Over 20 Indian-Americans named in Biden's agency review teams

WASHINGTON

US President-elect Joe Biden has named more than 20 Indian-Americans as members, including three as team leads, to his agency review teams (ARTs).

The ARTS are responsible for evaluating the operations of the key federal agencies in the current administration to ensure a smooth transfer of power.

Biden's transition team said this is one of the most diverse agency review teams in presidential transition history.

Of the hundreds of ART members, more than half are women, and about 40 per cent from the underrepresented federal government, race, LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities.

Agency review teams are responsible for understanding the operations of each agency, ensuring a smooth transfer of power, and preparing for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and their Cabinet to hit the ground running on Day One.

At least three Indian Americans have been named as team leads to various ARTs.

Arun Majumdar from the prestigious Stanford University is the team lead for the Department of Energy ART, Rahul Gupta for Office of National Drug Control Policy, Kiran Ahuja for Office of Personnel Management.

Puneet Talwar has been named to the Department of State ART, and Pav Singh has been named to two ARTs for National Security Council and Office of Science and Technology.

Similarly, Arun Venkatraman has been named to two ARTs Department of Commerce and USTR.

Other prominent Indian Americans named to ARTs are Pravina Raghavan, Atman Trivedi for Department of Commerce and Shital Shah for Department of Education; R Ramesh and Rama Zakaria for the Department of Energy; Subhasri Ramanathan for the Department of Homeland Security; Raj De for Department of Justice; and Seema Nanda and Raj Nayak for Department of Labour.

Reena Aggarwal and Satyam Khanna have been named to the Federal Reserve, Banking and Securities Regulators ARTs; Bhavya Lal for NASA; Dilpreet Sidhu for National Security Council, Divya Kumaraiah for Office of Management and Budget; Kumar Chandran for Department of Agriculture; and Aneesh Chopra to US Postal Service. Almost all of them are volunteers.

Our nation is grappling with a pandemic, an economic crisis, urgent calls for racial justice, and the existential threat of climate change.

We must be prepared, for a seamless transfer of knowledge to the incoming administration to protect our interests at home and abroad. The agency review process will help lay the foundation for meeting these challenges on Day One, said Senator Ted Kaufman, Co-Chair, Biden-Harris Transition.(PTI)