text: The Prez's talent pool
  October 28, 2010, 3:49 pm IST Ishani Duttagupta in Global Indian | Economy | ET
  Chop shop allegations and the 'Buffalo not Bangalore' mantra -President Barack Obama and his administration have ruffled feathers across India Inc – but the number of high-profile Indian American faces in the corridors of power in Washington DC keeps increasing. And if visibility in his team is anything to go by, the President surely appreciates the Indian American connection.
  Suresh Kumar, assistant secretary for trade promotion and director general of US & foreign commercial service in the US department of commerce, is in India in the run-up to the presidential visit. Mr Kumar who went to St Columba's School and Hindu College in Delhi and Jamnalal Bajaj in Mumbai, started his career as an anchor in Doordarshan. Before joining the Obama administration, he held top jobs in major US corporations. He also served as special advisor to the Clinton Foundation working with governments and companies in sub-Saharan Africa. Another Indian American in the department of commerce is Ro Khanna, deputy assistant secretary for domestic operations and foreign commercial service. Bilateral trade issues have been centre stage during previous US Presidential visits and last time, when President George Bush was in India, Karan Bhatia his deputy US Trade Representative, held one of the most senior administrative positions ever by a person of Indian origin.
  Bhatia later joined General Electric as VP and senior counsel in the company's international law and policy division. It is expected that Dr Rajiv Shah, who heads United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as administrator, will be part of the high level team with the US President during his India visit. Shah is seen as the most influential Indian American in the US administration now and was one of the key officials who visited Pakistan on a relief assignment after the devastating floods a few months back. The visit had turned controversial after he was forced to leave a camp on being threatened by extremists.
  Nisha Desai Biswal is assistant administrator for Asia in USAID. On the science and technology front, a recent appointment by President Obama was that of MIT professor and IIT Madras alumnus, Subra Suresh, as the director of the National Science Foundation, the top US science body that leads research. Suresh will lead the $7.4 billion independent federal agency that supports all fields of science and engineering research, as well as a wide span of educational programmes that reach more than 2,000 institutions across the US.
  Another Indian and MIT link is entrepreneur Gururaj Deshpande, who is co-chair of the US President's National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He supports Obama's innovation strategy by helping to develop policies that foster entrepreneurship, create jobs, and drive economic growth. Aneesh Chopra – America's first chief technology officer and Vivek Kundra, the chief information officer, have been with the Obama administration since the early days; Arun Majumdar is director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy, in the US Department of Energy while Richard Verma is assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the state department.
  Prominent lawyer Preeta D. Bansal serves as the vice-chair of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the US while Rashad Hussain, an Indian American Muslim, is the US representative to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. In the multicultural melting pot of America, it's not always politically correct to pick out Indian Americans in top government jobs. One will most likely be told that they got there on their own merit and it had nothing to do with race or colour. And it's also very likely that many of them got there on H1B and L1 visas.
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