Several Indian Americans in Obama-Biden team

Seema Hakhu Kachru

Houston, Nov 25 (PTI) The Obama-Biden transition team has roped in a number of Indian-Americans, mostly specialists and leading academicians, to assist the Democrats in assuming the responsibilities of the administration.

The appointees are no strangers to the first ever
African American President-elect Barack Obama, with most of
them having longstanding associations with him.

While Indian American Nick Rathod has been appointed
director to the Office of Inter-governmental Affairs, Parag
Mehta from Texas will oversee affairs of minority groups,
including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as deputy
director of inter-governmental affairs and public liaison.

Rathod is currently the national outreach director of
South Asians for Obama and one of its founding members.

Arti Rai, an ex-classmate of Obama at Harvard Law School,
who is currently a professor of patent law at Duke University,
has been appointed member of the agency review team on
science, technology, space, arts and humanities.

The agency review teams are charged with completing a
thorough review of various departments, agencies and
commissions in the US government to craft policy, budgetary
and personnel decisions prior to the President's inauguration.

Anjan Mukherjee, another Indian-American, who is a pass
out from the Harvard Business School and managing director at
the private equity firm Blackstone, has been named one of the
several leads on the economics and international trade agency
review team.

Mukherjee, who was also involved in the Asian Americans'
campaign for Obama, is also a director of Steifel
Laboratories, one of his firm's investment arm.

Besides, Rachana Bhowmik, Subhasri Ramanathan, Natasha
Bilimoria and Puneet Talwar will all serve as members of the
state, national security, defence, intelligence and arms
control agency review teams.

Bhowmik was earlier part of Senator Obama's legislative
counsel, handling civil rights, civil liberties, and national
security issues such as intelligence, homeland security, and
veterans' issues for the senator, who was a member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Ramanathan, who is currently a senior analyst with the
Government Accountability Office's Homeland Security and
Justice team, has also served as the Chief Counsel and Deputy
Staff Director to the Democratic Staff of the House Committee
on Homeland Security, specialising in border security, visa
and immigration policy issues.

Bilimoria, who also part of the Clinton administration,
is the executive director of Friends of the Global Fight
Against AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis -- a non-profit
organisation working to engage Americans in prevention of
these diseases in the developing world.

Bilimoria previously served as senior public policy
officer at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and
spent four years with the Clinton Administration, including at
the US Department of Treasury.

Meanwhile, Puneet is a senior staffer on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, and previously served on the
State Department's policy planning staff.

The appointment of Sonal Shah, an eminent economist, as
an advisory board member to assist Obama's transition team,
had sparked a controversy, over her alleged links to
right-wing outfit Vishwa Hindu Parishad. PTI SHK
SAK