Noted lawyer Lalit Bhasin has been appointed as the national president of Indian American Chambers of Commerce (IACC). Bhasin, before being elected to the post, was the executive vice president of IACC. Bhasin is the 54th national president of IACC, which was set up in October 1968 and is headquartered in Mumbai, having 14 offices all over India, with a large membership from large, medium and small business entities.

Bhasin’s 60 years of eminent association with legal practice took him to several leadership positions in the profession. He is closely associated with India’s apex business organizations like CII, and PHD CCI and served as chairman of its legal committees.

Significantly, Bhasin has been decorated with a number of prestigious awards for his contributions in legal services, including a Doctor of Laws (LL. D.) Honoris Causa by Jaipur University (2013), the Plaque of Honor by the Prime Minister of India for outstanding contribution to the Rule of Law (2002), the President of India’s National Law Day Award (2007).

Indian-Americans Vinod Khosla, Romesh Wadhwani and Rakesh Gangwal made it to the Forbes 2022 list of 400 wealthiest Americans with Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry leading the pack with a net worth of $8.2 billion. Overall, Tesla`s Elon Musk earned the top spot for the first time, unseating former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who had held the top spot for four consecutive years.

As a group, the 400 wealthiest Americans are worth $4 trillion, $500 billion less than last year, Forbes noted.

Chaudhry, 63, who founded the cybersecurity firm Zscaler in 2008, is ranked 79. He and his family members own 42 per cent of the Nasdaq-listed firm which went public in March 2018. Before Zscaler, Chaudhry had founded four other tech companies that were all acquired — SecureIT, CoreHarbor, CipherTrust, and AirDefense. In 1996, Chaudhry and his wife quit their jobs and used their life savings to launch SecureIT, their first startup.

Chaudhry had moved to the US in 1980 to attend graduate school. He now lives in Reno, Nevada. With a net worth of $5.2 billion, Vinod Khosla (67) was ranked 181. His firm, Khosla Ventures, invests in experimental technologies such as biomedicine and robotics. Khosla had co-founded the computer hardware firm Sun Microsystems in 1982 with Andy Bechtolsheim, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy.

Romesh T. Wadhwani (67), founder and chairman of Symphony Technology Group, was ranked 196 with a net worth of $5.1 billion. He stepped down as CEO of SymphonyAI at the start of 2022 in a move to ready the firm for a potential public offering. He is also the chairman of ConcertAI, an AI company focused on healthcare and life sciences that was valued at $1.9 billion by venture capital investors in March 2022.

With a net worth of $3.7 billion, airline veteran Rakesh Gangwal (69) made his fortune from InterGlobe Aviation, the parent outfit of budget airline IndiGo, India`s largest by market share. He started his airline career with United Airlines in 1984 and went on to run US Airways Group as its chief executive and chairman. Gangwal had cofounded IndiGo with Rahul Bhatia in 2006 with one aircraft. The Miami resident, who is ranked 261 on the list, owns close to 37 per cent of the company.

Vivek Lall, an Indian-origin General Atomics CEO, is honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award by US President Joe Biden with citation of ‘With Grateful Recognition’.

The citation was given to Lall, who has done PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Wichita State University in Kansas, by the AmeriCorps and the Office of the President. It was also personally signed by the President of the United States, as per the official statement.

AmeriCorps is a part of the US Government. The organisation aims to foster activities that bring Americans closer together to “serve communities.”

Dr Lall, an industry leader and scientific community titan works as Chief Executive at General Atomics. The company is a global leader in the specialised fields of nuclear technology and has developed state-of-the-art Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) like the Predator, Reaper and Guardian drones.

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Lall, a son of an Indian diplomat, was one of the handfuls of individuals with Indian origins to have been invited to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the past year during his Washington visit.

Notably, before his leadership position in General Atomics, Dr Lall worked at other leading organisations like NASA, Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin; his experience and accolades have been considered unparalleled by many in the scientific community and by long-term industry watchers alike.

He is serving as a US Technical Team Member to the Noth Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Science and Technology (STO) with the Pentagon.

He was appointed in a critical advisory role to the US Cabinet Secretary heading the Department of Transportation, encompassing entities like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in 2018.

The Indian American community has not only diversified and promoted India but also contributed to the US economy in a huge sense, a BJP spokesperson has said, describing the Indian diaspora as a “bridge” between the two countries.

Guru Prakash Paswan, one of the youngest national spokespersons of the BJP, was here on a multiple-city book tour for his latest book ‘Makers of Modern Dalit History’ and participate in the recently held Jaipur Literary Festival in New York.
The session at the festival was themed on intersections, searching equity, the paradigm changes under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and how the vocabulary of Indian politics has changed.

“We have great respect for what the Indian diaspora is doing here. Like the Prime Minister says they are our real ambassadors. They came here and then they built empires,” Paswan told PTI.

Today Indian Americans are CEOs of top corporations including Google and Microsoft, he said, adding that Indians might be less in number, but their share in the US economy is “huge”.

“The Indian American community has not only diversified and promoted India but also contributed to the American economy in a huge sense,” he said.

“We will continue this relationship; we will continue this interface for better Indo-US bilateral ties. We have come together in Quad, in the UNGA. We are looking forward to more meaningful cooperation when it comes to building stronger ties between the two nations. We see our community here as a bridge between the two nations,” he said.

In several cities including Washington DC, Houston and New Jersey, Paswan interacted with the Indian American community.
He, however, rued that the historic election of Droupadi Murmu as the first tribal president of India was not celebrated by the community as it should have been.

“It would have been ideal if the entire United States Indian diaspora would have celebrated the rise of Droupadi Murmu because it was a remarkable moment in our history. I think that touched a lot of lives back in India, her rise and her journey. In Droupadi Murmu, youngsters from the backward Dalit and tribal communities are seeing a reflection of themselves. This is a sort of aspiration which has happened this time, which is not less than a revolution,” he said.

“Definitely there is a consciousness, but there is always scope for more. Also, more importantly, the fact McKinsey recently said that India becoming the fifth largest economy and how our growth trajectory has been inclusive and distributive, the last eight years, the financial inclusion plan, the entrepreneurship support through startup India, stand up India, the mudra scheme and the socio-economic revolution which has an impact here,” he said. PTI LKJ MRJ