Hind Himalaya Staff, Author at Hind Himalaya

Indian Companies Show Strong Investment Presence in US with $40 Billion Investment: CII Survey Reveals

by Hind Himalaya Staff | May 7, 2023 | Editors Choice, Indian-American

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A recent survey titled “Indian Roots, American Soil” by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) reveals that the impact of Indian companies in the United States is increasing significantly, with over 163 Indian companies investing more than $40 billion and creating nearly 4,25,000 job opportunities in the country. The report was launched in Washington DC on May 3 by India’s Ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, and the US Ambassador-designate to India, Eric Garcetti.

Indian companies also financed US-based Research and Development (R&D) projects to the tune of nearly $1 billion and spent about $185 million as corporate social responsibility.

According to Taranjit Singh Sandhu, India’s Ambassador to the United States, Indian companies operating in the US not only bring strength, resilience, and competitiveness to the US economy, but they also create job opportunities, support local communities, and build capacity and technical know-how. Sandhu emphasized that Indian companies in the US have transformed neighborhoods and create virtuous cycles of prosperity by investing and contributing to the local economy.
CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee stated that Indian companies have exhibited their resilience and commitment to the US market through increased investments, job creation, sector diversification, and expanding geographic presence. Banerjee added that the future plans of Indian companies to invest and hire more employees indicate a positive growth trajectory for the US-India economic relationship.

The top ten states benefiting from jobs created by Indian companies are Texas (20,906 jobs), New York (19,162 jobs), New Jersey (17,713 jobs), Washington (14,525 jobs), Florida (14,418 jobs), California (14,334 jobs), Georgia (13,945 jobs), Ohio (12,188 jobs), Montana (9,603 jobs), Illinois (8,454 jobs).

The top ten states with the most reported FDI from Indian companies were Texas ($9.8 billion), Georgia ($7.5 billion), New Jersey ($4.2 billion), New York ($2.1 billion), Massachusetts ($1.4 billion), Kentucky ($908 million), California ($776 million), Maryland ($720 million), Florida ($711 million) and Indiana ($582 million).
According to the report, 85% of the companies plan to make more investments in the United States in the next few years and 83% of the companies plan to hire more employees in the US in the next five years.

A reception was held at India House, which was attended by Arun Venkataraman, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and Jasjit Singh, the Executive Director of Select USA, along with 250 participants from the business community and representatives from 25 US states.

Experience the Magic of Music: Swarlahari Music Academy’s Annual Singing Recital in Richardson

by Hind Himalaya Staff | May 1, 2023 | Community

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Get ready for a musical extravaganza as the talented students of Swarlahri music academy prepare for their highly anticipated annual singing recital! This is an event that music lovers definitely won’t want to miss.

On May 21st, the Richardson Women’s club hall will come alive with the sweet sounds of classical and Indian music. The students have been putting in countless hours of practice to perfect their vocal skills and stage presence, so you can expect a truly awe-inspiring performance.

The best part? This is a free event! However, interested attendees must register beforehand to secure their spot at the recital. With the amazing talent on display, it’s no wonder why seats are going fast.

So mark your calendars for Sunday, May 21st at 3.00PM to 5 PM CST and head to the Richardson Women’s club, located at 2005 N Cliffe, Richardson Tx, 75082, for a truly unforgettable musical experience.
For more information or to register, contact Mukul and Anshu Saran at 214-228-8374.

Don’t miss your chance to witness the musical magic of the Swarlahari music academy students!

Wearable Technologies to assess Human Behaviors !!

by Hind Himalaya Staff | Apr 1, 2023 | @HH Bright Zone, Editors Choice

Reading Time: 2 minutes

For sure Wearable technologies has been revolutionizing the way we interact with the world around us, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and data patterns is taking it to the next level. With AI technology becoming more advanced, wearables are now able to collect and analyze data in real-time, providing insights and guidance to improve daily lives.

Ajeeta Rajkumar Khatri, an Indian student hailing from Amravati, Maharashtra, recently got her conference paper titled “ Analyzing Interactions in Paired Egocentric Videos” published at the esteemed 17th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition.

With the guidance of Dr. Nwogu and Dr. Butler from Rochester Institute of Technology for this research. Ajeeta, who has an MS in Computer Science, and is currently employed at Mathworks Inc., explored the impact of wearable technologies in understanding human behavior as a part of the broad field of affective computing during her research. Her research is an example of how multimodal data from wearable technologies can be combined using a machine learning based probabilistic framework to successfully make agnostic assessments of human behavior in social conversations.

She collected paired conversational data from multiple human users wearing two specific wearable technologies – Vuzix glass and Empatica wristband. By combining multimedia information from the Vuzix glass with physiological information received from the Empatica wristband, Ajeeta could successfully demonstrate agreement/disagreement in a paired conversation. She utilized multiple machine learning models : hidden Markov, random forests and Bayesian for linking arousals/emotions in a conversation to make assessments of agreement/disagreement to specific topics. Ajeeta’s research provides a tool that has the potential to be deployed in paired conversational settings – and can transform radically the fields of behavioral psychology, security (interviews) and can be deployed in a social environment with consent to better understand human behavior. An automated process, based on principled mathematics, to understand human emotions based on physiological data and video/audio information can prove useful in the modern world where humans and machines are becoming inseparable.

Ajeeta’s research can be accessed via the IEEE Xplore platoform through this link : https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10042654

Indian American Richard Verma named for the tallest State job

by Hind Himalaya Staff | Dec 25, 2022 | Indian-American

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President Joe Biden has declared his intention to nominate Richard Verma, former US diplomat to India, to be Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.

Currently the Chief Legal Officer and Head of Global Public Policy at Mastercard, Verma also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs during the Obama Administration, according to a White House announcement Friday.
Earlier in his career, he was National Security Advisor to US Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) while he was Democratic Whip, Minority Leader, and then Majority Leader of the US Senate.

He is a veteran of the United States Air Force, where he functioned on active duty as a Judge Advocate. He earned a BS at Lehigh University, a JD cum laude at American University, an LLM with distinction at Georgetown University Law Center, and a PhD at Georgetown University.

Verma has received several awards and decorations, including the Distinguished Service Medal from the Department of State, the International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Meritorious Service Medal from the United States Air Force.

He acts as a trustee of The Ford Foundation, and is on multiple other boards, including the National Endowment for Democracy and Lehigh University.

Apoorva Mehta Instacart cofounder facing a lawsuit for stealing trade secrets

by Hind Himalaya Staff | Dec 22, 2022 | Indian-American

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Grocery delivery firm Instacart Indian-Canadian cofounder Apoorva Mehta has been accused in a lawsuit of using stolen trade secrets to create a healthcare startup that was a duplicate of an existing company.
Hello Logistics Inc, which runs under the name NextMed, sued Mehta, his business partner Tejasvi Singh, and their company Cloud Health Systems over allegations of misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright infringement, and other claims. Both firms run websites advertising weight loss.

“Wanting in on NextMed’s success, and in search of venture capital funding for a new project,” Mehta teamed up with Singh, “to do what Mehta later said he considered ‘unethical but not illegal’— create a copycat company,” NextMed said in the complaint filed Dec 19 in Manhattan federal court.
Singh, a cofounder of NextMed, gathered some of the company’s closest held trade secrets under the guise of gathering the information as part of due diligence for investors, according to the complaint.
Mehta and Singh then utilized the information to create a company that does business as Sunrise, with a copycat website, according to the complaint.
They also lined up vendors and implemented NextMed’s highly confidential customer acquisition and other plans, “in mere weeks,” NextMed claimed in the complaint.
Mehta’s new company which was launched a few weeks ago has already raised $30 million from two venture capital firms, NextMed said.

NextMed is seeking an order to shut down the Sunrise website and unspecified monetary damages.