The World Economic Forum last week named former Clinton Administration official, erstwhile Congressional staffer and longtime Democratic Party activist Shamina Singh, 41, as one of its Young Global Leaders for 2010.
Former Bush Administration official Ashley J Tellis, considered one of US' foremost strategic experts, praised Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his forbearance in dealing with Pakistan, while the addressing the Congress on the impending threat posed by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba on Thursday.
Lisa Curtis, erstwhile Central Intelligence Agency South Asia analyst and ex-senior Congressional staffer on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said that the arrest and findings from the investigation of Chicago-based Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative John Coleman Headley, has awakened US officials to the gravity of the threat of the LeT and other Pakistan-based terrorist groups.
Professor Marvin Weinbaum, Scholar-in-Residence at the Middle East Institute, who has served in several US administrations as an expert on South Asia, particularly in the State Department's Policy Planning Bureau and Bureau of Intelligence and Research, told Congress on Thursday that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, responsible for the horrific 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, could surpass or replace Al Qaeda as the number one terror network worldwide.
US Congressman Gary Ackerman, New York Democrat, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South Asia, Thursday launched a blistering attack on the Pakistani military, accusing it of continuing to tolerate and pander to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, the terrorist outfit that carried out the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain will join the Indian-American community in Austin and leading Texas lawmakers March 6 to honor Arunachala 'Raj' Nagarajan for his nearly four-decade-old commitment to Indian classical music in the United States.
Egged on by more than 160 venture capitalists, including several Indian Americans -- the majority of whom are from California's Silicon Valley -- United States Senators John F Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, and Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, have introduced legislation to create jobs in America and increasing America's global competitiveness by helping immigrant entrepreneurs obtain US visas.
Right wing US conservatives led by the likes of nationally-syndicated columnist Cal Thomas have launched a vitriolic campaign against Indian American Rashad Hussain. They pilloried President Barack Obama for appointing him as Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference and called for Hussain's ouster, calling him a 'voice of radical Islam.'
Hrishi Karthikeyan, who co-founded SAFO with Devendra 'Dave' Kumar, told rediff.com: "We like the SAFO name, but since the initial objective was to win the election on behalf of Obama and that was achieved, we wanted to keep the organisation around to continue to build others types of positive change."
Two attorneys in San Francisco, Sheila Bapat and Neha Shah, and a writer/producer in Los Angeles, Saurabh Kikani, have formed South Asians for Kamala Harris to help get San Francisco District Attorney Harris elected as California's next attorney general.
Neera Tanden, one of the senior-most Indian Americans in the Obama administration, has quit the administration to rejoin her former liberal and progressive think tank in Washington, DC. She was a key adviser on health-care reform policy and worked with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Former senior Administration policy expert on South Asia, Daniel Markey, just back from Pakistan after meeting senior political and security officials in Islamabad, has said that for all of the internal terrorist attacks and continuing existential threats from extremist elements in Pakistan, India is still perceived as the primary security threat.
Egged on by more than 160 venture capitalists, including several Indian Americans, US Senators John F Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat and Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, have introduced a legislation to create jobs in America and increasing America's global competitiveness by helping immigrant entrepreneurs obtain visas to the United States.
Kiran Ahuja, the founding executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, has been appointed by President Barack Obama as executive director of the White House Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islanders.
Manisha Singh, an erstwhile senior staffer of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former political appointee during the George Bush Administration, has landed a top job as the executive director of the Barer Institute based at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle.
A leading Washington, DC-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notwithstanding the arrest of retired Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka who challenged President Mahinda Rajapakse at the recent elections, and the country's poor record on human rights and its treatment of several thousand internally displaced persons, has said that the United States cannot afford to disengage with the island nation.
United States President Barack Obama last week appointed his Deputy Associate Counsel at the White House, Rashad Hussain, 30, to serve as his Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference -- which comprise over 50 member states and is the second largest inter governmental organisation in the world.
Suresh Kumar's nomination by United States President Barack Obama, to be assistant secretary of commerce and director general of the United States and Foreign Commerce Service, sailed through two key US Senate Committees last week.Now the full Senate has to vote on his nomination, and sources said he could be in place in his job at Commerce by late February or early March.
Leaders from South Asian and Arab American communities and from religious groups met recently with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to discuss joint efforts against domestic extremists. They also brought up concerns over discrimination and racial and religious profiling in the wake of rules imposed after the Christmas Day terrorism attempt by Nigerian suicide bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.
The Kashmiri Pandit leadership from across the United States, led by California-based community activist Jeevan Zutshi, last week met senior Obama administration officials at the State Department and lawmakers on Capitol Hill to implore them to help address the plight of the Pandits in India.
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