Democrat from California Ro Khanna may be looking at a position in the US Senate from the state but a report said that he could be aiming higher. US news outlet Politico reported that Indian-American congressman Ro Khanna may be looking for a potential presidential run in 2028 but if US President Joe Biden does not run in 2024, he could run for the position.

The report said that Ro Khanna could be a “plausible candidate” if Joe Biden does not run on the Democrat’s ticket. The report quoted Mark Longabaugh, a Democratic strategist whose firm did media consulting for Ro Khanna, as saying that Ro Khanna would also make a “great senator”.

Earlier, Ro Khanna said that he will support Joe Biden if the latter decides to run and said even if the incumbent does not go for a reelection, Ro Khanna said he will not run for the White House.

The report also claimed that Ro Khanna told the outlet that progressives within the Democrats and Bernie Sanders supporters have reached out to him and encouraged him to announce a run for the Senate.

“I’ve told them I will do so over the next few months,” Ro Khanna said as per Politico. The report also claimed that he paid $22,000 last year to Bernie Sanders’ former New Hampshire state director, Shannon Jackson; $25,000 to the Bernie Sanders-founded progressive group for digital advertising; and $8,000 each to political firms in Nevada and Iowa.

Ro Khanna was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, into an Indian Punjabi family. His parents immigrated to the US from Punjab. His father is a chemical engineer who graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and then the University of Michigan; his mother is a former schoolteacher.

The Indian-American lawmakers of the ‘Samosa Caucus’ have welcomed Shri Thanedar’s addition to the exclusive group of Democratic leaders representing the community in the US House of Representatives.

Entrepreneur-turned-politician and Democrat, Mr Thanedar became the fifth Indian-American to be elected to the US House of Representatives in November last year. His victory had come after all four Indian-American Democratic lawmakers – Dr. Ami Bera, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna and Raja Krishnamoorthi – were re-elected to the US House of Representatives.

The ‘Samosa Caucus’ is an informal grouping of Indian-American lawmakers who are either part of the House of Representatives or the Senate. The term was coined by Congressman Krishnamoorthi to give credence to the growing number of “desi” lawmakers in the US Congress.

“When I first took office in 2013, I was the only Indian American Member of Congress and the third ever in history. Since that day, I have been committed to ensuring we grow our representation in Congress,” said Congressman Bera.

“In the past decade, I am proud to be joined by incredible Indian-American colleagues from around the country – Representatives Jayapal, Khanna, and Krishnamoorthi. With the swearing-in of the 118th Congress, our coalition has grown to a record number with the election of Representative Thanedar,” he said.

The Indian-American community has emerged as a force to reckon with in the US presidential elections. In the last election, both the Democrat and the Republican campaigns initiated several measures to woo the approximately 1.8 million members of the community who have emerged as a critical voting bloc in the battleground states of Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

“It’s important that we reflect on the historic progress our country is making. I look forward to welcoming even more Indian American Members of Congress in the future!” Mr Bera said.

“As we enter the most diverse Congress ever, I am reminded how much representation matters, for every community and culture across our country. I am a proud naturalised citizen, the first South Asian American woman elected to the House, and an immigrant woman of colour,” Ms Jayapal said.

She said serving in Congress was a “distinct honour”, not only because she was able to deliver for her constituents, but also to show other South Asians that if she can make it into the halls of Congress, so can they.

“I am so grateful to serve with such an inspiring cohort of fellow Indian Americans and I look forward to seeing our numbers continue to grow!” she said.

“I’m so proud to serve in this diverse Congress alongside a record number of Indian Americans. Representation is crucial to serving Indian American communities and working to strengthen America’s defense and strategic partnership with India. I look forward to continuing our work together in the 118th Congress,” said Ro Khanna.

Indian-Americans have made countless contributions to American society, including in tech, science, medicine, and the military.

Indian-Americans currently serve as the CEOs of major companies including Microsoft (Satya Nadella), Google (Sundar Pichai), IMB (Arvind Krishna), and MasterCard (Ajay Banga).

According to the 2010 census, 70 per cent of Indian Americans over the age of 25 had college degrees, 2.5 times higher than the national average.

“As the Indian-American community remains one of our nation’s fastest-growing, with a population of more than four million, I am excited to see our representation expanding in Congress as well,” said Mr Krishnamoorthi.

“I look forward to working with Reps. Bera, Jayapal, Khanna, and now Thanedar to continue to address the key issues facing our community, including high-skilled immigration reform and strengthening the partnership between the US and India,” he said.

“As a new member of Congress and the latest addition to an incredible group of Indian-American lawmakers, I look forward to getting to work for the American people,” said Mr Thanedar.

The American dream is alive when an immigrant from India can come to this country, earn a degree, become a citizen, start a business, and be elected by the people to represent them in the Michigan State House and the United States House of Representatives, he said.

“I hope to join Representatives Bera, Jayapal, Khanna, and Krishnamoorthi in growing our historic representation in Congress by inspiring future generations,” Thanedar said.

The first Asian-American and Indian-American Member of Congress was Dalip Singh Saund, who served in the US House of Representatives from 1957 to 1963.

In the 66 years between Representative Saund’s election and the 2012 election of Bera, Piyush “Bobby” Jindal was the only other member of Indian American descent elected to the legislative branch of the federal government.

Following the 2016 election, Kamala Harris made history as the first Indian-American to be sworn into the United States Senate.

Harris continued to make history in 2020 when she was elected as the first woman and first person of colour in history to serve as Vice President of the United States of America, said a joint statement issue by the five lawmakers.

Harris’ historic success opened a door with Indian-Americans across the country running for office at every level of government to ensure the community’s voice continues to be at the decision-making table.

In the past decade, the number of Indian-American voices in government has grown rapidly, with signs that the next decade will see the representation grow even further, it said.

Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday said that there are limitless opportunities for US investors and companies to grow in and with India across various sectors. Goyal made these remarks at a roundtable here hosted by the US-India Business Council (USIBC), part of the US Chamber of Commerce, and Nasdaq.

He also asserted that this is the right time for them to increase their engagement with the country.

“India and US relations have been at an all-time high. In addition to strong bilateral relations, we are working closely under platforms such as Quad, I2-U2, IPEF etc,” the minister said as quoted by news agency PTI.

Goyal was making a reference to the Quad grouping of India, US, Australia and Japan, the I2-U2 grouping of India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity.

In an official statement issued by the USIBC, the Commerce Minister said that “for the US companies looking for ‘good times’, this is the time, this is the right time, to look at India, and engage more with India.”

“There are limitless opportunities all across: from semiconductors to infrastructure to healthcare to manufacturing to innovation to renewables to defence and so on. I am confident that the US industry will make use of these opportunities to grow in India and grow with India,” the statement read.

Meanwhile, USIBC President Ambassador Atul Keshap and Executive Vice Chairman of Nasdaq and Interim Chair of USIBC’s Global Board of Directors Edward Knight emphasized how India’s G20 presidency this year and the United States’ focus on “friend-shoring” presents a momentous opportunity to highlight the importance of the US-India economic partnership, and a fertile backdrop to make landmark progress on US-India trade issues, PTI reported.

The USIBC chief also added that as the United States and other like-minded democracies seek to fortify their supply chains, India is a vital friend-shoring partner.

Goyal is in Washington DC and will attend the 13th Trade Policy Forum (TPF) meeting on January 11. He will also hold a bilateral meeting with US Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai.

The roundtable titled ‘Friend-Shoring and the US-India Trade Partnership: Forging Shared Economic Resilience’ was attended by executives from the supply chain and logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, digital economy, and financial services sectors.

USIBC members highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship National Logistics Policy as a “game changer,” and as a major step to lowering the costs of doing business in the Indian market and unlocking India’s potential as a global manufacturing and export hub.

Several USIBC members also signaled major new investments in India and plans to expand their manufacturing presence in the country.

Indian-American AC Charania has been appointed as NASA’s new chief technologist and will be serving as principal advisor to Administrator Bill Nelson on technology policy and programs at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington.

Charania joined the space agency on January 3. His position as a chief technologist aligns NASA’s agency-wide technology investments with mission needs across six mission directorates and oversees technology collaboration with other federal agencies, the private sector, and external stakeholders. The position works within NASA’s Office for Technology, Policy, and Strategy, NASA said in a statement on Monday.

He replaces another Indian-American scientist Bhavya Lal, who served as acting chief technologist. “Technology plays a vital role in every NASA mission. Making sure that we’re pursuing the best policy objectives allows this agency to continue to serve as a global leader in innovation,” said Lal.

“A.C. is an experienced leader in managing large, rapidly shifting technology portfolios. I am eager for him to apply his knowledge and enthusiasm at NASA,” Lal added.

Charania said he looked forward work with the entire community to increase the rate of space and aviation progress. “The rate of advancement we seek in the 21st century is dependent upon selecting and maturing a portfolio of technologies into systems to execute our missions,” he said.

“With this in mind, there are incredible opportunities in partnerships within and outside of NASA. I now look forward to the opportunity to work with the entire community to increase the rate of space and aviation progress,” he added.

Charania served as vice president of product strategy at Reliable Robotics, a firm that is working to bring certified autonomous vehicles to commercial aviation.

He has also worked at Blue Origin to mature its lunar permanence strategy, Blue Moon lunar lander program, and multiple technology initiatives with NASA.

Charania worked in strategy and business development for the Virgin Galactic (now Virgin Orbit) LauncherOne small satellite launch vehicle program.

At SpaceWorks Enterprises, Charania served in multiple management and technology roles, including helping to incubate two startups, Generation Orbit and Terminal Velocity Aerospace.

Charania led the formation of the FastForward industry group focused on high-speed point-to-point transportation.
He was also a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts fellow and served on the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group Commercial Advisory Board.

Charania received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a bachelor’s in economics from Emory University.

Recently, Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based OpenAI, tweeted a photo from the first day of the company. Reacting to the picture, Indian-American businessman Vinod Khosla remarked he felt extremely fortunate that his venture capital (VC) firm (Khosla Ventures) was the first such firm to invest in OpenAI.

“We were fortunate to be the first VC to invest in OpenAI and excited for the possibilities ahead. How far the company has come!” Khosla tweeted on Tuesday, quote-tweeting Altman.

Founded in December 2015, OpenAI is an artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory with a mission to ensure that ‘artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.’ The lab has as many as 6 co-founders, including Altman, as well as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who now owns Twitter. Musk, however, left in February 2018 but remained a donor.

OpenAI’s products include chatbots such as InstructGPT and the recently-released ChatGPT, among others.

About Vinod Khosla

According to Forbes, Kholsa has a net worth of $4.7 billion, making him the 578th wealthiest person in the world (as of January 10, 2023); in 2022, the magazine ranked him 181 in its list of the 400 wealthiest Americans for that year.

Khosla Ventures, founded by him, is a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that invests in experimental technologies such as biomedicine and robotics.