HOUSTON: Several Indian Americans have been appointed to the Obama-Biden transition team. Parag Mehta, from Texas has been named the deputy director of inter-governmental affairs and public liaison for several minority groups, including Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders. Besides Parag, there are a few more Indian Americans in the team. Nick Rathod has been appointed director to the Office of Inter-governmental Affairs. Rathod is the national outreach director of South Asians for Obama and one of its founding members. Arti Rai, a professor of patent law at Duke University and a classmate of Obama at Harvard Law School, has been appointed as a member of the agency review team on science, technology, space, arts and humanities. The agency review teams for the Obama-Biden transition 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 January 20, 2009 inauguration date. Anjan Mukherjee, a managing director at the private equity firm Blackstone, has been named one of several leads on the economics and international trade agency review team. The Harvard Business School MBA is also a director of Steifel Laboratories, one of his firm's investments. Mukherjee also campaigned with Asian Americans for Obama. 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 team. Bhowmik was part of Senator Obama's legislative counsel, handling civil rights, civil liberties, and national security issues such as intelligence, homeland security, and other issues for the senator, who was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ramanathan is a senior analyst with the Government Accountability Office's Homeland Security and Justice team. Prior to joining the GAO, she was Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director to the Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security, specializing in border security, visa and immigration policy issues. Bilimoria is the executive director of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, a non-profit organization aiming to engage Americans in the prevention of these diseases in the developing world. Bilimoria previously served as senior public policy officer at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and spent four years with the Clinton Administration, including the US Department of Treasury. Puneet is a senior staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and previously served on the State Department's policy planning staff.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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