Rik Mehta becomes first Indian-American to win New Jersey GOP primary for Senate

Rik Mehta becomes first Indian-American to win New Jersey GOP primary for Senate

Washington DC: Entrepreneur Rik Mehta has become the first Indian-American to win the Republican primary for the Senate seat from the US state of New Jersey. He will face Democratic incumbent Senator Cory Booker in the November elections.

Mehta, a former US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official, defeated his nearest rival Hirsh Singh, also an Indian-American, in the Republican, also known as the GOP (Grand Old Party), primaries held on July 7 by a margin of approximately 13,743 votes, according to preliminary results.

Counting of votes due to mail-in ballots resulted in the delay in announcing the election results.

This is for the first time that a New Jersey Senatorial race will have candidates of colour nominees from both the parties.

Booker, an African-American, won the Democratic primary with 89 per cent of the votes.

New Jersey, which has one of the highest concentrations of Indian-Americans, is considered to be a Democratic party bastion as it has been 48 years now that the State has elected a Republican as a Senator.

Both the Senate seats in the state are currently held by Democrats: Senator Robert Menendez, who is the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Booker.

A biotech entrepreneur, innovator, healthcare policy expert and a licensed pharmacist and attorney, Mehta did his BS in pharmacy from Rutgers University and his Pharm.D from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Indian-American to be acting head of US agriculture research organisation

Indian-American to be acting head of US agriculture research organisation

Washington DC: Prominent Indian-American scientist Dr Parag Chitnis has been appointed as the Acting Director of the prestigious National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which drives all federally funded agricultural research in the US.

Chitnis was named Associate Director for Programmes earlier this year and leads implementation of NIFA’s approximately $1.7 billion research projects.

“Dr Chitnis brings more than 31 years of scientific research and experience to the Director’s office,” US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said while announcing the name of Chitnis as NIFA’s Acting Director.

Chitnis replaces Dr Scott Angle who accepted a position as Vice President of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

“He (Chitnis) has been instrumental in providing steady leadership and support to NIFA during its transition to Kansas City last fall, in addition to playing a lead role on NIFA’s Project CAF (Collaboratively Achieving Functional Excellence) initiative which aims to help NIFA maximize business operations to better serve its customers,” Perdue said.

Chitnis did his BSc in botany/plant breeding from the Konkan Agricultural University in Maharashtra and an MSc in genetics/biochemistry from New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute. He did his PhD in biology from the University of California in Los Angeles.

Top Indian-Americans who served in Obama admin endorse Biden for President

Top Indian-Americans who served in Obama admin endorse Biden for President

Washington: Over half a dozen Indian-American former senior Obama administration officials on Friday announced their endorsement of Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Top among those include former US Ambassador to India Richard Verma; former Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal; former US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and former Deputy White House Cabinet Secretary Gaurav Bansal.

Kiran Ahuja, former Executive Director, White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; Seema Nanda, former Chief of Staff, Department of Labour and Sonal Shah, former Director, White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation along with several Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) former Obama-Biden administration officials also endorsed the former US vice president.

“All of us served with Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama-Biden administration. We watched him help 20 million Americans gain health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. We watched him lift our country out of the depths of the Great Recession. And we watched him build stronger ties with our allies and stand up to our adversaries abroad,” the former officials said in a joint statement.

“Most importantly, all of us saw Joe Biden”s empathy, his decency, and his commitment to expanding opportunity for all Americans. He has a deep appreciation for the contributions of AAPI and a keen understanding of the challenges still facing the community,” they said.

“Now more than ever, we need a President who values our nation”s diversity and will fight to create a more fair and just country. That person is Joe Biden. We are proud to endorse him for President and support him in this fight to restore the soul of our nation,” they said in the statement.

Biden, 77, is the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. He is likely to be formally nominated by the Democratic National Convention in Wisconsin in August.

He has already been endorsed by several leaders, including his one-time rivals for the Democratic nomination Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, former president Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Indian-American IBM scientist bags inventor of the year award for improving AI capabilities

Indian-American IBM scientist bags inventor of the year award for improving AI capabilities

Washington: Prolific Indian-American inventor Rajiv Joshi has bagged the prestigious Inventor of the Year award in recognition of his pioneering work in advancing the electronic industry and improving artificial intelligence capabilities.

Dr. Joshi, who is a master inventor with more than 250 patented inventions in the US, works at the IBM Thomson Watson Research Center in New York.

He was presented with the prestigious annual award by the New York Intellectual Property Law Association early this month during a virtual awards ceremony.

An IIT Mumbai alumnus, Joshi has an MS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a PhD in mechanical/electrical engineering from Columbia University, New York.

His invention span from novel interconnects structures and processes for more scaling, machine learning techniques for predictive failure analytics, high bandwidth, high performance, and low power integrated circuits and memories and their usage in hardware accelerators, meant for artificial intelligence applications.

Many of these structures exist in processors, supercomputers, laptops, smartphones, handheld and variable gadgets, and many other electronic items. His innovations have advanced day-to-day life, global communication, health sciences, and medical fields impacting the world.

“Necessity and curiosity inspire me,” Dr. Joshi told PTI in a recent interview, adding that the identification of a problem and providing out of the box solution as well as observe and think help him immensely to generate ideas.

Joshi said that while growing up, his parents always told him stories about great, renowned inventors like Guglielmo Marconi, Madame Curie, Right Brothers, James watt, Alexander Bell, Thomas Edison, and other great stalwarts. Their success stories and inventions really shaped his thought process and helped develop an interest in science and technology.

In his acceptance speech, Dr. Joshi said that the cloud, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing not only remain the buzzwords, but their utility, widespread usage is advancing with leaps and bounds.

All these areas are very exciting and I have been dabbling further in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, he said.

Quantum computing, which has offered tremendous opportunities, also faces challenges, he noted, adding that he is involved in advancing technology, improving memory structures and solutions and their usage in AI and contributing to quantum computing to advance the science.

Trump nominates Indian-American Manisha Singh as OECD envoy

Trump nominates Indian-American Manisha Singh as OECD envoy

Washington: US President Donald Trump has nominated senior Indian-American diplomat Manisha Singh as his envoy to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Currently Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs at the State Department, Manisha Singh will be the US representative to OECD with the rank of an Ambassador, according to the nomination sent to the Senate by the White House.

Paris-based OECD is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 36 member countries to stimulate economic progress and world trade.

On April 27, Donald Trump had announced his intent to nominate Singh for this position.

Singh, who is in her late 40s, previously served as the acting undersecretary of Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment and as a deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs at the State Department.

She also previously served as the deputy chief counsel to the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Singh was the Senior Fellow for International Economic Affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council and was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

According to the White House, her private sector experience includes practising law at multinational law firms and working in-house at an investment bank.

She earned an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from the American University Washington College of Law, a J.D. (Juris Doctor) from the University of Florida College of Law, and a B.A. from the University of Miami.

In addition, she studied at the University of Leiden Law School in the Netherlands.

Indian-American physician launches study to find if prayers could heal COVID-19 patients

Indian-American physician launches study to find if prayers could heal COVID-19 patients

Kansas City: An Indian-American physician in Kansas City has begun a study to find if something called remote intercessory prayer might initiate God to heal those infected with the coronavirus.

Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy launched the four-month prayer study on Friday, May 1 which involves 1,000 coronavirus patients who are in intensive care.

In the study, none of the patients’ prescribed standard care will be changed. They will be divided into two groups of 500 each and prayers will be offered for one of the groups.

Also, neither group will be informed about the prayers. The four-month study will investigate “the role of remote intercessory multi-denominational prayer on clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients,” according to a description provided to the National Institutes of Health.