Four Indian-Americans triumph in state, local elections in US
By MYBRANDBOOK
It is a matter of pride for us Indians as four Indian-Americans, including a Muslim woman and a former White House technology policy advisor, have won state and local elections held in the United States on Tuesday.
Indian-American Ghazala Hashmi, who is a former community college professor, created history by becoming the first Muslim woman to be elected to the Virginia State Senate, while Suhas Subramanyam has been elected to the Virginia State House of Representative. Suhas has served as the White House technology policy adviser to former president Barrack Obama.
Hashmi, a Democrat, defeated incumbent Republican State Senator Glen Sturtevant for the Virginia's 10th Senate District, drawing national attention.
"This victory is not mine alone. It belongs to all of you who believed that we needed to make progressive change here in Virginia, for all of you who felt that you haven't had a voice and believed in me to be yours in the General Assembly," Hashmi said after her historic victory.
Hashmi was congratulated by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who also happened to be the first woman presidential candidate.
"I also want to shout out Hashmi, the first Muslim woman elected to the VA State Senate. As she said yesterday, her victory 'belongs to all of you who believed that we needed to make progressive change here in Virginia, for all of you who felt that you haven't had a voice'," Clinton said in a tweet.
Hashmi responded, saying, "I am deeply honoured by your words, Secretary Clinton. You broke so many glass ceilings for women in public service."
Hashmi was raised in a small town in Georgia and saw firsthand how community-building and open dialogue can bridge cultural and socioeconomic divisions, uniting people from all walks of life. She earned a BA in English from Georgia Southern University and a PhD from Emory University.
She and her husband, Azhar, moved to the Richmond area in 1991. Hashmi has spent the past 25 years as a leading educator in Virginia's college and university system. She currently serves as the founding director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) at Reynolds Community College.
Suhas Subramanyam entered the Virginia State House of Representatives from the Indian-American-dominated district of Loudon and Prince William.
"My promise to the people of Loudoun and Prince William: I will always listen to you, work tirelessly for you, and do everything I can to empower you. The campaign is over, but my work for you has just begun," Subramanyam said.
His mother had immigrated to the United States in 1979 to start a new life and went on to become a physician.
Subramanyam served on Capitol Hill as a healthcare and veterans policy aide, and spent time as a technology and regulatory attorney. Former US president Barack Obama had named him his White House technology policy adviser.
In this capacity, he led a task force on technology policy that Obama charged with addressing some of the country's most challenging technology issues, including job creation and displacement in the technology sector, regulating emerging technology, and addressing cybersecurity and IT modernisation in the public sector.
Indian-American Mano Raju won his election in California to remain San Francisco's Public Defender.
Raju attended Columbia University as an undergraduate where he researched Critical Race Theory under Professor Kendall Thomas. After a fellowship at the Oxford Center for African Studies, he relocated to Berkeley in the 90s to pursue his Masters in South Asian Studies and later his JD at Berkeley School of Law, where he interned in the San Francisco Public Defender's Office.
Another India-American, incumbent Dimple Ajmera won a convincing re-election to Charlotte City Council in North Carolina. A former Certified Public Accountant, Ajmera immigrated to the US from India along with her parents when she was 16. At that time, she spoke no English but later went on to graduate from the University of Southern California (USC) and became a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
Singapore to remove One-Time Passwords from Bank Accounts
According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, clients who utilise secur...
Is 375 million Airtel subscribers database breached?
When a hacker claims to have accessed and put up for sale a customer databa...
The government of India intends to construct a single portal f
A single portal will be launched by the Indian government to list all of it...
OpenAI offers GPT-4o, a faster model available to all users at
GPT-4o, a faster and more sophisticated AI model, is made available to all...
Icons Of India : NIKHIL RATHI
Co-founder & CEO of Web Werks, a global leader in Data Centers and Clo...
Icons Of India : Girish Mathrubootham
Girish Mathrubootham is the Founder of Freshworks (previously known ...
Icons Of India : RAJENDRA SINGH PAWAR
Rajendra Singh Pawar is the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of NIIT ...
C-DOT - Center of Development of Telematics
India’s premier research and development center focused on telecommu...
BEL - Bharat Electronics Limited
BEL is an Indian Government-owned aerospace and defence electronics co...
STPI - Software Technology Parks of India
STPI promotes and facilitates the growth of the IT and ITES industry i...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Dheeraj Pandey, CEO, DevRev
Dheeraj Pandey, Co-founder and CEO at DevRev , has a remarkable journe...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Sundar Pichai, CEO- Alphabet Inc.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc.,...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Vinod Dham, Founder & Executive Managing Partner, IndoUS Venture Partners
Vinod Dham, known as the “Father of the Pentium Chip,” has left an...