The Indian Panorama

Tag: Jaskiran Saluja

  • Thank you, Holi/Hola Organizing Committee

    The Indian Panorama is grateful to each and every member of the Organizing Committee for helping with their time, effort and expertise in making the Holi/Hola event on April 5 at Cotillion Banquet a grand success.  

    Jyoti Gupta: Coordinator

    Jyoti Gupta has worked in the corporate world and has won many accolades for her community service.

    With a Masters in Political Science from Jabalpur University, she came to the US and worked in banking institutions like Barclays Bank, Kredit Bank and ING Bank, where she rose to the rank of Assistant Treasurer.

    From 1996-2001, she ran Jwala Travel, specializing in discount travel to India and vacation packages to Europe and Caribbean countries. She went on to cofound social groups like Rafi Lata singing group, Divine Meditation, Adabi Sangam, Mehfile Sangeet, and Karaoke Club.

    Jyoti founded Long Island Ladies Circle, aimed at Women Empowerment, and helping battered women. She is also active in India Association of Long Island, Indian American Forum, and India Day Parade.

    She has received prestigious awards including: Town Of North Hempstead Community Service Award;  Senator Anna Kaplan Community Service Award;  Covid Hero Award by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams; Community Service Excellence Award by Senator Kevin Thomas: Community Service Award by Congressman Tom Suozzi; Republic Day Community Service Award by County Executive and Independence Day Community Service Award by Nassau County.

    Anju Sharma

    Anju Sharma is a former professor, successful businesswoman , and community leader. She is CEO of JBMS Inc, where she runs a free training program for interns for job placement.

    In India, she taught at Kanya Maha Vidyalaya in Jalandhar for 16 years and was Director of Guru Nanak Dev University’s Youth Festival Team for Inter University competition. She was an inter-university record holder in swimming.

    She is currently President of the Long Island Indo-American Lions Club and has served as Jt. Treasurer Rotary Club Hicksville South, and IALI Cultural Chair. She is Secretary, Indo American Association for Community Development, Trustee of Long Island Ladies Circle, Board Member of Long Island Diversity Circle and Member of SAWAO. She is on the Advisory Board of Sanford Brown Institute, Member of United Cultural Society of NY & GCP Civic Association. She is Lifetime Sponsor of Each One Teach One in India.

    Beena Kothari

    As the incoming President of AIA-NY for 2025-2026, Beena Kothari’s extensive involvement with both Indian and American communities has left a lasting impact. Her numerous contributions to various social and cultural non-profit organizations, often in leadership roles, have been truly remarkable. Guided by the ancient Indian philosophy of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbhakam”, Beena strives to foster a sense of unity and inclusivity within the community. Her efforts aim to bring people together, ultimately serving the greater good of humanity.

     

    Dr. Abha Bhatnagar

    Dr. Abha Bhatnagar is an active member of several esteemed Indian organizations, including IDP, SEVA, and SAWAO, along with various scientific associations. Presently, she serves as the Secretary of SEWA and holds positions on the Executive Council of both IALI and SAWAO. As an author, she has written two books on Computer Education and has published numerous research papers in international journals, concentrating on Chemistry and Physics.

    Sanju Sharma

    Sanju Sharma is known for selfless service and true leadership. She has a Double Master from Guru Nanak Dev University represented it at Youth Festivals, and was a national-level swimmer. A former computer teacher at Sacred Heart School, she has worked as an Administrative Manager. Above all, she loves to serve her community in charitable and social events and promote Indian culture and heritage.

    She is the Founder of the Each One Teach One charity committee to provide education to students in need in India. She is Club Admin of LI Indo-American Lions Club, Joint Treasurer India Day Parade, Executive Member and Program Coordinator for Indo American Association for Change, Executive Member of Long Island Diversity Circle, Member of Sawao, and of GCP Civic Association.  She is also Secretary of Indo American Association for Community Development, and Communication coordinator of Long Island Ladies Circle.

    Shashi Malik

    Shashi Malik is a businesswoman and manages her own IT Software Company, SD Services Inc. Earlier, she worked at the executive level for several Fortune 100 companies.

    Currently, Shashi is the Founder and President of Seva Center for Humanity, which helps students, veterans, and needy families. She is also General Secretary for the Nargis Dutt Memorial Foundation and Executive Committee Member of the AIA-NY Chapter.

    She has been actively involved in community organizations including  IALI, India Day Parade, World Vegan Vision, Gift of Life USA, Rotary Club of Hicksville South, Suffolk County Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and INN Soup Kitchen.

    Shashi Malik is a Member of the United Way Community Impact Council and of the Long Island Hate and Bias Prevention Regional Council for bringing awareness and preventing hate and bias incidents in New York state.

    In 2013, she received the US President’s Volunteer Service Award for her service to the community.

    Shashi worked in the Indian Army on their first computer before coming to the USA. She co-authored a book on Cross System Product (CSP) – A Developer’s Guide published by McGraw Hill.

    Gunjan Rastogi

    Gunjan Rastogi is an entrepreneur, community leader, and philanthropist. After moving to the US in 1980 after graduating from Miranda House in New Delhi, she worked as a software engineer with major Wall Street firms before pursuing her dream of owning a healthcare agency.

    Gunjan holds several influential positions, contributing actively to the Indo-American and broader communities in New York. Her roles include: Chairperson of the National Indo-American Association for Senior Citizens (NIAASC), Vice President for the National Federation of Indian American Association (NFIA), Vice President for World Vegan Vision, National Secretary of the Association of Indians in America, Board Member for Queens County Board and Boys Scouts of America,  Past President of IALI.

    Gunjan is also a talented artist with awards in classical dance, singing, acting, and choreography. Her talents were showcased early on as a model for Campa-Cola and as a TV anchor for the children’s program Nanhe Munne in Lucknow.

    Jaskiran Saluja

    Jaskiran Saluja embarked on her journey in India as a life coach, initially focusing and leading her work in Bangalore. Over time, her path led her to the United States, where she now serves as a Property Manager for residential properties. With a deep interest in personal relationships, Jaskiran excels in connecting with others and fostering positive environments.

    An unexpected yet impressive skill she possesses is her talent in accounting, an area she has mastered with great proficiency. Beyond her professional endeavors, Jaskiran is a dedicated contributor to The Indian Panorama, specifically in their Indian American section, where she shares her insights and experiences.

    As the daughter of Professor Indrajit Singh Saluja, Jaskiran has been influenced by strong community values and remains committed to active involvement in initiatives that support and uplift her community. Through her contributions, she strives to ensure that her community continues to be recognized for its achievements and excellence.

    Bina Sabapathy

    Bina Sabapathy has served three record terms as President of India Association of Long Island. She is Founder of Indo American Community Voice and has organized Ganesh Festival for past three years in Hicksville. She is a Trustee and Director of Vedic Heritage (Hanuman temple), former President of World Vegan Vision, and has been associated with AWB Food Bank and the Indian American Forum.

    Bina grew up in Udupi, a holy town in Karnataka, graduated from SPP College with a double major in History & Economics and minor in Sociology. She  migrated to the US in the 1980s with her mechanical engineer husband. Her hobbies include gardening and singing.

    Amita Karwal

    Amita Karwal works as Director of a Senior Adult Care center in Nassau County, which gives her an opportunity to serve and give back to the community, especially senior citizens living in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

    She has been a resident of Long Island for close to three decades. She is blessed with two beautiful kids who she is raising with her husband of 20+ years. “We all cherish the blissful life offered by the culturally diverse community that we live in on Long Island,” she says.

     

    Dr. Jagmohan Kalra

    A cancer and blood specialist, Dr. Jagmohan Kalra is a practicing hematologist and oncologist in New York.  She is also involved in the community, doing health talks about cancer awareness and arranging entertainment activities like singing.

    Parveen Chopra

    Founder of alotusinthemud.com, Parveen Chopra is a seasoned media professional specializing in wellness, personal growth, and spirituality. A trained teacher of meditation, he founded Life Positive, India’s first body-mind-spirit magazine, from New Delhi in 1996. Moving to the US, he edited The South Asian Times for over a decade and One World Under God interfaith journal. He also writes the column ‘Lotus Pond’ on Pathoes.com, a multi-religion platform. Earlier, he served as President of the American Press Club.

  • Indian Americans in the incoming Biden administration

    Indian Americans in the incoming Biden administration

    Jaskiran Saluja

    NEW YORK (TIP): Joe Biden-Kamala Harris team has nominated a number of Indian Americans to positions in their administration. It is a common knowledge that Indian Americans have excelled in every field. They are CEOs of top Corporations, distinguished professionals and academics, besides doing very well in businesses. In politics, too, they have announced their arrival in a big way. Their administrative acumen is also well recognized.

    Here are some Indians Americans whose nominations have already been announced. It is believed, many more Indian Americans will soon be joining the incoming Biden-Harris administration. 

    1. Neera Tanden
      Director of the Office of Management and Budget

    President-elect Joe Biden nominated Neera Tanden to be the next director of the Office of Management and Budget on November 30, 2020. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she would make history becoming both the first woman of color and the first South Asian American to lead the OMB.

    Born in 1970 in Bedford, Massachusetts, obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1992, and a law degree from Yale Law School in 1996.

    She worked for the campaign of President Bill Clinton, who was seeking reelection that year. The following year, she landed a job at the White House press office. Later, Tanden joined the White House domestic policy office as an associate director.
    In 2000, she served as a policy director and deputy campaign manager for former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s victorious senatorial bid from New York. She went on to work for the newly elected senator as a legislative director from 2003 to 2005. During Clinton’s first presidential run in 2008, Tanden served as a policy director, and in the general election campaign, she worked for Barack Obama as domestic policy director.

    In the first Obama administration, Tanden was one of the point persons on the Affordable Care Act, as a senior advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

    In 2010, she joined the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, as the chief operating officer. In November 2011, she succeeded John Podesta as the organization’s President and CEO.

    1. Vivek Murthy
      Surgeon General of the United States

    Vivek Murthy was nominated as the next US Surgeon General, a role he previously held during the Obama administration, by President-elect Joe Biden on December 7, 2020. Currently serving as a member of Biden’s team, as co-chair of the COVID task force, Murthy will reprise the role he held from 2014-2017, albeit with more responsibility.

    If confirmed, this time around Murthy will be a part of a team responsible for responding to the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 280,000 Americans and hospitalized millions more.

    Murthy could face difficulty in receiving a confirmation from the senate however, given the opposition he faced during his Senate confirmation process in 2014.

    Born in England to Indian immigrants, Murthy was raised in Miami after his parents moved to the US to establish their medical practice. After earning his BA in biochemical sciences and graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1997, Murthy received his MD from Yale School of Medicine and his MBA from Yale School of Management. As an 18-year-old freshman at Harvard, Murthy co-founded VISIONS Worldwide, a non-profit organization aimed to raise HIV/AIDs education in the US and India, with his sister Rashmi.

    1. Vanita Gupta

      Associate Attorney General

    If confirmed by the Senate, Gupta would be the first woman of color to serve in the role of associate attorney general

    Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, as he announced some of the key nominations in the Justice Department on Thursday, January 8, “As associate attorney general, the number three job at the department, I nominate Vanita Gupta. A woman I’ve known for some time. One of the most respected civil rights lawyers in America”.

    Gupta started her career at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She then went on to the ACLU and then to the Justice Department during the Obama-Biden administration, where she led the civil rights division, Biden said.

    “At every step, with every case, she fought for greater equity and the right to right the wrongs of a justice system where they existed,” he said.

    She has done so by bringing people together, earning praise from across the ideological spectrum for her approach to solving some of the thorniest problems the country faces, he added. During the Obama-Biden administration, Gupta was put in charge of investigating the abuse of power in police departments in Ferguson, Missouri and other communities torn apart by acts of violence and racial injustice.

    1. Bharat Ramamurti
      Deputy Director of the National Economic Council

    Bharat Ramamurti was nominated as the Deputy Director of the National Economic Council (NEC) by President-elect Joe Biden on Dec. 21, 2020.

    He is currently the Managing Director (MD) of the Corporate Power program at the Roosevelt Institute. Ramamurti previously worked as the top economic advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren during her 2020 presidential campaign.

    “I’m honored to be joining the Biden-Harris administration as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. We have much to do to get through this crisis and create a stronger and fairer economy — and I’m excited to get to work alongside this great team,” he tweeted.

    He will also be working with Biden-picks Joelle Gamble and David Kamin on the National Economic Council.

    After earning his bachelor’s from Harvard College, Ramamurti received his JD from Yale Law School. He then worked as an intern for the Boston Red Sox’s legal department.

    Ramamurti currently lives in Boston with his wife and child.

    1. Vedant Patel
      Assistant Press Secretary

    Before being named as Assistant Press Secretary, Vedant Patel served as a senior spokesperson of the Biden Presidential Inaugural Committee. During the 2020 general election campaign, he was the Regional Communications Director for the Democratic nominee. During primary campaign, he served as the Nevada and Western Primary-States Communications Director for Biden. Patel has also worked as Communications Director to Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Western Regional Press Secretary at the Democratic National Committee, and Communications Director to former Rep. Mike Honda. Born in Gujarat, India and raised in California, Patel is a graduate of the University of California-Riverside and the University of Florida.

    1. Vinay Reddy
      Director of speechwriting

    Before being named as director of Speechwriting, Vinay Reddy served as a Senior Advisor and Speechwriter for the Biden-Harris campaign. During President Obama’s second term, Reddy served as chief speechwriter to Vice President Biden.

    Reddy played several roles during the Obama administration, having served as both senior speechwriter at the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services, and as deputy speechwriter for the Obama reelection campaign.

    Reddy, who grew up in Dayton, Ohio, also worked as a speechwriter for the Buckeye State Sen. Sherrod Brown.

    After leaving the White House, he worked as Vice President of Strategic Communications for the NBA.

    Reddy, second of three sons of Indian American parents, studied in Ohio’s public schools from kindergarten through law school. He is an alumnus of Miami University and the Ohio State University College of Law. He currently lives in New York with his wife and their two daughters.

     7.Gautam Raghavan
    Deputy Director of the Office of Presidential Personnel

    Gautam Raghavan is a trailblazing Indian American who has served in multiple positions at the White House and on Capitol Hill in the past decade. Prior to being named as the Deputy Director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, he worked as the Deputy Head of Presidential Appointments on the Biden’s transition team. Raghavan is one of a number of Obama officials tapped by Biden who has worked with the president-elect. Before joining the Biden transition last year, Raghavan served as Chief of Staff to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA, for roughly two years.

    Before that, he was the founding executive director of Indian American Impact Fund, a political advocacy group that encourages and support members of the community that run for elected offices across the country.

    Like many Biden officials, Raghavan also has experience working with the president-elect, having served as an Advisor to the Biden Foundation.

    Raghavan also worked as the Policy Director of the Gill Foundation, based in Denver, Colorado, one of the oldest and largest private foundations dedicated to the cause of LGBTQ equality.

    From 2011 to 2014, Raghavan served in the Obama White House as the president’s liaison to the LGBTQ and the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. He was the first openly gay Indian American official in the Obama administration.

    He also served in the White House Liaison Office for the US Department of Defense and as Outreach Lead for the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Working Group.

    1. Mala Adiga
      Policy director Jill Biden

    Mala Adiga has been named the policy director to the would-be First Lady Jill Biden in November 2020. Previously, she served as a senior advisor to Dr. Jill Biden, and as one on the Biden-Harris Campaign. Adiga has also served as the Director for Higher Education and Military Families at the Biden Foundation.

    During the Obama administration, Adiga served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Academic Programs at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. She also served as both Senior Advisor to the Ambassador-at-Large and as Director for Human Rights on the National Security Staff.

    Prior to that, she was Counsel to the Associate Attorney General in the Department of Justice. Before entering government service, Adiga worked on the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.

    Adiga was a litigation associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago and clerked for US District Court Judge Philip Simon in the Northern District of Indiana before joining the campaign.

    Adiga, whose parents are from Udupi in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, grew up in Illinois. She is a graduate of Grinnell College, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and the University of Chicago Law School.

    Adiga’s father Dr. Ramesh Adiga, who is the second among three siblings, came to the United States at the age of 25 to hone his skills as a vascular surgeon. Mala’s mother Jaya Adiga had studied medicine in Vellore.

    1. Aisha Shah
      Partnerships Manager, White House Office of Digital Strategy

    Aisha Shah, who was born in Kashmir and raised in Louisiana, has been named as a Partnerships Manager in the 12-member White House Office of Digital Strategy. Shah, an Advancement Specialist for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, previously served as a Digital Partnerships Manager for the Biden campaign. Her previous stints include working as an Assistant Manager on the Corporate Fund of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and serving as a Strategic Communications Specialist at Buoy, an integrated marketing firm that specializes in social impact communications. She is a graduate of Davidson College.

  • Make Shut Down More Effective

    READERS WRITE 

    The shut down in its present form does not seem to be producing the desired results. There has to be a more effective shut down, may be , a total shut down.  I have a couple of suggestions  in this regard.

    Government may  let essential businesses run with few more precautions so that people are not encouraged to step out and risk the ones trying to offer the best even though they are exposed and are in turn risking their own loved ones

    Odd-even days  schedule could be more effective. In a particular zip code stores like farmers market, BJ’s , Costco etc. should be allowed to open on odd and even days and  for limited hours . People can only shop from their preferred stores on those days during the time granted.

    This will need  fewer people r to work resulting in low   risk and will help maintain social distancing.

    Government can assign /allow for the benefit of all opening of gas stations , 7 Elevens, Dunkin etc. like chains to be   odd even open. The only difference here would be the fact that we do not need a gas station at every 100 meters. Let’s say 1 station , 1 Dunkin, or 1 7 Eleven every 2 miles. The business days and hours can be fairly distributed among them.

    This would again restrict people from going  out for drives and,  while in drives, keep hitting stores even though it may not be required

    As a separate mission, looking at the current scenario , Meals can be planned and organized for those quarantined and sick at home from the Gurudwaras . A truck could do the contactless delivery at doorsteps.

    All it needs is a basic webpage where in people can request with addresses within the radius of the Gurudwaras

    Stores selling dairy , eggs bread and vegetables can be ordered in call or via text or via email or website to be delivered at the doorstep with no extra or bare minimum charge.

    Things like paper towels, wipes disinfectants can be delivered, and it would be great when all can get when in stock. Stores will have the right  to sell a limited quantity  per person only and could be a weekly delivery.

    This way people will value what they have also not flock the stores,  rather store after store,  collecting sanitizers, disinfectants, kitchen and toilet paper and water.

    If a total lockdown is not possible then,  at least we can take measures to further limit the people getting out just to play lottery or grab a drink or get gas if nothing else.

    They  have nothing to do  and are  always on a mission to go to store after store because they are all open all the time and collect essentials even  though their attics and garages are full.

    Thank you.

    Jaskiran Saluja

    Hicksville, New York