Young Indian American Democrat Neil Misra is running for election to the New Hampshire House of Representatives to represent Rockingham 25. The district is currently represented by Democrat Laura Pantelakos.

He made it the ballot in the Nov 8 general election from the Democratic primary on Sep13 with eight other Democrats. Misra received 8.7% of the votes and was in the last but one slot in the crowded field from the district, according to the New York Times.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Misra is a lifelong resident of Salem, New Hampshire. He earned a high school diploma from Salem High School and a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University in 2015. During his undergraduate studies, he simultaneously interned for Congresswoman Ann Kuster (NH District 2).

Following college, Misra completed a master’s degree in International Politics at Cambridge University in 2017 and a second master’s degree in Global Area Studies at Oxford University in 2020. While at Oxford, he served as the Graduate Vice President of the Oxford Student Union.

Misra is running “to provide a fresh and diverse perspective to a stagnant legislature that has traditionally been dominated by the same voices for years,” said a tweet by Run for Something, which helps recruit and supports young people running for office.

Misra, “the son of two hardworking immigrants who came to the US to pursue their American dream,” told the Salem Patch that he is seeking office as he is “passionate” about serving his community, and fervently believes in protecting our rights and fundamental freedoms.

“As a lifelong resident of Salem, I am intimately familiar with the fundamental issues affecting our town and our state,” he told the paper. Noting that “the current legislature has failed to adequately address these issues,” he believes “with the utmost conviction that I can do a much better job at advocating on behalf of Granite Staters.”

Additionally, he can provide “a fresh perspective and dynamic leadership to a legislature that has been stagnant for far too long.”

Misra, according to his website, “will fight tirelessly to ensure that the right to an abortion and the right to quality education for our children are never infringed upon in the state of New Hampshire.”

Meanwhile, Indian American businessman and author Vikram Mansharamani fell short of his maiden campaign for the US Senate from New Hampshire in the crowded Sep 13 Republican primary. He came in fourth place with 7.6 percent of the votes, according to NBC Boston data.

“While we are still waiting on some results, it is clear that I will come up short. I would like to thank my family, my campaign team, and supporters across the state who put their trust in me,” he stated.

The underlying strength of the market, according to Bank of America, would help initial public offerings (IPOs) in India recapture their recent momentum as early as in the first quarter of 2023. Debasish Purohit believes that IPOs have paused, but it will likely be three to six months before they resume.

The co-head of Bank of America’s India investment banking division said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on September 21 that some IPO activity in 2021 gave way to sales of secondary shares, which are quicker and provide holders an opportunity to monetize their positions.

According to him, India’s equities capital market activity is around 40% in 2022, outpacing the decline of 70% in Asia. Purohit anticipates that consolidation in consumer-facing sectors like financial services and consumer internet-based businesses will help India’s mergers and acquisitions activity to remain robust.

“A large part of India’s M&A dealmaking activity will be inbound because there are sectors in India who are net capital importers,” said Purohit.

According to Purohit, the majority of inbound acquisitions will be in the energy transition, infrastructure, food and beverage, and healthcare sectors, particularly as major global pharma companies prefer to diversify away from the China supply chain or invest heavily in India.

Meanwhile, a proposed IPO for Digit Insurance, a business funded by Fairfax Group has been postponed, according to a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulatory document released on September 20. The document on SEBI’s website stated without going into further detail that the IPO had been kept “abeyance” and that some observations had been made.
According to a Reuters’ report in August, Digit Insurance planned to raise $440 million through an IPO for its non-life division. It was reportedly looking for a valuation of $4.5 billion to $5 billion.

Indian-American investor Neha Narkhede has emerged as the youngest self-made woman on the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022, which was released on September 21.

Neha Narkhede, who grew up in Pune, is the co-founder of Confluent– a data technology company based in Mountain View, California. Today, her net worth is estimated to be over Rs 13,300 crore.

Narkhede studied computer science at the Savitribai Phule Pune University. For her Master’s studies, she moved to the US to attend the Georgia Institute of Technology.

She worked as a software engineer for Oracle Corporation and LinkedIn. In 2014, Narkhede and two of her colleagues at LinkedIn left the company to set up Confluent, Forbes magazine reported.

Confluent went public in June last year, valued $9.1 billion, according to Forbes.

Narkhede is also an independent startups advisor.

She has featured in several prominent lists of women achievers.

In 2022, she was part of Forbes magazine’s “America’s Self-Made Women”. She also also ranked among the 10 wealthiest women in the Kotak-Hurun list of wealthiest Indian women.

In 2018, Narkhede was part Forbes’ the “World’s Top 50 Women in Tech”.

Narkhede has in interviews spoken about how her father teaching her about trailblazing women became the biggest influence on her career.

“When I was growing up, he selected books and told me stories of women who were trailblazers in very male-dominated fields,” she had told CNBC in 2019, adding that she read about Indira Gandhi, Indra Nooyi and Kiran Bedi.

Two Indian Americans and an Indian student are among the five finalists for this year’s Children’s Climate Prize all of whom make extraordinary contributions to the environment and climate.

Beside Indian Americans Samyak Shrimali, from Portland, Oregon and Akhila Ram, from Lexington, Kentucky, Sparsh from Patna, India, Jacqueline Prawira, from Mountain House, California and Eiman Jawwad, from Lahore, Pakistan have also made it to the finals.

The winner will be presented in November and will receive a diploma, medal and 100,000 Swedish Krona ($9,180) prize money awarded by the Children’s Climate Foundation to develop their project, according to a foundation press release.

Among this year’s nominations, contributions were received from all continents and from over 30 different countries. This year’s jury included former Children’s Climate Prize winner Vinisha Umashankar, who knows from her own experiences what winning the prize can mean.

“It was a tough decision to choose the five finalists among all the nominations, but we eventually got there,” she says. “This year’s finalists are truly talented people in their own fields and in their own ways, and I do believe all five finalists are deserving of their positions.”

“I am so proud of this year’s finalists because they have all achieved great things,” says Stella Axelsson, President, The Swedish Federation of Young Scientists. “These kids can do anything and so can we. I think the more people that realize this, the more change we’re going to accomplish.”

Finalists 2022
Samyak Shrimali, 17, has designed PlantifyAI, a mobile application that utilizes deep-learning AI algorithms to efficiently and accurately detect crop diseases in plants. When detected, the app also provides treatment steps, common symptoms, and access to recommended curing products.

With PlantifyAI, Samyak has provided a free, easy-to-use, and widely accessible tool, directly into the hands of the farmers, which has the potential to significantly increase global food security, and thus reduce hunger and greenhouse gas emissions.

“With PlantifyAI, Samyak has recognized a global challenge and found a solution,” the jury noted. “By using AI technology, the mobile application can be beneficial for farmers all over the world, as it provides a proactive tool that saves food resources.”

Samyak shows a systemized approach: detect – prevent – cure, which, given the potential scalability to adapt to different local environments, can result in great impact for both economical and social sustainability worldwide, it said.

Akhila Ram, 17, has developed a machine learning model that uses satellite data to predict detailed changes in groundwater with high accuracy for the United States. A groundwater monitoring dashboard utilizes the model predictions to provide an accessible way for everyone to be aware of groundwater trends.

With these precise measurements, local officials are equipped with the tools needed to preserve their region’s resources, eliminating excess groundwater depletion.

“Groundwater monitoring is normally very costly, so Akhila’s solution could create completely new possibilities for planning and monitoring groundwater,” the jury noted. “Her work is scientifically impressive and the potential scalability of her machine learning model is huge where this kind of data is publicly available.”

“Being able to predict and plan groundwater resources could be useful to both local politicians and to citizens, making a great impact for many,” it said.

Sparsh, 17, has invented the Thermal Floater, a device that efficiently converts thermal energy from the sun into electrical energy. Sparsh’s floating invention can easily be installed on any inland or stagnant water bodies, thus it doesn’t require any dedicated land resources.

The module is just 15 cm by 15 cm and can easily be connected to several units to generate even more energy. In an array of modules, the system can generate electricity up to 10 kWh per day, which is 3x more efficient than a typical solar panel of the same size.

Apart from converting thermal energy, the modules also contribute to other environmental benefits, such as reducing evaporation (increasing water availability for other uses), as well as reducing algal bloom in freshwater.

“The ongoing discussions on renewable energy sources, soaring energy prices and growing electricity demand makes Sparsh’s innovation much needed,” according to the jury. “With the Thermal Floater, Sparsh has an impressive way to mitigate climate change by using thermal energy.

“Also, the whole idea of a floating device is great and innovative, making use of water surfaces, such as dam reservoirs, wastewater treatment ponds or drinking water reservoirs and thus reducing pressure on land resources.”

“This solution is easy to implement and very accessible, thus it creates a huge potential globally for both households and for countries where land resources are scarce,” the jury noted.

Jacqueline Prawira, 17, has invented Cyclo. Cloud, which utilizes fish scale waste to adsorb up to 82 % of heavy metals from contaminated wastewater.

Eiman Jawwad, 17 has made organic fertilizer utilizing used up tea leaves and coffee to reduce waste and help reduce costs for the nurseries.

The project is fantastical: A $19 billion investment in the semiconductor and display-panel sectors, with the creation of 100,000 jobs promised in a state with little experience in technology manufacturing. If voters and taxpayers in India’s Gujarat state are excited about this “landmark investment”, they ought to read up on recent Wisconsin history. The US state bought into a similar pipe dream in 2017 when then-President Donald Trump teamed up with then-Governor Scott Walker to lure Foxconn Technology Group, whose Taipei-listed flagship is Hon Hai Precision Industry Company. The Taiwanese company said it would invest $10 billion and hire 13,000 workers.

Wisconsin never hit its targets. And it’s likely that neither will Gujarat.

What’s playing out today in India is eerily similar to what happened in the US Midwest five years ago, but this time the people and government of Gujarat have no excuse for not being aware of what’s likely to unravel. Americans were told clearly that the project in Mount Pleasant didn’t make sense. But still, they went ahead.

It’s inconceivable that Foxconn truly thought it would spend as much as $10 billion to build a high-tech manufacturing plant in the middle of US farm country. But, as founder and Chairman Terry Gou said early on in the project’s planning phase: “There is such a plan, but it is not a promise. It is a wish.”

So when Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal says that his company will invest ₹1.54 trillion ($19.4 billion), we ought to take it as wishful thinking rather than a promise. And we can also pause to bathe in the sweet irony of his chosen venture partner: Foxconn, the same name behind the Wisconsin project. Though, to be fair, the Taiwanese are less a driving force behind this India project and more a consulting partner. The numbers, choice of location, and project scope are mostly decided by Vedanta, which is bearing most of the financial burden.

“History gets made!” Vedanta’s Anil Agarwal tweeted on 13 September, “Happy to announce that the new Vedanta-Foxconn semiconductor plant will be set up in #Gujarat. Vedanta’s landmark investment of ₹1.54 lakh crores will help make India’s #Atmanirbhar Silicon Valley a reality.”

Foxconn made various pledges in Wisconsin that never came to fruition, with a promise for a state-of-the-art 10G liquid-crystal-display panel factory being the most egregious. At least it never committed to assembling iPhones, the product for which Foxconn is globally most famous. The Taiwanese company’s behaviour was in some respects spurred by local and national governments intent on selling to their voters (and taxpayers) the assurance that a $3 billion incentives package—the largest in US history—would be worth the expense. It will be the “Eighth Wonder of the The World,” Trump had proclaimed at the groundbreaking ceremony in 2018.

Governments from Washington to New Delhi don’t want to offer corporate welfare to lure humdrum projects like chip-testing and assembly. They want to send press releases and tweets that hail their territory’s move into the upper echelons of industrial society. To meet that publicity goal, they often tie incentives not to reasonable evolutionary steps in economic development, but to extravagant plans that people had never dreamt of.

And the recipients of such sweeteners are more than happy to oblige, safe in the knowledge that there is almost no downside to over-promise and under-deliver. And those who doled these sweeteners out—either long gone from office, or safely entrenched—won’t be required to foot the bill either. Scott Walker lost his re-election bid, in large part because of the failure of the Foxconn deal; however, he didn’t lose his home, like dozens of Wisconsinites who were displaced to make way for the “wonder” that never was.

Now it’s India’s turn to dream likewise, it would appear, until such time comes that it must face up to reality.

Perhaps it is a coincidence that the project went to the home state of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Neighbouring Maharashtra state thought it was a shoo-in for the deal, going so far as to issue a statement two months ago announcing that the Vedanta-Foxconn venture would invest there.

Accusations and rancour were flying thick and fast in Maharashtra after Agarwal and Modi took to the stage to celebrate the winner. But in reality, the people of India’s second most-populous state may end up celebrating not that they lost the project, but that they dodged a bullet.

Indians, in Gujarat and Maharashtra in particular, may want to take the American story as a warning: You don’t want to be another Wisconsin.

credit: Bloomberg