CHARLOTTE (TIP): South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said she is keen on working with Indian private sector to help set up manufacturing facilities in her home state. She said India has made great strides in manufacturing and technology and would welcome Indian industrialists to set up facilities that would help create more jobs. “I am in touch with Indian Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao in this connection and hopefully very soon something would turn out,” she said. Haley encouraged fellow Indian- Americans to run for elected office in large numbers to make a better America and give it back to the nation that helped shaped their destiny. She is seeking another term as governor and has announced that she is contesting again.

The contribution of Indian-Americans in the field of medicine, law, academics, science and technology was phenomenal and now its time for them to serve the nation entering politics, she added. “We have to see how much our parents have sacrificed in this country and how much our parents went through in the formative years. Its only our generation could push beyond what they did and make our voices heard as well in the right corridors of power.” Answering questions on the large number of Indian-Americans in fray in different states at different levels including three Indian-Americans running for office in Nassau County near New York City, Haley said the contribution of Indian- Americans She was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina on Jan 20, 1972, to an Indian Sikh family – Dr. Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa who immigrated from Amritsar district in Punjab.

Haley is the first woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina. At the age of 41, Haley is the youngest current governor in the United States. She is one of two sitting Indian- American governors in the US, the other being fellow Republican Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. She is also the third person of color elected as governor of a Southern state, after Viriginia’s L. Douglas Wilder and Louisiana’s Jindal She was later joined on Monday by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Texas Gov. Rick Perry in her re-election campaign at Greenville, South Carolina. Nikki Haley rose from obscurity after winning a crowded Republican primary in 2010. She won by less than 5 percent of the vote in the Nov 2010 general election Political experts expect her to face the same Democrat she defeated in 2010. She is also one of the national Republican Party’s most promising rising stars. She is smart and serious about policy and a charismatic campaigner who dresses stylishly and can deliver barbed attacks with a smile.