Tag: Indian American

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Aaron Chatterji: Biden’s adviser on microchips steps down

Chaterji was appointed to the top post by President Joe Biden’s administration in September last year…reports Asian Lite News

Indian-American Aaron ‘Ronnie’ Chatterji has stepped down as a White House coordinator at the National Economic Council (NEC), and will be returning to his post as a business professor at Duke University.

Chaterji was appointed to the top post by President Joe Biden’s administration in September last year for the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act’s historic $50 billion investment in the semiconductor industry at NEC.

“Looking forward to returning to @DukeFuqua after 2 great years in the Biden Administration. Thank you to all my colleagues @WhiteHouse & @CommerceGov. Excited to continue work on these important economic & national security issues,” Chatterji tweeted on Wednesday.

During his service at the White House, he had taken a leave of absence from the Fuqua School of Business.

The CHIPS and Science Act was passed last year to increase production of semiconductors, strengthen research and design leadership, and grow a diverse semiconductor workforce to give the country a competitive edge on the world stage.

According to Politico, Chatterji’s departure comes as the Biden administration’s semiconductor strategy has evolved from a frenzied search for a short-term fix to the global chips shortage to placing long-term bets on US-based manufacturing facilities in an effort to depend less on suppliers in Taiwan, which has become a political liability amid rising tensions with China.

Chatterji had served as the Chief Economist of the Department of Commerce since April 2021 where he was the principal economic adviser to the Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

In that role, he was responsible for developing policy related to US competitiveness, labour markets, supply chains, innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth.

Raimondo in a statement to Politico described Chatterji as “an incredible asset” to the administration, adding that she “relied on his expertise and guidance to help make major strides in bolstering America’s supply chains, strengthening national security, and creating good jobs across America”.

Chatterji also worked in the administration for former President Barack Obama, serving as a senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and as a visiting Associate Professor at Harvard Business School.

Having served as a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and worked as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, Chatterji has several awards to his credit.

He received the 2017 Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship, Rising Star award from the Aspen Institute, and the Strategic Management Society Emerging Scholar Award.

He received his Ph.D. from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley and his B.A. in Economics from Cornell University.

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-Top News USA

Indian-American Neera Tanden named as new domestic policy adviser

Biden announces 'crisis tested' economic team, Neera Tanden to head Budget office.

Tanden was initially nominated by Biden to head the Office of Management and Budget but her nomination was withdrawn earlier this year…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden has picked Indian-American Neera Tanden to serve as Assistant to the President and Domestic Policy Advisor, following former Ambassador Susan Rice’s exit from that role.

Tanden, who currently serves as Senior Advisor to President Biden and Staff Secretary, will be the first Asian-American to lead any of the three major White House policy councils in history.

“I am pleased to announce that Neera Tanden will continue to drive the formulation and implementation of my domestic policy, from economic mobility and racial equity to health care, immigration and education,” Biden said.

Tanden was initially nominated by Biden to head the Office of Management and Budget but her nomination was withdrawn earlier this year.

She served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations, as well as presidential campaigns and think tanks.

Most recently, Tanden was the President and CEO of the Center for American Progress and the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

“As Senior Advisor and Staff Secretary, Neera oversaw decision-making processes across my domestic, economic and national security teams. She has 25 years of experience in public policy, has served three Presidents, and led one of the largest think tanks in the country for nearly a decade,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

Tanden previously served as senior advisor for health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services, working on President Barack Obama’s health reform team in the White House.

Prior to that, she was the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign, and served as policy director for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

She was a key architect of the Affordable Care Act and helped drive key domestic policies that became part of Biden’s agenda, including clean energy subsidies and sensible gun reform.

“While growing up, Neera relied on some of the critical programs that she will oversee as Domestic Policy Advisor, and I know those insights will serve my Administration and the American people well. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Neera in her new role,” Biden said.

She served as senior advisor to the Chancellor of the New York City Schools and also served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy in the Clinton White House and Senior Policy Advisor to the First Lady.

Tanden was named one of the “Most Influential Women in Washington” by National Journal and received the India Abroad Publisher’s Award for Excellence in 2011.

She was recognised as one of Fortune magazine’s “Most Powerful Women in Politics”, and received her bachelor of science from UCLA and her law degree from Yale Law School.

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US Senate confirms Radha Iyengar as Dy Under Secretary of Defense

Radha Iyengar is the latest Indian-American to be named for a key position….reports Asian Lite News

The US Senate on Tuesday confirmed Indian-American Radha Iyengar Plumb as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense.

The Senate today voted on the confirmation of Executive Calendar 19 Radha Iyengar Plumb, of New York, to be a Deputy Under Secretary of Defense. She won by a vote of 68-30. “By a vote of 68-30, the Senate confirmed Executive Calendar #19 Radha Iyengar Plumb to be a Deputy Under Secretary of Defense,” tweeted the US Senate Periodical Press Gallery.

US President Joe Biden had nominated security expert Radha Iyengar Plumb to the post of Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the latest Indian-American to be named for a key position.

She is currently serving as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Defense & was nominated for the top Pentagon position in June 2022.

Prior to her appointment as Chief of Staff, she was the Director of Research and Insights for Trust & Safety at Google and had previously served as Global Head of Policy Analysis at Facebook.

Before her Silicon Valley work, Plumb was a senior economist at the RAND Corporation where she focused on improving the measurement and evaluation of readiness and security efforts across the Department of Defense.

In that capacity, she served as lead author on a number of critical reports including assessing the implications of open service for Transgender Service members and review of security and suitability screening efforts.

From 2014-2015, Plumb served as the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Energy, where she led policy processes including budget and policy reviews related to modernizing nuclear infrastructure and efforts to enhance energy sector security and resilience.

She has also served as the director of personnel and readiness at the National Security Council where she was instrumental in executive actions on sexual assault in the military.

She also served as a policy advisor and Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, and as a civilian in Afghanistan conducting measurement and assessment work to support the Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team for the Commander, ISAF.

Plumb received her PhD in economics from Princeton University. Her research has covered empirical evaluations of policies aimed at reducing violence, including criminal violence, sexual assault, terrorist behaviour, and sexual and intimate partner violence.

At the outset of her career, she was an assistant professor at the London School of Economics and a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Harvard.

In her Linkedin profile, she describes herself as an experienced leader with deep technical analytic skills and a demonstrated history of working in the government, academia, and industry. (ANI)

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Indian-American appointed to panel on racism, health discrimination

Indian-American on panel to address racism, health discrimination

Krishtel has spent 20 years exposing structural inequities affecting access to medicines and vaccines across the Global South and in the United States…reports Asian Lite News

Indian-American health justice lawyer Priti Krishtel, along with four other US-based experts, has been named to the O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health.

Housed at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, the three-year commission, co-led by UN Special Rapporteur on right to health, seeks to identify anti-racist strategies to improve health globally.

The panel includes close to 20 experts from across the globe, with a purpose to promote anti-racist strategies and actions that will reduce barriers to health and wellbeing.

“I’m so proud to serve on this Commission that will help shape a future where all people know they can keep their loved ones healthy, where people actively shape what access to medicines looks like for their families and communities,” Krishtel said in a statement.

She has spent 20 years exposing structural inequities affecting access to medicines and vaccines across the Global South and in the United States.

Krishtel was chosen as 2022 McArthur Fellow for exposing inequities in the patent system to increase access to affordable, life-saving medications on a global scale.

Early in her career, she worked to increase access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatments at the height of the global AIDS epidemic, and in 2006, she co-founded the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK) to ensure the public had a voice in the pharmaceutical patent system.

The concept of the Commission is founded on the recognition that racism, rather than race, creates and maintains unjust and avoidable health inequities in countries around the world. Racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes are increasingly recognized worldwide, according to a university statement.

It added that the Commission will go beyond simply documenting disparities, as that is insufficient for understanding the connections between race, ethnicity, structural discrimination and global health.

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Indian American appointed Tufts University President

Indian-American academician Sunil Kumar.(photo:Tufts University)

His academic career began by teaching at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was later the Fred H. Merrill Professor of Operations, Information and Technology…reports Asian Lite News

Indian-American academician Sunil Kumar has been appointed the next president of Massachusetts-based Tufts University — the first person of colour to occupy the position.

Kumar, Provost and Senior Vice President for academic affairs at Johns Hopkins University, succeeds President Anthony P. Monaco on July 1, 2023.

“Sunil Kumar brings to Tufts a lifelong commitment to excellence in higher education and an exceptionally strong record as a leader, teacher, and colleague,” said Peter Dolan, Chair of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the presidential search committee.

“He will be an outstanding successor to President Monaco, who has strengthened Tufts in so many ways in the past 11 years. Sunil’s commitment to research and learning, along with civic engagement and innovation, will help bolster Tufts’ mission to improve the world,” Dolan said in a university statement, which was released on Thursday.

At Johns Hopkins, Kumar oversees the academic mission of the university’s nine schools, and has focused on increasing interdisciplinary research and education, enhancing the student experience, and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

“It would not have been possible for me as a son of a police officer to do anything else. And therefore, affordability is not a theoretical concept for me. I hope I represent an example of somebody who benefited from an institution opening its doors wide,” Kumar said in a video posted on the Tufts website. “And I would like even more people to have the same opportunity. Diversity and inclusion are indispensable values,” he added.

His academic career began by teaching at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was later the Fred H. Merrill Professor of Operations, Information and Technology.

He was named dean of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In 2016, he became provost and senior vice president at Johns Hopkins.

Kumar, whose father was a police officer, was born and raised in India, graduating in 1990 with a bachelor’s in engineering from Mangalore University. He received a master’s degree in 1992 in computer science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. While there, he was recruited for a doctoral programme in electrical engineering. Kumar received his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1996.

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Indian-American to command NASA-SpaceX’s Crew-3 mission

Pic credits @Astro_Raja

Indian-American Chari will serve as the commander of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and the Crew-3 mission. He also will serve as an Expedition 66 flight engineer aboard the station….reports Asian Lite News

 An Indian-American astronaut is part of NASA-SpaceX’s third mission to the International Space Station.

“NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission will carry NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron as well as ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket to the space station,” the US space agency said in a statement.

The four astronauts will lift off to space on October 30 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the statement added.

Crew-3 is the SpaceX’s fifth crewed flight to space and fourth to the International Space Station.

Indian-American Chari will serve as the commander of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and the Crew-3 mission. He also will serve as an Expedition 66 flight engineer aboard the station.

Born in Milwaukee, he became a NASA astronaut in 2017 and this will be his first spaceflight. He is also a colonel in the US Air Force and has extensive experience as a test pilot with more than 2,500 hours of flight time.

The Crew-3 mission follows Inspiration4, an all-civilian crewed mission that lifted off on September 15 for an orbital journey aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

With Crew-3, “the four crew going up are going to be doing even more science,” Space.com reported Kathy Leuders, associate administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA as saying.

Pic credits @Astro_Raja

Leuders added that the crew will be continuing to test “our exploration risks and pushing the bounds of technology and continuing to establish our key international partner relationships.”

This expedition “will have experiments that crossover from science and utilisation that we do as well as technology development”, added Joel Montalbano, the manager of NASA’s ISS programme.

He specified that there will be experiments on board that include human research as well as rodent research and other experimentation similar to what’s been done previously on the station.

But, while the astronauts launching will spend the vast majority of their six-month station stay working hard, they will have a bit of room for some festive fun. The crew will be arriving just in time for Halloween and will also be living in the lab during the winter holidays,the report said.

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Bollywood Lite Blogs Music

Aneesha ready for singing debut

“The song was shot in Goa and I am happy that I get to showcase my talent as an actress, dancer, singer and writer through this music video,” she adds…reports Asian Lite News.

Muli-talented artists have greater acceptance in every industry. Indian-American actress Aneesha Madhok makes her singing debut in Punjabi singer Jasbir Jassi’s track “Dil mangdi”. The song had a YouTube release on Thursday.

While Jasbir has sung the Punjabi lines, Aneesha has penned as well as voices the Farsi bits.

“Since I am fluent in Farsi, I thought it would be cool for me to write the lyrics in Farsi. I got some inspiration from my poems. The song has a very groovy Punjabi and middle-eastern feel to it. I’m sure everyone is going to love it and vibe to it,” she told.

“The song was shot in Goa and I am happy that I get to showcase my talent as an actress, dancer, singer and writer through this music video,” she adds.

Aneesha has done theatre and stressed that her background has helped her in emoting well in all the mediums.

She says: “My background from theatre allows me to express myself as an actor, comedian, singer and dancer (ballet and kathak) which for me is all the same as my purpose is to express.”

“I did musical theatre and I believe singing is a beautiful way for me to express my emotions. I have also been writing poetry since I was 11. I am a ball full of emotions that I feel deep, so poetry is my way to give my love to this world,” she says.

The actress will make her Hollywood debut with “Bully High” soon.

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Neera Tanden appointed senior adviser to Biden

Indian-American Neera Tanden had withdrawn her nomination in March as Director of the White House OMB after the Democrats failed to secure enough votes in the Senate to secure her confirmation, reports Asian Lite News

The Biden administration has announced that Indian-American Neera Tanden, who had withdrawn her nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) amid bipartisan criticism, will now join the White House as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden.

In a statement, John Podesta, the founder of Center for American Progress (CAP) said: “Neera’s intellect, tenacity, and political savvy will be an asset to the Biden administration as she assumes a new role as senior adviser to the president. While we will be sorry to lose her considerable policy expertise and leadership at the Center for American Progress–an organisation which we founded together in 2003–I am exceptionally thrilled to see her step into a new position serving this White House and the American people.”

Neera Tanden

He further said that many of the policy solutions under the Biden administration were developed and led by Tanden at CAP over many years.

“The administration’s efforts will be magnified with Neera Tanden on the team, and I am excited to see what she will achieve in the role of senior adviser and in the years to come,” he added.

Tanden serves as president and CEO of CAP and has served as the CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In March, Tanden had withdrawn her nomination as Director of the White House OMB after the Democrats failed to secure enough votes in the Senate to secure her confirmation.

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President Biden’s pick to lead the White House budget office had earlier generated early controversy, emerging as an immediate target for conservatives and Republican lawmakers. Neera is said to have run in trouble with some of the Republican senators due to her comments about some members of the Senate on Twitter, The Hill reported.

“I appreciate how hard you and your team at the White House has worked to win my confirmation. Unfortunately, it now seems clear that there is no path forward to gain confirmation and I do not want continued consideration of my nomination to be a distraction from your other priorities,” Tanden said in a statement.

US President Joe Biden at the Oval Office in White House, Washington D.C., (Picture: @POTUS/Twitter)

Besides accepting Neera’s request for withdrawal, US President Joe Biden indicated that she will be brought back in another capacity in his administration.

“I have accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I have the utmost respect for her record of accomplishment, her experience and her counsel, and I look forward to having her serve in a role in my Administration. She will bring valuable perspective and insight to our work,” Biden said.

If Tanden had been selected, she would have been the first woman of colour and the first South Asian American to lead the OMB.

Tanden was also the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign, where she managed all domestic policy proposals. (ANI)

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