America
Obama names 3 Indian-Americans to advisory body
By
By Arun Kumar Washington, Sep 25
President Barack Obama is
naming three Indian Americans to an advisory council on faith-based and
neighbourhood partnerships that brings together religious and secular
leaders as well as scholars and experts in their fields.
The
Council focuses on steps the government should take to reduce poverty
and inequality and create opportunity for all, according to a White
House announcement.
Naming Preeta Bansal, Nipun Mehta and Jasjit
Singh and 14 others Obama said: "I am confident that these outstanding
men and women will serve the American people well, and I look forward to
working with them."
Bansal is a lecturer at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab and a Senior Advisor at MIT's
Laboratory for Social Machines.
She is also President of Social
Emergence Corporation, a not-for-profit founded in May 2015, which
focuses on empowering human networks and community relationships.
Bansal
served as a member of the US Commission on International Religious
Freedom from 2003 to 2009, and as Chair from 2004 to 2005. She was
Solicitor General of the State of New York from 1999 to 2001.
Early in her legal career, she served as law clerk to US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
Bansal
is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a Member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. She received a BA from Harvard-Radcliffe
College and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Nipun Mehta, is the
founder of ServiceSpace, a non-profit organization established in 1999.
From 1998 to 2001, he was a software engineer at Sun Microsystems.
Mehta
is a member of the Advisory Circle of the Seva Foundation, the
International Advisory Council of the Dalai Lama Foundation, and the
Advisory Board of the Greater Good Science Centre.
He has
received numerous awards for his community work, including the Jefferson
Award for Public Service, the President's Volunteer Service Award and
Wavy Gravy's Humanitarian Award. Mehta received a BA from California
University.
Jasjit Singh is Executive Director of the Sikh
American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF), a position he has
held since 2012.
Singh first joined SALDEF as the Associate
Executive Director in 2009. Prior to joining SALDEF, he worked at
Deloitte & Touche.
He also founded the Sikh Student
Association at the University of Illinois, and served as its President
from 2000 to 2002. Singh is a BS from Illinois University.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])