said Cook’s statements have been misleading and if the company complied, the government would still need a warrant to access a device and Apple would keep custody of the software.
Apple says, helping the FBI to decrypt Farook’s iPhone would give the government access to all other similar iPhones and would also lead to an unfortunate precedent in which the government could eventually access encrypted communications on any American tech platform. Google has publicly supported Apple’s position. The revelations by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden in 2013 about just how much U.S. tech companies had been playing footsie with the U.S. government had an effect on the firms’ bottom lines around the globe. A 2014 paper by the New America think tank estimatedthat the Snowden revelations cost U.S. tech companies billions of dollars.
Since Snowden went public, companies such as Apple and Google — two of the world’s most valuable companies — have incorporated much greater encryption into their products and have also been at pains to show that they will not go along with U.S. government demands to access their encrypted products.
According to reports, no evidence has emerged that Farook and his wife had any formal connection to a terrorist organization, and the plot involved only the couple and the alleged connivance of Marquez. What might be found on Farook’s iPhone therefore is more than likely simply only some additional details to buttress the overall account of what we know already. It’s unclear what help, if any, the contents of Farook’s phone might provide investigators. Nearly seven weeks of potential messages, texts, photos and data are missing — from Oct. 19, when Farook last uploaded his phone to iCloud, to Dec. 2, when he carried out a shooting rampage at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. No evidence has surfaced so far to indicate Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were in contact with terrorists, or had received outside support, before the attack.
On one side of the debate inside the US administration were White House advisors who favored using quiet pressure to persuade Cook and other tech executives to cooperate. That approach has borne fruit, they say. Over the last year, tech companies have shut down social media accounts used by Islamic State, handed over subpoenaed material that suspects had loaded on “cloud” servers, and given other crucial help. But members of President Obama’s national security team wanted more. Together with state and federal prosecutors around the country, they viewed tech companies as making money while protecting terrorists, kidnappers, pornographers and others who use encryption to hide illegal schemes.
“In the court of public opinion, a dead terrorist whose phone might have connections to more terrorists is pretty attractive from the standpoint of prosecution, but the legal question is not made easier because of that,” Ryan Calo, an assistant law professor at the University of Washington in Seattle and an expert on privacy law, has been quoted to have said. No court has ruled on whether a tech company could be forced to find a way around its own security features, Calo said.
Balanced against that is what the tech companies lose if they are seen to be doing the bidding of the FBI — tens of billions of dollars and also the strong possibility of losing market share to other non-American tech companies, particularly software and cloud computing firms, around the world.
Although the fight between American tech companies and the FBI hunting terrorists is undeniably important, to some degree it may also be increasingly moot. ISIS’ key social media-encrypted platform is Telegram, which is engineered by a Berlin-based tech company that can simply ignore the rulings of American federal judges as well as legislation passed by the U.S. Congress.
Apple and its supporters say the dispute isn’t over the unknown contents of one phone, but about the government trying to establish a precedent that it can force a company to hack its customers’ devices. That could open floodgates for requests from local, state and federal prosecutors, they warn, and cripple customers’ confidence in Apple products, especially in lucrative overseas markets where distrust of government surveillance is higher. Apple’s advocates fear that giving in to the FBI now ultimately would help criminal hackers and authoritarian governments, which might use the software to trace secret communications of political opponents and human rights activists.
Charlotte, SC: South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio in his bid to be the nominee of the Republican Party in the upcoming presidential elections. “If we elect Marco Rubio, every day will be a great day in America,” she said alongside the Florida senator during a rally in suburban Columbia.
Polls suggest Trump continues to hold a big lead in South Carolina and in upcoming states, as Cruz works to rally the Republican Party’s most conservative wing and Rubio tries to consolidate mainstream Republicans behind his candidacy. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich continue to battle for a spot at the table, while retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson struggles for relevancy.
A highly coveted endorsement from popular Nikki Haley — one Jeb Bush himself had described as “the most powerful, meaningful one in the state” earlier this week — has gone to Rubio. Haley’s endorsement was a major setback for Bush, who said her decision left him “disappointed.”
Nikki Haley, the popular Indian American governor, who is being speculated as a possible US vice presidential candidate, said she was tasked with identifying the best candidate as she surveyed the crowded GOP field.
In her endorsement, Haley said: “I wanted somebody that was going to go and show my parents that the best decision they ever made for their children was coming to America. We say that every day is a great day in South Carolina. Ladies and gentlemen, if we elect Marco Rubio, every day will be a great day in America!” Haley said.
“You know that I always say I am the proud daughter of Indian parents. That reminded us every day how blessed we were to live in this country,” she said in her brief remarks. Haley said she wants a president who is going to have the backs of military veterans and those in active duty.
“I want a president that knows that when we fight wars, we win wars. I want a president that understands we have to stop the federal mandates that have been pushed on the states like Obamacare and the EPA,” she said. In endorsing Rubio, Haley said: “I wanted somebody with fight, somebody with passion, somebody with conviction to do the right thing, but also somebody humble enough to remember you work for all the people.”
“But I want a president who understands that they have to go back to Washington, D.C., and bring a conscience back to our Republicans. Our Republicans need to remember what we are about, which is about balanced budgets, cutting debt, building reserves and making sure that they understand that this guy, he is all about term limits in D.C., and that is what we want to see in a president,” Haley said. “We were excited when we got the word that this was a real possibility,” Rubio said after securing Haley’s endorsement.
“For us and for me, I have said this before, and I would say, despite the endorsement, I would say this: She represents everything I want the Republican Party to be about — fiscal responsibility and a limited federal government. All the things that our government should be about and all the things our party should be about, she embodies,” Rubio said.
Haley is viewed as an asset in a Republican Party that has struggled to appeal to non-white voters. She made a high-profile speech at the National Press Club in September, and in January was picked by congressional leaders to give the Republican response to President Obama’s final State of the Union speech. Her decision to endorse Rubio follows her earlier criticism of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
“Every time someone criticizes him, he goes and makes a political attack back,” Haley said in September. “That is not who we are as Republicans. That’s not what we do. That not what I want my South Carolinians to do.” Haley has also urged her fellow Republicans to celebrate the contributions of legal immigrants, a pointed departure from Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Haley said, electing Rubio would “show my parents the best decision they made for their children was coming to America.”
(Washington, DC: February 19, 2016) Kamala Harris, the first ever person of Indian Origin to win a state wide election in the state of California, and now considered a favorite to win the US Senate race in the same state, has doused speculation that she may be on President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees, saying during a campaign event at a San Jose union hall that while she is flattered to have her name mentioned, she has no interest in the job at this time.
Harris’ name as a possible Supreme Court nominee arose shortly after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday. Harris addressed the speculation almost immediately when she appeared before the union members, insisting she “was not putting my name out there.” It was her first public event since Scalia’s death.
While presenting the Attorney General’s annual California Data Breach Report at Stanford University, Harris said, “I’m not interested,” she politely told an inquiring television news reporter. As the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, Harris is an appealing prospect for those pushing for more diversity on the Supreme Court. But it would have been extremely difficult for a liberal politician from California to survive what is expected to be a bruising confirmation process in the Republican-led Senate.
Harris, 51, said her focus is on her current job and her campaign to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. “I’m not putting my name in for consideration. I do not wish to be considered. I am running for the United States Senate,” Harris emphatically told reporters after the union rally.
According to reports, Harris didn’t say who she wants the president to nominate, but suggested it should be someone with “practical life experience.” She also would favor a nominee who would protect abortion rights, and marriage equality for same-sex couples, she said.
“Maybe I’m biased, but I’d like to see someone who’s actually seen the impact of the court and the rulings of the court. Someone who’s thinking of it not just in a way that is theoretical, but … how these laws and these rulings affect real people,” she said.
Karris, a progressive, has always been in the forefront of Civil Rights, Equality and Openness. Harris used herself as an example, saying that she never would have been elected were it not for the not for the educational opportunities she received because of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that found segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. Harris said that ruling allowed her to be a member of the second class that integrated Berkeley public schools in the 1960s.
California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris
She criticized the current Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling that struck down a key part of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, ending federal oversight of election laws in Southern states. Harris said the court “gutted it” and she vowed, if elected to the Senate, to work to reinstate those voter protections that civil rights advocates credit for with transforming the South by ensuring blacks could vote. The attorney general also criticized members of the Senate Republican leadership who vowed to block any Supreme Court nominee put forth by the Democratic president.
“I think the Republicans have been outrageous on this issue. Outrageous,” Harris said. “This president is going to be in office through January of next year. We, as Americans, deserve to have a fully-staffed United States Supreme Court. There are very important issues before the Supreme Court right now.”
California’s primary is set for June 7. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. Leading in the polls and with two victories in statewide elections under her belt, Harris is the front-runner in the Senate race. Her top Democratic rival is Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Orange. Their Republican challengers include Tom Del Beccaro and George “Duf” Sundheim, both Bay Area attorneys who were former chairmen of the California Republican Party.
Former Obama White House advisor David Axelrod mentioned the possibility of a Harris nomination on a weekend news show, and Harris’ name has popped up on hypothetical lists from the New York Times, Associated Press, USA Today, the National Law Journal and the wonky but well-regarded SCOTUSblog.
“Kamala Harris would be an unusual choice — most recent appointments have been federal court of appeals judges — but a plausible one,” said Erwin Chemerinksy, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law. “However, there are so many plausible names. I doubt anyone has inside information so it is just all speculation.”
She is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., and earned her law degree at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Harris as a veteran prosecutor and astute, ambitious political leader. Harris also has been a strong Obama supporter since he was a U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois.
For more than a decade, she worked as a prosecutor in Alameda County and San Francisco, and tried cases involving charges of drunk driving, sex crimes, assault and homicide. Her transition to electoral politics began in 2003 during her successful campaign to unseat San Francisco Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan. Harris was elected attorney general in 2010, narrowly beating L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, a Republican. She was reelected in 2014 by a wide margin.
Her parents divorced when Harris was a toddler and her late mother, who was a breast cancer researcher at UC Berkeley, raised Harris and her sister, Maya, to be proud African American women during a tumultuous time in the United States. Harris was a student in the second class to integrate Berkeley’s public schools in the late 1960s. Her sister has served as advisor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Harris’ national profile got a boost when Obama gave her a speaking role at the Democratic National Convention in 2012. The headlines continued in 2013 when Obama apologized publicly for having described her as “the best-looking” attorney general in the country.
For all her demographic and political strengths, Harris does not come from the judicial realm. She has staked out liberal positions on issues that would raise the ire of Republican Senate leaders who already have warned Obama to leave the nomination to the next president.
Throughout her political career, Harris has articulated clear positions on many controversial, divisive issues that could come before the nation’s high court. Harris favors the protection of abortion rights, an end to the federal ban on medical marijuana and a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. She backs major changes in the criminal justice system, in part to address racial disparities, including shorter sentences for low-level drug crimes and a shift in government funding from prisons to crime prevention.
As attorney general, Harris has taken actions conservatives would no doubt take issue with during a Senate confirmation hearing, should one ever occur: She refused to defend Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage in California until the U.S. Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. Harris defended a state law that required members of public employee unions to help pay for collective bargaining. A case challenging those requirements — Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Assn. — is pending in the Supreme Court and could yield a 4-4 decision in Scalia’s absence. Harris, who has been supported politically by the California Teachers Assn., appealed a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge’s ruling in the case of Vergara vs. California, which threw out the state’s tenure process for grade school teachers. Harris criticized a federal appeals court for rejecting Obama’s executive actions on immigration, a case that is also pending before the Supreme Court.
Harris has brushed aside the speculation, although questions about the issue will follow her during her ongoing campaign for U.S. Senate ahead of California’s June 7 primary. “While the attorney general is honored to be mentioned in these conversations, she’s committed to her current job and continuing her fight for California families in the U.S. Senate,” campaign spokesman Nathan Click said Monday. Harris declared: “I am running for Senate.”
The Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans was once the largest of all the groups in the US Congress. However, recently, the numbers have been dwindling. Efforts by several Indian American community leaders have been on for months now. During a meeting organized by the representatives of several Indian-American organizations on February 5, 2016,
Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., a first-term Congresswoman from New York joined the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans.
Rice, who represents Long Island in New York pledged to help raise the dwindling number of lawmakers on the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans. The meeting hosted by the Indian American Voters Forum, was held at the Long Island, N.Y. at the home of Virander Bhalla, chairman of IAVF. It was meant to kick-start a renewed effort to increase the membership of the India Caucus. “While the Indo-U.S. relations have blossomed under President Obama, the India Caucus has a vital role to play in taking this relationship to the next level,” Rice is quoted saying in a press release.
Rep. Grace Meng, D- N.Y., who was present at the event also pledged to work towards enhancing the membership on the Caucus. “The U.S and India share and unbreakable bond and the work of the Caucus on India and Indian Americans continues to strengthen this special relationship, and highlight the important role that the Indian-American community plays in every sector of our society,” Meng was quoted to have said. “It is critical for the Caucus to continue this important work and as a member, I look forward to doing so,” she added. Both lawmakers were presented with plaques by India’s Consul General in New York Dnyaneshwar Mulay.
Bhalla said this was not the first time IAVF had furthered the goals of the caucus. “In 2009, Riti Bhalla, a television host and member of the Indian American Voters Forum successfully connected with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to get her to join the Senate India Caucus,” Bhalla recalled. Dr. Ajay Lodha, president-elect of AAPI, and Dr. Vaijinath Chakote, president of the Queens & Long Island chapter of AAPI, appealed to other community leaders to join IAVF’s initiative. Dozens of community leaders representing the Association of Indian Americans, the Nargis Dutt Foundation, the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, the Long Island Indian Association and the Rajasthan Association, attended the event.
Former Indian American Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is endorsing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for president. Rubio campaign adviser Todd Harris confirmed the endorsement Feb. 5. It was the second from a former GOP presidential candidate for Rubio last week.
Rubio is trying to seize on a better-than-expected third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses as he sprints across New Hampshire ahead of this week’s first-in-the-nation primary. Rubio was addressing an audience of more than 700 before the confirmation that Jindal had offered his support. Jindal was a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination from last June until November.
In other news from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, AP reports that when Jindal exited the governor’s office, he left behind a string of IOUs for his economic development deals, at least $155 million of which could come due during the next four years of Governor John Bel Edwards’ term.
The former governor made commitments for incentive payments and construction projects tied to various business deals, without providing money to cover those long-term costs. Instead, Edwards inherited a budget awash in gaps and depleted savings accounts — on top of the obligations to which his predecessor committed the state.
Governors regularly make commitments to companies beyond their terms, leaving their successors to pick up the remaining tab. But Jindal’s obligations come as Edwards, a Democrat who took office earlier this month, grapples with the state’s deepest financial crisis in nearly 30 years.
In the upcoming 2016-17 budget year, the Edwards administration will owe an estimated $50 million to companies from Jindal’s economic development deals, about $11 million from the state construction budget and another $39 million in direct cash from the general fund.
That doesn’t count spending from any tax break programs through which companies in Louisiana can lessen what they owe the state. “Obviously, there have been commitments made that take a huge chunk of general fund dollars to satisfy,” said Edwards’ chief financial adviser, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne. “We’re going to satisfy contractual obligations that we have to.”
Jindal invested a strong focus on drawing business to Louisiana, and he announced a string of projects over his eight years in office. The Republican counted among his biggest achievements $62 billion in economic development wins estimated to create tens of thousands of jobs.
Those deals are estimated to cost more than $344 million in incentive and construction payments for Jindal’s successors, with commitments that run until 2030, according to data provided to The Associated Press shortly before Jindal left office.
RALEIGH, N.C. – Indian-American candidate for North Carolina State Senate Jay Chaudhuri has been endorsed by the North Carolina AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the Triangle Labor Council, the Raleigh Police Protective Association and the Raleigh Professional Fire Fighters Association. The groups emphasized Chaudhuri’s career devoted to fighting for North Carolina workers.
“Throughout his career with State Treasurer Janet Cowell and Attorney General Roy Cooper, Jay Chaudhuri has stood up for the issues that matter to our members,” said Triangle Labor Council President Michael Gravinese. “We endorse Jay because as State Senator, he’ll be a champion for workers and working families throughout the state.”
“I’m honored that these groups representing hard-working North Carolina union members, firefighters and police officers have chosen to support me,” said Chaudhuri. “We rely on these workers and public servants to do their jobs every day, and as State Senator, I’ll work hard to build a better economy for them and for everyone in the state.”
The Primary is slated for March 15th. If Chaudhuri wins the primary from the heavily Democratic District 16, he would be as good as elected before the November general elections, making him the first Indian-American state Senator in North Carolina.
He is fighting a tough battle against his rival Ellis Hankins who was the head of North Carolina League of Municipalities for 17 years. The District 16 seat opened up when incumbent Josh Stein declared his run for state Attorney General. To date Chaudhuri has raised almost $290,000 from 571 contributors. “This is a very competitive Democratic primary,” he acknowledged.
Chaudhuri said he hoped the latest endorsements would increase the grassroots machinery he has working on his campaign including some 40 volunteers who have helped make some 62,067 calls and door knocks to voters. Hankins said he had “lots of volunteers” engaged in putting up neighborhood signs, and preparing for monitoring early voting sights and carrying out polling etc.
District 16 includes parts of Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville and western Wake County. Morrisville has a rising number of Indian-Americans and Chaudhuri hopes they will come out to swell his numbers on primary day. Chaudhuri said the labor groups’ endorsement recognized his career fighting for working families. “I have a track record of getting things done including taking on multibillion dollar companies to protect children on the Internet, and helping recover more than $100 million from life insurance companies,” he said.
In addition to the AFL-CIO, Teamsters Local 391, the Triangle Labor Council, the Raleigh Police Protective Association and the Raleigh Professional Fire Fighters Association, Chaudhuri has been endorsed by nine current and past elected officials: State Treasurer Janet Cowell, Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane, State Representative Gale Adcock, Wake County Commissioner John Burns, Wake County Commissioner Sig Hutchinson, former Raleigh City Council Member Rodger Koopman, former Raleigh City Council Member Randy Stagner, Morrisville Town Council Member Steve Rao, and former Morrisville Mayor Margaret Broadwell.
Chaudhuri has a Masters in international affairs from Columbia University and a law degree from North Carolina Central University. He was a legislative aide to Democratic U.S. Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin. From 2001 to 2009, he was special counsel to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, where he is credited with developing major policy initiatives such as drafting the statewide strategy to combat methamphetamine; spearheading the AG’s Campus Safety Task Force after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2006; being involved in the national multi-state investigation of MySpace and Facebook, helping negotiate an agreement between 49 state attorneys general and MySpace to create a task-force on online safety tools.
From 2009 to mid-2015, Chaudhuri was general counsel and senior policy advisor to State Treasurer Janet Cowell, where he managed all corporate governance and legal matters for the department which handled the $90 billion pension fund among other things. “When I announced my candidacy in May, I laid out my plan to meet, listen to and discuss issues with voters across the district so we can work together to move North Carolina forward,” said Chaudhuri. “We now have a strong grassroots-oriented staff to help us do exactly that.”
With increased stereotyping and hatred towards Muslims around the world, President Obama advocated religious tolerance and unity. During his first ever visit to a mosque in the United States on February 3, President Barack Obama joined Muslim Americans from around the nation at the Islamic Society of Baltimore, Maryland, and said: “We’re one American family. And when any part of our family starts to feel separate or second-class or targeted, it tears at the very fabric of our nation.”
Obama noted that violence against the Muslim American and Sikh American communities has surged in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks last November – in which extremists affiliated with the Islamic State killed 183 people – and the San Bernardino shootings in December, when a Muslim American couple killed 14 people at a rehabilitation center for handicapped people.
“I know that in Muslim communities across our country, this is a time of concern and, frankly, a time of some fear. Like all Americans, you’re worried about the threat of terrorism,” said the president, who removed his shoes before entering the mosque, in deference to Islamic custom. “But on top of that, as Muslim Americans, you also have another concern – that your entire community so often is targeted or blamed for the violent acts of the very few,” he said.
“I’ve had people write to me and say, ‘I feel like I’m a second-class citizen.’ I’ve had mothers write and say, ‘my heart cries every night,’ thinking about how her daughter might be treated at school. A girl from Ohio, 13 years old, told me, ‘I’m scared.’ A girl from Texas signed her letter ‘a confused 14-year-old trying to find her place in the world,’” said Obama.
“These are children just like mine. And the notion that they would be filled with doubt and questioning their places in this great country of ours at a time when they’ve got enough to worry about — it’s hard being a teenager already — that’s not who we are.”
Obama stated that hate crimes must be reported and punished. He encouraged the community to speak out against hateful rhetoric and violence against any faith, and to reject religious extremism.
The president rejected the notion that America is ‘at war with Islam’, stating: “We can’t be at war with any other religion, because the world’s religions are a part of the very fabric of the United States, our national character. And we can’t suggest that Islam itself is at the root of the problem. That betrays our values. It alienates Muslim Americans.”
Muhammed Ahmed Chaudhry, CEO of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, and a volunteer with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, joined Obama on his visit to the Baltimore mosque. Chaudhry is reported to have told the media that after the visit that he had been invited to the White House for dinner with the president last year and had encouraged him to visit a mosque.
Chaudhry said it was heartwarming to see the president remove his shoes before entering the mosque. “It showed respect and true leadership,” he said. The visit to the mosque was a great symbolic way for the president to highlight the Muslim American community’s positive contributions to the U.S.
According to reports, half of Americans say the next president should be careful not to criticize Islam as a whole when speaking about Islamic extremists, while four-in-ten want the next president to speak bluntly about Islamic extremists even if the statements are critical of Islam as a whole. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that blunt talk is preferred by two-thirds of Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party (65%), while seven-in-ten Democrats and independents who lean Democratic express the opposite view, saying the next president should speak carefully about Islamic extremism so as not to criticize Islam as a whole.
While many Americans are concerned about Islamic extremism, the new survey shows that most people think the problem with violence committed in the name of religion is people rather than with religion per se. Indeed, fully two-thirds of Americans say the bigger problem is that some violent people use religion to justify their actions (68%). Only about a fifth (22%) say the bigger problem is that the teachings of some religions promote violence.
Obama’s call for tolerance and unity have been criticized by some. Trump chided Obama for the mosque visit. “He can go to lots of places. I don’t know, maybe he feels comfortable there,” Trump told Fox News. Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio also lashed out against Obama’s mosque visit, criticizing the president for “pitting people against each other.”
“He’s basically saying that America is discriminating against Muslims,” said Rubio during a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, acknowledging that there was discrimination, but radical Islam is a bigger threat.
In fact, Obama’s words, in fact, bore a close resemblance to President George W. Bush’s remarks after 9/11, when he called Islam a religion of peace and criticized discrimination and attacks against American Muslims. Why were those 2001 comments by a Republican president welcomed, while Obama’s very similar comments today were not? Part of it is surely partisanship. But Americans have also become less and less accepting of Islam. When PRRI asked the same question in 2011, for example, just 47 percent of Americans agreed that Islam was incompatible with American values, and 48 percent disagreed.
“Three weeks after 9/11, an ABC News poll found that Americans had a more favorable view of Islam than unfavorable, 47 percent to 39 percent,” notes Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution. “But a decade later, the picture changed dramatically. A poll I conducted in April 2011 showed that 61 percent of Americans expressed unfavorable views of Islam, while only 33 percent expressed favorable views.”
“The president’s first visit to an American mosque is a significant step in the right direction and will hopefully encourage our nation’s political and religious leaders to join him in pushing back against rising Islamophobia,” said Council on American Islamic Relations Maryland outreach manager Zainab Chaudry, who was invited to the president’s visit to the mosque.
“We welcome President Obama’s historic visit and applaud his remarks both rejecting anti-Muslim rhetoric and reminding our fellow Americans about Islam’s long history in our nation and about constitutional protections guaranteeing religious freedom,” said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad.
The historic 45-minute speech at a large, suburban Baltimore mosque was attended by some of the country’s most prominent Muslims. In what appeared to be a counter to the rise in Islamophobia, Obama celebrated the long history of Muslim achievement in American life from sports to architecture and described Muslims as Cub Scouts, soldiers and parents, pointing out the mother of the pre-med college student who introduced him at the podium.
Obama’s visit is likely to be compared with a landmark speech to the Islamic world early in his presidency. At Cairo University, Obama in 2009 called for a “new beginning” between the Islamic world and the United States, noting shared interests on issues such as extremism but also acknowledging mistakes made over centuries by all societies in the name of culture and faith.
Congressman Ami Bera, D-California, the only Indian-American on Capitol Hill is facing an roadblock from within the Democratic Party with the local activists not giving the District 7 representative, the majority needed for an unqualified endorsement.
Bera’s votes on issues such as Syria refugees and trade are coming under intense examination as local Democrats debate withholding endorsement from him in his re-election race against Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, a Republican. This Jan. 31 shortfall in support came on the heels of a rejection from his hometown activists at the Elk Grove-South County Democratic Club, opposed him as a choice for the Democratic ticket.
The Congressman who represents District 7, met activists at a regional endorsement party in Sacramento Jan. 31, where he secured only 61 percent of the vote instead of the 70 percent which would have put him over the top for being the nominee. Thirty nine percent opposed him.
Bera is campaigning for his third term in Congress to represent CD-7, a district comprised of portions of Sacramento, Elk Grove and Folsom. His chief opponent is Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, a Republican.
The backlash against Bera has come primarily from labor groups, who oppose the congressman’s vote supporting the Trans Pacific Authority bill, which gives the president “fast-track” latitude to create trade treaties with other countries without Congressional oversight. A total of 160 Democrats in the House voted against TPA in June 2015. The measure passed 218 to 208.
Many members of the Sikh American community in Sacramento also opposed Bera during the 2014 election cycle for his failure to recognize the 1984 anti-Sikh riots – after Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination – as “genocide.”
Community activists have also opposed Bera for his vote supporting HR 4038, which would prevent any refugee from Syria or Iraq from entering the U.S. until the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence certify that they are not dangerous.
Alex Gilliland, Bera’s communications director in Washington, D.C., explained to India-West that if Bera had received 70 percent or more of the vote, he would have automatically received the endorsement. “While he did not get 70 percent of the vote, he got over 50 percent so he moves forward in the endorsement process and is confident he’ll get the party’s endorsement on Feb. 28,” she said. Gilliland also said that Bera has not yet announced his position on the Trans Pacific Partnership; he is waiting for a key report which will be released in May, she said.
“Congressman Bera voted to remove labels from foreign meat, to ban state protections on genetically-modified food, and to condemn President Obama,” said Amar Shergill, a local attorney and delegate, in a press statement. “It is a sad truth that when Congressman Bera is under pressure, he votes with Republicans to benefit multinational corporations at the expense of local families. “We are very concerned that he is under the influence of those that care more about overseas investments than American jobs,” added Shergill.
Robert Longer, a California Democrat and union political director, has been a supporter of U.S. Rep. Ami Bera since Bera’s first election campaign. He’s walked door-to-door with Bera to drum up votes, and he hosted a fundraiser for Bera at his Elk Grove home. But disillusion began to set in in June, when the second-term Democratic congressman broke with his party to vote for a trade bill fiercely opposed by labor unions.
“It kind of opened up the door to a lot of scrutiny and looking at his record, which maybe some folks didn’t really do before that,” said Longer, the legislative-political director for Communications Workers of America Local 9421. “Once folks did, myself included, we saw a lot of things that we didn’t like.”
Bera, whose last two term victories have been won on extremely slim margins in one of the costliest races in the country, is now looking to get his endorsement at the state Democratic Party Convention scheduled for Feb. 28. Since he was elected four years ago, Bera has been a target for Republicans trying to gain a seat in a district that is about evenly split between the two parties. Republicans are gleeful about this setback.
Dissatisfaction with Bera’s vote for the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with Asian countries led by President Obama, has upset labor groups; and his stand on limiting refugees from Iraq and Syria has put him on the wrong side of many Democrats.
Bera will step up his efforts aiming to get the okay at the state party convention where regional clubs and other local groups are not invited and voting is conducted through delegates and proxies.
Responding to the loss of support from within Democratic ranks, Bera had said during a visit to India late December that “My job is to serve my district and to address the issues that matter to residents. Washington is broken and I firmly believe that we must work together, across the aisle, to get things done and I will continue to do that.” If he wins the nomination, Bera will be running against Republican Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones.
NASHUA, N.H. — The absence of a clear political triumph in Iowa put both Democratic candidates in unexpected positions coming into New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton is digging in for a tough fight against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in next week’s primary in New Hampshire, according to her advisers. Clinton is trying to spark political momentum and fund-raising energy after only a razor-thin victory in the Iowa caucuses. Things have come a long for the former First Lady, who once was considered a sure winner, goes to New Hampshire trailing behind her rival by at least 20 points, and especially after a razor thin victory in Iowa.
The Clinton campaign had considered shifting its focus to Nevada and South Carolina, which hold nominating contests later in February. But Clinton, with the strong support of former President Bill Clinton, decided she would help herself more by closing the gap in New Hampshire, where polls show Sanders with a double-digit lead. The Clintons even hope she might pull off an upset win here, as she did in 2008, given their long history of campaigning in the state. “This is going to be a great week of campaigning,” Clinton said.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
For the Clintons, the New Hampshire primary holds an emotional attachment. It is the state that made Bill Clinton the “Comeback Kid” after he overcame scandal to place second here in 1992. Hillary Clinton said she “found my own voice” in New Hampshire in 2008 with a surprise victory here after finishing third in Iowa.
Some analysts say, the uncertain outcome in Iowa dealt a jolting psychological blow to the Clinton campaign, leaving volunteers, donors and aides confused throughout the night, and then crestfallen. Hillary Clinton urged the voters who gave her a surprise win in 2008 to get behind her again. “New Hampshire, come with me this week,” she told the crowd in Nashua just before The Associated Press called the Iowa race. A woman shouted, “We are!”
According to reports, Sanders and his team are said to be making plans to spend more than $1 million on television commercials in an attempt to solidify his advantage. He also drew about $3 million in donations in the 24 hours after his caucus speech Monday night, his campaign said; with $28 million on hand, compared with Mrs. Clinton’s $38 million, Sanders advisers expressed confidence that he would not stumble like other insurgent presidential candidates of the past.
Sanders had hoped to unnerve Clinton by eking out a win in Iowa, and instead found himself trying to spin gold out of his “virtual tie” with her in the caucuses. Yet he and his advisers welcomed the sudden prospect of increased competition from Clinton here because it played into the expectations game as the Sanders campaign would like to play it.
Bernie Sanders
The Clinton campaign has already sought to dismiss any potential victory by Sanders here as irrelevant, given the state’s history of rewarding candidates from New England. “I know I am in a contest with your neighbor,” Mrs. Clinton saidTuesday night in Hampton, N.H. “We are in his backyard.”
Sanders has vowed to campaign hard across New Hampshire and said that as in Iowa, his campaign would focus on getting supporters to the polls on election night. “Secretary Clinton won here in 2008,” he told a group of reporters in Keene after a rally. “Secretary Clinton has a very formidable political organization and, as you know, has virtually the entire political establishment on her side. So, you know, we are taking nothing for granted.”
The 2016 presidential nomination process officially got underway tonight, and Ted Cruz was the big winner. In first-in-the-nation caucuses in Iowa, Hawkeye State voters chose Cruz over the other leading GOP candidates, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. Charles Krauthammer said that the Iowa caucus was a major inflection point on the Republican presidential campaign, as it punctured the aura of invincibility surrounding Donald Trump. “Had Trump won, it would have reinforced the sense of inevitability, the momentum he had,” Krauthammer explained. “This is the first time he’s encountered defeat.”
The days after the Iowa Caucus, where the front runner Trump lost to Ted Cruz and Rubio came a very close third, the Republican presidential contenders were attacking a young freshman Cuban-American senator who came away from the Iowa caucuses with a strong result that has given him momentum ahead of the New Hampshire primary on February 9. Yet they were not referring to Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, who cruised to victory on Monday, but Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, who came third.
Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz – were at the No. 2 and 3 spots in the GOP nomination race nationally, albeit with a sizable gap behind the frontrunner Donald Trump. While Rubio poses a threat to Cruz and Trump, whom he almost beat in Iowa, he poses a bigger immediate obstacle to other right-of-centre establishment Republicans who are banking on a strong performance in New Hampshire to catapult their struggling campaigns into the top tier.
On the campaign stump, the 44-year old son of Cuban immigrants whose life epitomises the American dream sells himself as a “generational choice” who can beat either Hillary Clinton, 68, or Bernie Sanders, 74, in the general election.
Cruz and Rubio are Cuban Americans. Rubio’s grandfather remained in the U.S. despite a removal order and his parents arrived separately in the 1950s. Cruz’s father came to the U.S. and then moved to Canada, where Cruz was born; his mother was an American citizen. The attacks against Rubio has gtrown stronger ever since his surprise good performance in Iowa.
“This isn’t a student council election, everybody. This is an election for president of the United States. Let’s get the boy in the bubble out of the bubble,” snarked Chris Christie. He was referring to Rubio’s tendency to be rather scripted in his appearances — one New Hampshire reporter compared him to “a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points.”
Christie, pressing further — and when does Chris Christie not? — has also been saying that the speech Rubio sticks to is the same one he’s been giving since 2010. It’s true that there’s always the part about his parents, the striving Cuban immigrants. And you do get the feeling you’re supposed to vote for him because his dad and mom believed in the American dream.
As a young man, Rubio himself was not particularly hard working. In fact, in his memoir he admits he could be “insufferably demanding.” But he did sympathize with his parents’ struggles, and when his father, a bartender, went on strike in 1984, young Marco became “a committed union activist.”
According to reports, Rubio was a slow starter, education-wise, but he eventually graduated from law school, saddled with a load of student debt. This is, as he always points out, a familiar American story. The next part, where he instantly runs for office and acquires a billionaire benefactor who helps him out by underwriting low-stress jobs for Rubio and his wife, is slightly less average.
On the issues, Rubio says he has a new generation’s answers to the nation’s economic problems. The answers are mainly about reducing business taxes and regulations, but he says it in a much more youthful way. He’s anti-choice, even for victims of rape and incest. Lately, he’s taken to pointing to instances when he supported legislation that did include an exception. This is true. As long as a bill makes it harder for women to have access to abortion rights, he’s there.
He becomes one of the famous bipartisan “Gang of Eight” pushing for immigration reform. Rubio is a valuable partner for the Gang, and he makes them pay with repeated concessions, including a very strong provision for additional border security. Finally, the path-to-citizenship bill passes the Senate 68 to 32. “We are a compassionate people,” he says on the Senate floor.
In the competition with the other super-conservative Cuban-American contender, Ted Cruz, Rubio is regarded as more likable. This is not a heavy lift. He is also competing with Cruz for the affection of Christian conservatives, and while Rubio has always mentioned God in his political speeches, lately he’s been ramping things up. One of his ads in Iowa was about “the free gift of salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ.”
The immigrant presidential contenders are fighting to win the Hispanic voters in the nation, which is very crucial to win the general election. Their efforts to paint the other as not tough enough on immigration showed how far to the right the discussion on immigration has shifted, to a point that the Gang of Eight immigration reform plan Rubio once supported is completely off the table, said Stella Rouse, director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland. “That’s not even part of the Republican discussion of what can be accomplished,” Rouse said.
Cruz called the bipartisan Gang of Eight bill, passed by the Senate in 2013 and that included a series of steps over the years that led to applying for citizenship, a “massive amnesty plan.” “He was fighting to grant amnesty and not to secure the border. I was fighting to secure the border,” Cruz said.
Cruz’s campaign chairman told a group of GOP Hispanics that Cruz wants to be the champion of legal immigration. He also told them that Cruz supports “attrition through enforcement” for people not legally in the country, a phrase that the group interpreted as self deportation. “I have never supported legalization and I do not intend to support legalization,” Cruz said in the debate. Princeton University political scientist Ali Valenzuela said Rubio is in a better position than Cruz to take a moderate stance on immigration – as well as other issues – that might appeal to Latino voters in the general election. Rubio talked about immigration in a way that sounded “sincere” and “heartfelt” like he knew what he was talking about,” Valenzuela said.
“Immigration is not an issue that I read about in the newspaper or watch a documentary on PBS or CNN,” Rubio said in the debate. “My family are immigrants. My wife’s family are immigrants. All of my neighbors are immigrants. I see every aspect of this problem. The good the bad and the ugly,” he said.
The Republican establishment is thrilled: A moderate-sounding Gen X senator from a swing state! And one so good at spin he managed to give a victory speech in Iowa after he came in third. No wonder all the other candidates are jealous.
Washington State Senator Pramila Jayapal has declared her intention to run for the U.S. Congress on January 21st. In her announcement, she declared that she wants to be the voice of masses left behind by the concentration of wealth in the hands of 1 percent.
Describing herself as a “bold, progressive fighter,” Jayapal announced she is running for the Democratic primary scheduled for March 26. She hopes to replace long time Congressman Jim McDermott who is vacating the District 7 seat that leans Democratic.
Jayapal faces off against at least two other Democratic aspirants who have declared so far: King County Council Chair Joe McDermott and State Rep. Brady Walkinshaw. The news outlet Seattlepi.com reported Walkinshaw already has some $300,000 in his campaign coffers and has bagged some key endorsements from leaders in the LGBT community and among environmentalists, as well as some long-time party activists.
Jayapal was elected to the state Senate in 2014, from the 37th Legislative District where she has lived for 20 years and which is one of the most racially and economically diverse districts in the state. But the U.S. Senate District 7 is an amalgam including some prosperous areas and Jayapal has her work cut out for her.
“I am a fighter not for the one percent, but for working men and women; not for austerity, but social security; not for deportations and breaking up families, but building stronger middle class families; not for prisons, but public education, college debt relief and criminal justice reform,” asserts Jayapal on her campaign website.
She is the second left-of-center politico thrown up by the Indian-American community in Washington state, the first being Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, an avowed Socialist whom Jayapal has strongly supported in the past two years.
Jayapal notes in her speech that she stood up for Arabs, Muslims and Sikhs after 9/11 “when few people would.” She attacked Republican frontrunner in the presidential primaries, Donald Trump for “whipping up hate and fear across the country, resulting in a rise in anti-Muslim violence.” She called for protecting Planned Parenthood.
“I’ve been on picket lines and at negotiating tables with numerous labor unions for more than a decade. And I’ve helped bring movements together—labor and community, gay, women and immigrant,—so that we can expand ourselves and see our intersections,” said Jayapal.
Sounding very much like Sawant, Jayapal said, “I’m running for Congress because our system is rigged for corporations and the wealthy, but we can fight back.” Jayapal said. Her core issues are raising the minimum wage, expanding Social Security and Medicare, and ensuring debt-free college for young people across America. “I’m ready to take on the powerful, while organizing inside, outside and in-between the two,” she said.
Jayapal came to the U.S. at the age of 16, sent by her parents to study at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “My parents took all the money they had, which was about $5,000 at the time, and used it to send me here to this country because they believed that this was the place I would get the best education and have the brightest future,” she said. After graduating, she worked on Wall Street as a financial analyst, also getting an MBA from Northwestern University. After a few years she quit the private sector to work on social justice issues advocating for women and immigrants and civil and human rights.
She is credited with leading one of the largest voter registration efforts in Washington state, which is said to have got more than 23,000 new Americans to register. Jayapal pushed for setting up the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs in Seattle and was co-chair of the Seattle Police Chief Search panel.
She is the founder of OneAmerica, (previously called Hate Free Zone), Washington state’s largest immigrant advocacy organization, and lobbied hard for the passage of President Obama’s 2014 Dream Act that enabled children of illegal immigrants to find a path to legal status.
In May 2013, she was recognized by President Obama as a White House “Champion of Change.” She lives in Columbia City with her son and husband, and has another grown stepson who lives in Colorado.
In India, the Hindu nationalist government “generally failed to curb a rise in anti-Muslim violence and intimidation, at times appearing to encourage or take advantage of religious divisions for political gain,” the U.S.-based Freedom House said in its annual report.
Across South and Southeast Asia, religious extremism gave rise to increased tensions and violence last year, the Freedom House said in its annual report. Released on January 27, the report features Asia as a region where “religious nationalism [is] linked to political tensions” and highlights six countries — all in South and Southeast Asia.
“In a range of Asian countries, strained political institutions were paired with various forms of religious nationalism or extremism,” noted a statement accompanying the report. In Myanmar, anti-Muslim discrimination “remained a serious problem,” the report notes, adding that it is unclear whether the newly elected National League for Democracy government will be able to address the issue.
In Muslim-majority countries, meanwhile, secularists and other minorities bore the brunt of the oppression. The report highlights a series of attacks in Bangladesh on atheist bloggers, foreigners and Shiites carried out by Islamist radicals. In Malaysia, increased conservatism has led to the persecution of the LGBT community, and in Brunei “the government restricted minority religious displays and moved toward implementation of a harsh new criminal code based on sharia.”
Among the listed nations, only Sri Lanka is singled out as a country that has seen a de-escalation, with Buddhist nationalists losing influence following last year’s surprise change in leadership. The country in fact saw one of the largest gains on the report’s ratings, shooting up 14 points to 55 on an index ranking freedom from 0 to 100. The country also was bumped up from “not free” to “partly free” on the reports’ three-tiered ranking system.
Across Asia, just 41 percent of the countries surveyed fell into the “free” tier. “In many countries with authoritarian governments, the drop in revenues from falling commodity prices led dictators to redouble political repression at home and lash out at perceived foreign enemies,” said Arch Puddington, senior vice president for research, in a statement accompanying the report, which also highlighted Thailand as a nation where “the previous year’s dramatic setbacks for freedom … continued to fester.” The region also performed poorly in Transparency International’s annual Corruptions Perception Index, which was released Jan. 27.
On 168 countries surveyed, much of Asia received less than 50 on a 100-point scale of perceived corruption. Cambodia performed the worst in Southeast Asia, scoring just 21 points, followed by Myanmar at 22. Singapore and Hong Kong were the only Asian nations to receive scores higher than 70.
“Has Asia Pacific stalled in its efforts to fight corruption?” asked Srirak Plipat, regional director for Asia Pacific. “This year’s poor results demand that leaders revisit the genuineness of their efforts and propel the region forward with actionable measures.”
With the Republican Presidential Candidate leading the GOP polls across the nation, a group called “Indian-Americans for Trump 2016” registered with the Federal Election Commission as a political action committee, has been on January 21st. The group hopes to garner the support of Indian Americans to elect Donald Trump as the next president of the United States.
The group’s president, A.D. Amar, a business professor at Seton Hall University, told the media that discussions about the PAC first started in December. “I was surprised at the strength Trump had among the Indian professionals and Indian community,” he said. “I have never seen Indians so united behind a candidate.”
The group of Indian-Americans which believes New York billionaire Donald Trump is the answer to America’s perceived ills, both domestic and international, will work to muster funds and advocate for GOP support for the controversial Republican frontrunner to become the next President of the United States.
Among the numerous candidates in the field including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Senator Ted Cruz, cardiologist Ben Carson, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, this group of Indian-Americans believes Trump has his finger on the pulse of the American people and a proven record that makes him the best one to lead the country.
New York-based attorney Anand Ahuja will serve as vice president and Devendra “Dave” Makkar will be treasurer, according to a press release issued by the organization. New Jersey local news publisher Sudhir Parikh will be chair of the fundraising and advisory committee.
In the press release, the PAC said, “The officers of the Indian-Americans for Trump 2016 urge all Americans to join in the effort and support Donald Trump in his endeavor to make America great again by electing him the next President of the USA.”
Amar cited Trump’s stances on illegal immigration and the economy as key factors for the group’s support of him. He also said that the group’s members were drawn to the fact that Trump has said he will not be taking money from PACs or special-interest groups. “Trump is going to keep the lobbies out, and he is going to focus on the general population,” Amar said.
Trump has proclaimed he does not take money from PACs. Amar said the new PAC was established to raise funds to carry out a grassroots campaign. “We will be building chapters around the country starting with Washington, D.C., California, and New York City, to get support from Americans, particularly Indian-Americans.”
What attracts Amar and the other founders of the PAC to Trump is his policies and pronouncements on illegal immigration and the economy. “In my 44 years in America, amnesty has been given to illegals two or three times, and yet the number is growing,” Amar said. “Trump is right when he says ‘You go back, apply, and we will process you” and that is the right way.”
Amar believes the perceived difference between Trump’s style and his management will translate to a change after the election. “Our election process is kind of a revolution,” Amar said. “In a revolution, these kind of statements are not unexpected. In my observation, he is going to be a different person once he’s nominated.”
Washington, DC; January 24, 2016: With less than year of his presidency left, no one yet knows where the Obamas will head on January 20, 2017, when the next president is sworn in on Capitol Hill. The recent debate over where President Barack Obama will establish a library to house his official papers — a debate now settled in favor of Chicago — serves as a reminder that we’ll soon see the end of the administration and the launch of an Obama post-presidency.
The Obamas are attached to Chicago — the president launched his political career there as a community organizer and celebrated his landmark 2008 election win. Obama’s presidential library and foundation will also be based in the Windy City.
“All the strands of my life came together and I really became a man when I moved to Chicago,” Obama said last year when he made the announcement about the library site. “That’s where I met my wife. That’s where my children were born,” he explained. But so far, there is no clear sign that Chicago is the family’s next destination. “Chicago probably seems a bit too small for them now,” said Peter Slevin, a professor at Northwestern University in the Chicago suburbs and the author of “Michelle Obama: A Life.”
So what will life be like for Barack Obama after two terms at the White House? To judge by recent comments, Obama as an ex-president will end up reverting to his most successful political persona: an inspirational figure helping to guide America forward on painful, thorny issues of race and social justice.
Every time someone close to them shows interest in a lavish property in Palm Springs or Honolulu, the press speculates about a veiled investment for the First Couple. But so far, no dice. Nothing concrete has emerged.
The only hint given by the US president? He has said that family will be his priority. “They — and Michelle — have made a lot of sacrifices on behalf of my cockamamie ideas, the running for office and things,” Obama told ABC in 2013, referring to his daughters.
In early 2017, Malia — the Obamas’ older daughter — will be at university. Sasha, now at the private Sidwell Friends school in Washington, will have more than half of her high school studies ahead of her.
Slevin says that like Clinton, Obama could settle down in the New York. “Their friends are expecting the Obamas to live in Washington and then surely move to New York,” he told AFP.
“New York has much to offer them at a time when they would like to be a bit more anonymous than it is possible to be in Chicago.”
Michelle Obama, a trained lawyer, has repeatedly rejected the idea that she would enter politics as Clinton did following her eight years as first lady. “There are three things that are certain in life: death, taxes and Michelle is not running for president,” Barack Obama said a few weeks ago.
Obama, who enjoys writing, is expected to focus on the traditional — and lucrative — art of writing his autobiography in his post-presidency. “Memoirs have always been an acceptable means of making money and cashing in on the presidency,” says historian Mark Updegrove, who is the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.
Well-paid speaking engagements — at home and abroad — should pour in. “The question is how much you want to commercialize having been the commander-in-chief,” adds Updegrove, the author of “Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House.”
Obama has said he hopes to work with minority youths in tough neighborhoods — where the dropout rate, unemployment and incarceration rates are higher than elsewhere — to give real meaning to the phrase “equal opportunity.”
While some former presidents of the White House have faded into the background, others have made a significant mark during their so-called second act. John Quincy Adams, who left office in 1829 after failing to win re-election, returned to Congress where he stayed until the end of his life, using his gift for soaring oratory to make the case against slavery.
William Howard Taft, who was president from 1909-1913, then became the chief justice of the US Supreme Court. Could Obama — a former president of the Harvard Law Review who will be 55 years old as he starts his post-White House life — be tempted by the high court?
“I think being a justice is a little bit too monastic for me,” he told The New Yorker in October 2014. “Particularly after having spent six years and what will be eight years in this bubble, I think I need to get outside a little bit more.”
The example of the two Democratic presidents before him — Carter and Clinton, who both launched foundations that are respected beyond America’s borders — could serve as a guide for Obama. Persistent rumors also suggest he could be interested in teaching courses at Columbia University in New York, where he studied in the early 1980s. “I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students,” he told The New Yorker.
Obama delivered one of the most important speeches of his career, a vintage performance that included emotional references to the President’s personal experiences and an explicit promise to keep working on the initiative after he leaves the White House in 2017.
“I grew up without a dad. I grew up lost sometimes and adrift, not having a sense of a clear path. And the only difference between me and a lot of other young men in this neighborhood and all across the country is that I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving,” Obama said. “This will remain a mission for me and for Michelle not just for the rest of my presidency, but for the rest of my life.”
Two protesters were removed Sunday, January 24th from a Donald Trump rally after holding up a banner that read “Stop Hate.” One of the protesters — Arish Singh, a Sikh-American man — responded to the incident on Sunday, tweeting, “I am not a Muslim. But you don’t have to be a Muslim to stand against anti-Muslim bigotry.” Singh and another man were escorted out of the rally in Muscatine, Iowa, as members of the audience chanted, “USA!”
The turbaned Sikh man was ousted out of Donald Trump’s campaign rally in US, after he interrupted the Republican presidential frontrunner’s speech by displaying a banner that read ‘Stop Hate’, the media reported.
The man, wearing a beard and bright red turban, tried to interrupt Trump’s speech when he was addressing a rally on Sunday in Muscatine High School, Iowa, a mid-western state of the US. The incident began as Trump was raging against “radical Islamic terror”, about the 9/11 terror attacks, and the San Bernardino shooting, a common theme in his speeches.
The Sikh protestor stood up and revealed a banner reading “Stop Hate”. Security officials soon escorted him out of the rally amidst chanting of “USA, USA, USA” by Trump’s supporters, reported abcnews.
“We have radical Islamic terror going on all over the place, all over the world, and we have a president that won’t say it,” Trump was quoted as saying at the rally. As the Sikh raised his banner, Trump waved his hand and said, “Bye. Bye. Goodbye.”
“He wasn’t wearing one of those hats, was he? And he never will, and that’s OK because we got to do something folks because it’s not working,” said Trump, pointing to the crowd and referring to the protestor.
In the last few months, before Trump takes the stage an announcement is read telling Trump’s supporters to “not harm a protestor” but instead to chant “Trump, Trump, Trump,” as an alert to security that a protestor has been spotted. The crowd roared Sunday after the protestor was escorted out and shouted “USA, USA, USA”.
Trump is campaigning in Iowa ahead of the next week’s crucial caucus. Latest polls showed that he has taken a lead over his nearest Republican rival Ted Cruz. Iowa Caucus on February 1 is considered crucial as it would set the trend for the rest of the presidential primaries over the next few months.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton Jan. 7 courted Indian Americans and the larger group of Asian-American voters, telling members of the nation’s fastest growing racial minority that she disagrees with the “hateful rhetoric” of her Republican challengers.
“They forget a fundamental lesson about our great country,” she told several hundred people gathered in a hotel ballroom in suburban Los Angeles. “Being an open and tolerant society does not make us vulnerable. It’s at the core of our strength.”
Clinton’s campaign stop in the San Gabriel Valley, an enclave home to more than a half million Asian-Americans, marked the launch of her grassroots outreach to the growing pool of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, called “AAPI for Hillary.” Those voters have trended Democratic in recent presidential elections, though they are still considered up for political grabs. Their influence is considered critical in some swing states. California is not one of those, having voted for a Democrat for president every election since 1992.
Republicans suggested Clinton’s visit is more about raising campaign cash. “The reality is Democrats have long taken the AAPI community for granted, and Hillary Clinton will be no different,” said Ninio Fetalvo, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
Clinton made her appeal to Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters in a Southern California region where a number of cities are now majority Asian-American and store signs in Mandarin and Cantonese line the streets.
“Their party identity is not cast in stone,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, an Indian American professor of public policy and political science at the University of California, Riverside. “There’s still potential for persuasion there.”
In a half-hour speech, Clinton told constituents she would be the one to fix the nation’s broken immigration system, improve access to higher education, and increase wages — all issues considered top priorities for the Asian American electorate. She vowed to reduce the visa backlog and help unauthorized immigrants with deep community ties that “deserve the chance to stay.”
“Ultimately this is more than an economic or political issue,” she said. “It’s a family issue.”
Nearly 4 million Asians voted in the 2012 presidential election, a 547,000 increase over 2008. According to exit polls, nearly three-quarters of Asian-American voters favored President Barack Obama in the 2012 election. They comprised about 3 percent of the total electorate.
The Asian-American community has been the subject of relatively little discussion in the Democratic and Republican primaries.
PTI adds: The group, called “AAPI Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) for Hillary,” was launched in Southern California in the presence of a large number of Asian American leaders, including Indian Americans.
At the launch, Clinton pledged to address the concerns of the community, including those related to immigration and visas.
In her speech, Clinton pledged to work to reduce the backlog for family visas to reunite immigrant families.
“Applicants from the Asia-Pacific region make up about 40 percent of the family visa backlog. Some from the Philippines have been waiting for a visa for 23 years. If you’re a U.S. citizen and your brother lives in India, it will take at least 12 years just to get him a visa,” the former secretary of state said.
“We have got to do more to help the millions of people who are eligible for citizenship take that last step. I will work to expand fee waivers so more people can get a break on the costs. I will increase access to language programs to help people boost their English proficiency.
“I don’t want anyone who could be a citizen now to miss out on that opportunity,” she said.She also explained the reasons for her early outreach to the community.
“That is essential because right now, it’s one of the fastest-growing communities in this country, but it’s a community that votes at a lower rate than others,” Clinton said.
America’s ties to the Asia-Pacific region have always been important, but in the 21st century they will be absolutely vital, she said.
“I was very proud when my husband’s administration launched the first-ever White House initiative on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders,” she added.
The United States, she said, is a country built by the hard work of generations of immigrants and America is stronger because of its diversity and openness.
She also identified Donald Trump – the Republican presidential front runner – in her speech.
“I disagree with the Republican front-runner, Mr. Trump. See, I think America is great because generations of hardworking Americans have made us great. Our values and our ideals have made us great,” Clinton said.
