Monitoring Desk: As many as 11 Indian-Americans have filled the Transition Team of President-elect Joe Biden.
According to available data and India Today Magazine, the COVID-19 Team of President-elect has three experts of Indian origins including Dr Vivek Murthy, Dr Atul Gawande and Dr Celine Gounder.
Kiran Ahuja is included in Office of Personnel Management and Mala Adiga will look after as Policy Director of First Lady.
Other Indian-Americans who are part of the Transition Team include Dr Arun Majumdar (US Department of Energy), Dr Rahul Gupta (Office of National Drug Control Policy), Dr Bhavya Lal (NASA), Puneet Talwar (US Department of State), Pavneet Singh (National Security Council) and Seema Nanda (US Department of Labour).
Kiran Ahuja is included in the Office of Personnel Management and Mala Adiga will look after as Policy Director of First Lady.
Other Indian-Americans who are part of the Transition Team include Dr Arun Majumdar (US Department of Energy), Dr Rahul Gupta (Office of National Drug Control Policy), Dr Bhavya Lal (NASA), Puneet Talwar (US Department of State), Pavneet Singh (National Security Council) and Seema Nanda (US Department of Labour).
Puneet Talwar is considered very close to President-elect as he was a top advisor to Joe Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for twelve years.
He is is an American diplomat who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs from 2014 to November 2015. Talwar served as a top Middle East advisor to Barack Obama and played a central role in the backchannel diplomacy that produced the Iran nuclear deal.
Pavneet Singh (now in US Department of State Team) served in several roles on the National Security Council (NSC) and National Economic Council at the White House.
He served as a Director for international affairs, working in the trade war room to build the administration’s case for passing Trade Promotion Authority, the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union.
He also managed the U.S.-China and U.S.-India economic relationships, including serving as the NSC’s lead Director for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit in Beijing, and in the development of the president’s economic deliverables for the bilateral summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
