Washington: President Joe Biden has renominated at least half a dozen Indian Americans to key administration positions which could not be confirmed by the Senate in the last Congress.
Among those renominated by Biden and sent to the Senate were Richard Verma (54), to be Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, and Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy (45), to be Representative of the U.S. on the Executive Board of the World Health Organisation.
Biden also sent to the Senate the renomination of Anjali Chaturvedi to be General Counsel, Department of Veterans Affairs, Ravi Chaudhary to be an Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Geeta Rao Gupta to be Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues, and Radha Iyengar Plumb to be a Deputy Under Secretary of Defence.
Verma, who served as a former U.S. Ambassador to India from January 16, 2015, to January 20, 2017, is currently the Chief Legal Officer and Head of Global Public Policy at Mastercard.
Murthy was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March 2021 to serve as the 21st Surgeon General of the country. He previously served as the 19th Surgeon General under former President Barack Obama.
All these key administration positions were nominated by Biden in the last Congress, but they were not confirmed by the Senate.
The list of Indian-Americans in the White House as compiled by Indiaspora reflects that there would be only a few meetings inside the White House or in Biden’s Oval Office that would not have an Indian-American presence.
Moh Sharma in Hakeem Jeffries’ team
Indian-American Moh Sharma is part of the senior leadership team announced by Hakeem Jeffries, who was recently elected as the Democratic Party’s leader in the new US House of Representatives. Sharma will join the team as director of member services.
She has served as a Senior Policy Advisor and the Director of Outreach and Member Services for the Committee on Small Business in the US House of Representatives under Ranking Member Nydia Velazquez.
Sharma was previously a Legislative Aide for the Office of Congresswoman Judy Chu and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), and a Senior Policy Advisor for the House Democratic Caucus. She has also worked at the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, the Connecticut Technology Council, and the Connecticut Judicial Branch.
