Sonal Shah controversy: Alleged links to the VHP, BJP communal parties

DH News: Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The appointment of Sonal Shah, an eminent economist, as an advisory board member to assist Obama’s transition team, had sparked a controversy, over her alleged links to the VHP.

Several Indians on Team Obama

Houston, PTI : The Obama-Biden transition team has roped in a number of Indian-Americans, mostly specialists and leading academicians, to assist the Democrats in assuming the responsibilities of the administration.

The appointees are no strangers to the first ever African-American President-elect Barack Obama, with most of them having longstanding association with him.While Indian American Nick Rathod has been appointed director to the Office of Inter-governmental Affairs, Parag Mehta from Texas will oversee affairs of minority groups, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as deputy director of inter-governmental affairs and public liaison.Rathod is currently national outreach director of South Asians for Obama and one of its founding members. Arti Rai, an ex-classmate of Obama at the Harvard Law School, currently a professor of patent law at the Duke University, has been appointed member of the agency review team on science, technology, space, arts and humanities.

The agency review teams are charged with completing a thorough review of various departments, agencies and commissions in the US government to craft policy, budgetary and personnel decisions prior to the President’s inauguration.Anjan Mukherjee, another Indian-American, who is a passout from the Harvard Business School and managing director at the private equity firm Blackstone, has been named one of the several leads on the economics and international trade agency review team.Mukherjee, who was also involved in the Asian Americans’ campaign for Obama, is also a director of Steifel Laboratories, one of his firm’s investment arms.Rachana Bhowmik, Subhasri Ramanathan, Natasha Bilimoria and Puneet Talwar will serve as members of the state, national security, defence, intelligence and arms control agency review teams.Bhowmik was earlier part of Senator Obama’s legislative counsel, handling civil rights, civil liberties, and national security issues such as intelligence, homeland security, and veterans’ issues for the senator.Ramanathan, who is currently a senior analyst with the Government Accountability Office’s Homeland Security and Justice team, has also served as the Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director to the Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security, specialising in border security, visa and immigration policy issues.Bilimoria, who was also part of the Clinton administration, is the executive director of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis — a non-profit organisation working to engage Americans in prevention of these diseases in the developing world.Bilimoria previously served as senior public policy officer at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and spent four years with the Clinton Administration, including at the US Department of Treasury.Meanwhile, Puneet is a senior staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and previously served on the State Department’s policy planning staff. The appointment of Sonal Shah, an eminent economist, as an advisory board member to assist Obama’s transition team, had sparked a controversy, over her alleged links to the VHP.

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