Pravasi Herald

Indian American wins National Spelling Bee 2010

June 5, 2010
She spelt the word “stromuhr” correctly to win the popular Spelling Bee contest, becoming the third Indian-American in a row to emerge victorious in the coveted competition. 14-year-old eighth grader from Ohio Anamika Veeramani topped the 83rd Scripps National Spelling Bee on Friday, taking home more than $40,000 in cash and prizes. Anamika was the 10th Indian American to win the coveted Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Posted by ks on 06/06/10 at 07:08 PM
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Harvard Leadership Expert Nitin Nohria Named Business Dean

May 4 —Harvard University picked Nitin Nohria, a specialist in leadership and ethics, to be dean of its business school, charging him with transforming management education after financial catastrophes and scandals shook public faith in business.

Nohria, 48, a professor of management at the school, was named dean by President Drew Faust, president of Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He will begin after Jay Light, dean since 2006, steps down in June. Nohria, who will be tenth Harvard Business School dean, said in an interview that he will emphasize responsibility and the positive role companies can play in society.

Click here to read the full story on Business Week

Posted by ks on 05/05/10 at 07:50 PM
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Vijay C. Gandhi sworn in as federal magistrate judge

April 18, 2010

WASHINGTON - Today, Vijay “Jay” C. Gandhi was sworn in as a Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Judge Gandhi is the first Indian American federal judge in the Central District and only the second Indian American federal judge in the history of the United States. At age 38, Judge Gandhi is also one of the youngest federal judges currently serving in the Central District.

Posted by ks on 04/19/10 at 08:01 PM
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Obama names Raju Kucherlapati to White House bioethics panel

April 10, 2010

“President Barack Obama has named India-born Harvard geneticist Raju Kucherlapati, whose research focuses on gene mapping, gene modification and cloning disease genes, to a key White House panel on bioethics.

Kucherlapati, 67, who is the Director Emeritus and Paul C. Cabot Professor in the Harvard Medical School Department of Genetics, is among ten scholars named to the newly created Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. ...

Read the full story on HT

Posted by ks on 04/12/10 at 07:01 PM
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Ajay Banga becomes MasterCard CEO

April 12, 2010
“WASHINGTON: An entirely India-educated financial pundit climbed a world corporate pinnacle on Monday with MasterCard Inc, the ubiquitous financial company, naming Pune-born, Delhi-educated, IIM-Ahmedabad alum Ajay Banga as its CEO.

Banga will take over the top position from current CEO Robert Selander on July 1, only ten months after being hired from CitiGroup as a potential successor.”

Read the full story on TOI

Posted by ks on 04/12/10 at 05:53 PM
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Indian student wins top US research award

April 8, 2010

Prasun Chatterjee, an Indian environmental engineering student whose research has contributed to a new way of detecting toxic lead and copper in water, has won one of the highest US research honours.

Chatterjee, a research student at the University of Lehigh, Pennsylvania, will receive the 2010 C Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Environmental Chemistry Division when ACS holds its fall national meeting in Boston in August.

Read the full story

Posted by ks on 04/08/10 at 10:02 PM
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Obama appoints Islam Siddiqui to key agricultural post

March 28, 2010
President Barack Obama has announced he would bypass a vacationing senate to make recess appointments of 15 nominees, including an Indian American agricultural scientist as chief agricultural negotiator in trade talks.

Islam A Siddiqui, named Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the US Trade Representative, is currently vice president for Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America, where he is responsible for regulatory and international trade issues related to crop protection chemicals.

Previously, Siddiqui also served as CropLife America’s Vice President for agricultural biotechnology and trade.

From 1997 to 2001, Siddiqui served in various capacities in the Clinton Administration at US Department of Agriculture as Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programmes, Senior Trade Advisor to Secretary Dan Glickman and Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programmes.

As a result, he worked closely with the USTR and represented USDA in bilateral, regional and multi-lateral agricultural trade negotiations.

Since 2004, Siddiqui has also served on the US Department of Commerce’s Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, and Health/Science Products & Services, which advises the US Secretary of Commerce and USTR on international trade issues related to these sectors.

Between 2001 and 2003, Siddiqui was appointed as Senior Associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he focused on agricultural biotechnology and food security issues.

Before joining USDA, Siddiqui spent 28 years with the California Department of Food and Agriculture. He has MS and PhD degrees in plant pathology, both from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Posted by ks on 03/30/10 at 02:11 AM
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FBI honors Manohar ‘Mike’ Vaswani for community leadership

Washington, March 20 – Manohar ‘Mike’ Vaswani, an Indian-American who has worked for integrating all Asian communities into one strong and cohesive entity, has received Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director’s Community Leadership Award for 2009.

India born Vaswani was among 51 community leaders recognised in a ceremony Friday at FBI Headquarters by Director Robert S. Mueller for having ‘demonstrated outstanding contributions to their local communities’.

‘Those honoured here today represent people from different backgrounds and beliefs, from different corners of America, but share some things in common: a willingness to lead, a commitment to improving the lives of their neighbours, and a desire to make the nation safer for their fellow citizens,’ he said.

Selected by the Las Vegas Division of FBI, Vaswani is the president of the Asian American Group (AAG) and the Asian American Coalition of Las Vegas.

Posted by ks on 03/20/10 at 07:36 AM
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Amy Singh named by Obama on Arts Body

March 2, 2010
President Barack Obama has picked up an Indian American to serve on the US President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts for the prestigious John F. Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts.

Announcing the appointment of eminent Indian American attorney, Amy K. Singh, based in Obama’s home town of Chicago, the White House on Monday noted she works to support the arts and youth, which develops civic leadership in the city’s high school youth.

Singh practises in areas of entertainment, advertising and marketing, and provides counsel to clients on event production and promotion, television production, talent and other matters.

Before starting her own practice, she held several positions, including as general counsel/senior vice president of DDB Chicago Inc, and as an associate in the Chicago office of the firm now known as Sidley Austin LLP.

Singh was a member of the Junior Board of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently on the Board of the Mikva Challenge, an organisation that prioritises the development of civic leadership in underserved Chicago high school youth.

Courtesy Indo-Asian News Service

Posted by ks on 03/02/10 at 02:03 PM
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Ice skating to win Olympic Sliver Medal on Indian Bollywood songs

February 22, 2010
Davis and White took Olympic silver medal skating to Bollywood tunes in their short program.

Davis and White’s original dance has become a hit in India and among people with ties to South Asia.

The idea for the dance came from coach-choreographer Marina Zoueva, who was inspired by an Hermes scarf with Indian dancers, and Davis and White took great pains to make sure their program was true to the culture and character. To learn how to move their arms and bodies in true Indian dance style, they spent months working with Anuja Rajendra, who once performed professionally and now combines Bollywood music and dance with exercise at her BollyFit studio in Ann Arbor, Mich.

They bought her red, turquoise and gold sari-like outfit and his long, beige-colored coat at an authentic Indian clothing store and had them remade to suit their needs.

“We can’t speak for anyone else, but it was very important for us to do research and do the theme justice, so as not to offend anyone or do anything off-base,” Davis said.

There certainly weren’t any complaints Friday night.

Davis and White’s performance was non-stop entertainment that masked their high technical difficulty. They flew across the ice and never slowed for a second, not even in their section of twizzles which they paired with arm and hand movements. You know how hard it is to pat your stomach and rub your head at the same time? It’s like that - only on skates and about 10 times harder.

Their lifts were done with lots of ease and fluidity, and they had several changes of position on the final one.

But the best part of their dance is how much fun it was to watch. Their movements and playful facial expressions make it easy to visualize a wedding in Mumbai.

Posted by ks on 02/22/10 at 09:52 PM
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