Indian-Americans have affirmed their growing importance in US politics with at least five members of the community emerging victorious in the recently concluded state legislatures and local body polls.

The most significant victories came in the state of New Jersey, where rising Indian-American political star Raj Mukherji became one of the youngest member of State Assembly and will join fellow Democrat and veteran leader Upendra Chivukula.

Raj, a former Jersey City Deputy Mayor, won the State Assembly elections to New Jersey’s 33rd Legislative District.

Mukherji, 29, a first-time Democratic nominee for the 33rd Legislative District, had won the primary election in June by a 36-point margin.

Nellore-born Chivukula has been a member of the New Jersey assembly since 2002.

Chivukula, 63, was the first South-Asian American in the 120-member state legislature and the highest ranking South-Asian elected to office in New Jersey.

At more than four per cent, South Asians form the largest component of the state’s Asian-American group, which accounts for an estimated nine per cent of New Jersey’s nearly nine million population.

Meanwhile, in the state of New Hampshire, 52-year-old Democrat Latha Mangipudi defeated her rival Peter Silva in a special state representative election by a huge 18-point margin.

Democrat Sapana Shah won a berth in the Edison Municipal Council of New Jersey. The 36-year-old lawyer has been working with the Edison Board of Education since 2011.

Elsewhere, Steve Rao retained his seat on the Morrisville City Council in North Carolina despite a huge anti-incumbency wave to defeat Pete Martin. Rao is now the only remaining Indian-American in the Council and was the only incumbent to return to office.

Source: The Economic Times

An Indian-origin doctor has been selected for prestigious “Outstanding American by Choice” award for his valuable contribution to US heatlh sector.

Eminent transplant surgeon and philanthropist, Rahul Jindal, will be honoured by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on November 13.

The initiative recognises naturalised citizens who have made significant contributions to both their community and their adopted country.

Jindal, who recently received the Leadership Award by the International Leadership Foundation was recently appointed as Commissioner on Service and Volunteerism.

Currently a Staff Transplant Surgeon at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Professor of Surgery at Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Jindal is also a Clinical Professor at George Washington University.

He obtained his MD from BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad and then studied in Britain where he and earned an FRCS from the Royal College of Edinburgh.

Known for his philanthropy and community services, Jindal is the Director of the National Blood and Bone marrow Drive Campaign which was sponsored by about 600 Hindu temples throughout North America.

Source: Business Standard

Democratic party nominee Raj Mukherji, a rising Indian-American figure on the political scene here, has won the State Assembly polls in New Jersey, becoming one of the youngest to be elected to the house.

29-year-old Mukherji, a first-time Democratic nominee for the 33rd Legislative District and former Jersey City Deputy Mayor, had won the primary election in June by a 36-point margin.

According to the Office of County Clerk, Hudson County, Mukherji got 18,586 votes and will represent the Legislative District, which covers Hoboken, Union City, Weehawken and parts of Jersey City.

He is the son of Indian American immigrants and has had a stellar rise in the political arena.

According to information provided by his ‘Raj Mukerji for Assembly’ website, Mukherji supported himself through high school, college and grad school as an emancipated minor when his parents were forced to return to India due to economic constraints.His father Asim Mukherji was an accountant who could not work because of health reasons and could not afford health coverage without employment.

“This experience shaped Raj’s perspective and interest in healthcare and inspired much of his subsequent advocacy in that field,” according to personal information about Mukherji posted the website.

From March 2012 through June 2013, Mukherji served as one of the two Deputy Mayors of Jersey City, New Jersey’s second largest city.

He had also founded an internet consulting and software development company while in middle school, which he later sold to a larger technology company.

Following the September 11 attacks in the city, Mukherji joined the US Marines at age 17, where he served in military intelligence for the Marine Corps Reserve.

At 19, he co-founded a public affairs firm that he grew into the state’s third largest lawyer-lobbying firm while learning the inner workings of the State House.

With clients ranging from social justice causes to higher education institutions to government agencies to Fortune 500 corporations, he advocated to abolish the death penalty in New Jersey and replace it with life imprisonment without parole and lobbied for equality for lesbians, gays and transgender community.
At age 24, Mukherji was appointed the youngest Commissioner and Chairman in the history of the Jersey City Housing Authority – the state’s second largest housing authority – where his work for various reforms at the USD 70 million agency serving over 16,000 residents and over 6,700 households was widely appreciated.

Source: Deccan Herald

US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) congratulates Latha Mangipudi on winning the special elections for State Representative in Hillsborough District 35 in New Hampshire by a margin of 59%-41%. Her opponent was Republican Peter Silva.
She joins fellow Democrats Daniel Hansberry and Mary Nelson in representing Ward 8, which is Hillsborough County District 35. Nearly 1,500 of Ward 8’s 5,973 registered voters turned out to vote, or just over 20 percent. It was the largest turnout of all nine city wards.
Latha is a first generation immigrant from India, who came to USA with a Master’s degree in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology. Latha used her experiences effectively in serving the community. She also served as a chair of USINPAC New Hampshire chapter and played a key role in motivating and involving the New Hampshire Indian American community to participate in the process of political advocacy. Latha organized several USINPAC events including Presidential and Congressional meetings at her residence.
On her victory, Latha said, “”We ran a great campaign, and I could not have done it without the support of my family, friends, campaign manager and the voters. My goal was to get the voters out to the polls and I am happy to see that there was such a great turnout. I ran for State Representative so I could represent the voice of the people from the community and I am happy that the voters in Ward 8 chose me to represent them. I am thrilled to represent Ward 8 in Concord and I will work hard to make decisions that are best for Nashua and for the state of New Hampshire.”
USINPAC Chairman Sanjay Puri said, “USINPAC is proud of Latha. Her massive victory is a significant boost for the Indian American community, especially in the State of New Hampshire where the number of Indian Americans is much less as compared to states like New York and California. USINPAC has supported her local efforts in past and will continue to do so. We wish her all the best for the journey ahead and hope to see her being sworn in at the State House very soon.”

Astronomers, including an Indian-American, have discovered the most distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy ever found – one created within 700 million years after the Big Bang.

“It’s exciting to know we’re the first people in the world to see this,” said Vithal Tilvi, a post-doctoral research associate at Texas A&M, a research-intensive flagship university, and co-author of the paper published in the latest edition of the journal Nature.

“It raises interesting questions about the origins and the evolution of the universe,” said Tilvi, born in Goa, India.

He attended Goa University and also worked at the National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, and at the National Antarctic Research Centre, Vasco.

The paper’s lead author is Steven Finkelstein, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin and 2011 Hubble Fellow.

Light from the galaxy, designated by scientists as z8_GND_5296, took about 13.1 billion years to reach the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, both of which detected the galaxy in infrared light.

The researchers suspect they may have zeroed in on the era when the universe made its transition from an opaque state in which most of the hydrogen was neutral to a translucent state in which most of the hydrogen is ionised.

Tilvi notes this is one of two major changes in the fundamental essence of the universe since its beginning – the other being a transition from a plasma state to a neutral state. He is leading the effort on a follow-up paper that will use a sophisticated statistical analysis to explore that transition further.

“Everything seems to have changed since then,” Tilvi said. “If it was neutral everywhere today, the night sky that we see wouldn’t be as beautiful. What I’m working on is studying exactly why and exactly where this happened. Was this transition sudden, or was it gradual?”

The Nature paper is the result of raw data gleaned from a powerful Hubble Space Telescope imaging survey of the distant universe called CANDELS, or Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey.

Using that data, the team was armed with 43 potential distant galaxies and set out to confirm their distances.

Tilvi, Finkelstein and his graduate student, Mimi Song, detected only one galaxy during their two nights of observation at Keck, but it turned out to be the most distant ever confirmed.

Source: Manoramaonline.com