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Role for Indian-Americans

Houston: 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.

Most of the appointees have longstanding associations with him.

While 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.

Arti Rai, an ex-classmate of Mr. 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 U.S. government to craft policy, budgetary and personnel decisions prior to the President’s inauguration.

Anjan Mukherjee, who is a pass out from the Harvard Business School, has been named one of the several leads on the economics and international trade agency review team.

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.

Ms. Ramanathan, 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. — PTI

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