Washington (SunstarTV Bureau): US President-elect Joe Biden has nominated at least 20 Indian Americans, including 13 women, to key positions in his administration and as many as 17 of them would be part of the powerful White House complex.
For the first time in American history, a woman Kamala Harris would be sworn in as the vice president of the country.
The 56-years-old, Harris is the first-ever Indian-American to be elected as the vice-president.
So many Indian-Americans have been roped for the first time into the presidential administration ever before the inauguration.
Coming to the peak spot, Neera Tanden has been nominated as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Following the list, Dr Vivek Murthy nominated as the US Surgeon General, Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general Department of Justice, former Foreign Service official Uzra Zeya as the undersecretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights; Mala Adiga has been appointed as policy director to the future first lady Dr Jill Biden and Garima Verma would be the digital director of the Office of the first lady; Sabrina Singh has been named as her deputy press secretary.
From Kashmir, Aisha Shah and Sameera Fazili have been appointed as partnership manager of Digital Strategy and as deputy director at the US National Economic Council (NCE) in the White House, respectively.
Bharat Rammurti as deputy director in White House National Economic Council, Gautam Raghavan as deputy director in office of presidential personnel, Vinay Reddy as director speechwriting, young Vedant Patel as assistant press secretary, Tarun Chhabra as senior director for technology and national security, Sumona Guha as senior director for South Asia, Shanthi Kalathil as co-ordinator for democracy and human rights, Sonia Aggarwal as senior advisor for climate policy and innovation in the office of Domestic Climate Policy, Vidur Sharma as a policy advisor for testing for the White House Covid-19 Response team.
Two Indian American women, Neha Gupta as associate counsel and Reema Shah as deputy associate counsel have appointed to the office of the White House.
Similarly, three other South Asians in the key positions as Pakistani-American Ali Zaidi as deputy national climate advisor White House, Sri Lankan American Rohini Kosoglu as domestic policy advisor to the Vice President and Bangladeshi-American Zayn Siddique as senior advisor to the White House deputy chief of staff.
