Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are going to ascend to their respective roles as the President and Vice President of America.
While the world is watching the twists and turns in the change of administration, it has come to light that around 20 Indian-Americans have been either nominated or named for key roles in the administration led by Biden & Harris.
It is a new record where 20 Indian Americans, including 13 women are suspected to have bagged key roles. 17 of these 20 will a part of the White House complex.
Joe Biden will swear in as the 46th President of United States of America. It is historic because, Kamala Harris will be the first woman to become the Vice President on January 20, less than 100 hours later.
As per the PTI report, it is for the first time that so many Indian Americans have been roped in for key roles in the upcoming administration.
Neera Tanden tops the list with a nomination as the Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Dr Vivek Murthy has been nominated as the US Surgeon General.
Vanita Gupta will be Associate Attorney General Department of Justice, nominated on Saturday. Uzra Zeya, former foreign service official, has been nominated as the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.
Indiaspora founder M R Rangaswami was quoted as saying by PTI, "The dedication that the Indian-American community has shown to public service over the years has been recognised in a big way at the very start of this administration! I am particularly pleased that the overwhelming majority are women. Our community has truly arrived in serving the nation."
Dr Jill, who is a upcoming first lady will have Mala Adiga as her Policy director while the Deputy Press Secretary will be Sabrina Singh.
Aisha Shah has been nominated as Partnership Manager at the White House Office of Digital Strategy and Sameera Fazili is expected to be the Deputy Director at the US National Economic Council (NEC) in the White House. It is historic because they both traces their roots back to Kashmir and perhaps first time, Kashmiri origin people will be inducted in the administration.
Bharat Ramamurti will be a Deputy Director of White House National Economic Council. Similarly, Gautam Raghavan is expected to be a White House Deputy Director in Office of Presidential Personnel. He earlier also served in the Obama administration.
Vinay Reddy is expected to be inducted in the inner circle of Biden. He has been named as the Director Speechwriter.
Vedant Patel will occupy a seat as Assistant Press Secretary to the President in the White House, behind the briefing room. If reports are to be believed, three Indian-American will be included in the National Security Council of the White House. It is said to be a crucial development that will have a larger impact on the foreign policy and national security of the country.
The names of the three Indian-Americans are Tarun Chhabra who will be Senior Director for Technology and National Security, Sumona Guha, Senior Director for South Asia and Shanthi Kalathil who will be Coordinator for Democracy and Human Rights.
Another significant member Sonia Aggarwal is named as Senior Advisor for Climate Policy and Innovation at White House. Vidur Sharma has been appointed as Policy Advisor for Testing for the White House COVID-19 Response Team.
Neha Gupta and Reema Shah have been appointed to the office of the White House Counsel as Associate Counsel and Deputy Associate Counsel respectively.
It is a historic development where the White House would have three South Asians in key positions. Ali Zaidi has been named as Deputy National Climate Advisor White House. He is a Pakistani-American. Similarly, Rohini Kosoglu, a Sri Lankan-American will be Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President.
Similarly, a Bangladeshi-American Zayn Siddique will be a Senior Advisor to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff.
"As President, I'll also continue to rely on Indian-American diaspora, that keeps our two nations together, as I have throughout my career," Biden had addressed the Indian-American community on the Independence day in 2020. So, these appointments are in line with his earlier promises.