Indian-American Arun M Kumar has been nominated by President Barack Obama to a key administration post, making him in charge of international trade at a critical juncture, when the U.S. is looking to increase it’s export.

Arun M Kumar, till recently a partner and member of the Board of Directors at consultancy firm KPMG, was nominated yeasterday, by Obama to be the Assistant Secretary and Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, International Trade Administration in the Department of Commerce.

“The extraordinary dedication these men and women bring to their new roles will greatly serve the American people,” Obama said as he announced nomination to several other key administration positions.

“I am grateful they have agreed to serve in this Administration and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come,” he said.

Kumar joined KPMG in 1995 as a Finance Management Leader. and from 2005 until his retirement in September 2013, he led the firm’s West Coast Finance Management Consulting practice.

He also led the firm’s US-India practice from 2007 to 2013.

Kumar received a Bachelors degree in Physics from the University of Kerala in India, and an S M in Management from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

From 1993 to 1995, he was the founder and CEO of Planning & Logic, Inc, a software company. Prior to that, he was co-founder and CFO of Netlabs, Inc from 1991 to 1993; the CFO of Elite Microelectronics, Inc from 1990 to 1991.He also held important positions in several organisations from 1980 to 1990.

Source: Business Standard

A delegation of 16 city-based businessmen, mainly from the auto ancillary industry, will be on a trip to the United States from October 8 to 18 to explore opportunities arising from the prevailing economic conditions in the country.

“The delegation comprises businessmen who have been in the auto ancillary industry for the past 10 to 30 years. The automobile industry in the United States is very sophisticated and we are visiting Detroit with a purpose. The conditions in that country could create opportunities for the founding and casting industry in Kolhapur,” Birnale said.

The delegation will be meeting with industrialists in the U.S. especially in the automobile sector. It has received confirmation about the meetings that will be held from the Indo-American Chamber Of Commerce, the Queens Chamber of Commerce, the USA Chamber of Commerce, the USA-India business council and the USA commerce department.

“We are optimistic about that our trip there will translate into business for Kolhapur. The Indian consulate in New York has helped the delegation to reach proper institutions in the US,” said Kulbhushan Birnale, the president of Converse International Network, the organization facilitating the study tour.

Converse International Network is a joint venture between the Global Organization for People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) and the Dnyaneshwar Mulay Education Society (DMES). Mulay is currently the consul general of India in New York.

At Albany in New York, the city businessmen will be meeting their counterparts in the casting industry and will hold dialogue with the Empire State Development Corporation, New York’s major economic development agency. The delegation will also be visiting tool and dye companies in three states in the US.

“Many such visits have been planned that will give local business houses a view of how the U.S. industry is shaped and what opportunities there are. GOPIO will be welcoming the delegation and arrange a meeting at Washington Chamber of Commerce,” Birnale added.

Kolhapur is one of the top Indian cities the foundry and casting industries. Around 350 founding units have been established here in the past five decades. These industries are presently facing the heat of the international economic slowdown and are looking for global opportunities.

Source: Times of India

Rajiv Joseph, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Indian American playwright, has been named a winner of the 6th Annual Steinberg Playwright Award, an annual theater honor organized by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.
He shares the honor with playwright Annie Baker and will accept a cash prize of $50,000.
Joseph was awarded for his latest work, “The Lake Effect,” which had its world premiere at Chicago’s Silk Road Rising in April. “The Lake Effect” is about two estranged Indian American siblings (played by Adam Poss and Minita Gandhi) who are forced to reunite when their father passes away and his newly revealed secrets change their perception of a man they thought they knew. “The Lake Effect” is also nominated for The Chicago-based 2012-13 Jeff Equity Awards, it was announced Oct. 3.

Previously, Joseph held the world premiere of the suspenseful drama “The North Pool” in 2011 in Palo Alto, Calif. His other works include “Huck and Holden,” “Animals Out of Paper” and “Gruesome Playground Injuries.” India-West has reported previously that Joseph’s first screenplay, a football-themed film titled “Draft Day,” had been selected for Hollywood’s prestigious “Blacklist” in December 2012.

Joseph, born in Cleveland, Ohio, is the son of a French-German mother and Indian father who credits his three years spent with the Peace Corps in Senegal for having a profound effect on him and preparing him for a writing career. He earned a B.A. in creative writing from the Oxford, Ohio campus of Miami University and a master’s degree in writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Joseph is best known for his incendiary drama “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” was first presented at the Kirk Douglas Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles before opening on Broadway with Robin Williams in 2011.

The play will open Oct. 5 at the San Francisco Playhouse and will run through Nov. 14, directed by Bill English.

Source: IndiaWest

The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, an award that celebrates inspiring, public-spirited, diverse young people from all across America, recently announced that 18-year-old Sruthi Ramaswami was among its 2013 national winners.

Each year, the Barron Prize honors 25 outstanding young leaders ages 8 to 18 who have made a significant positive difference to people and our planet. The top ten to 15 winners each receive a $5000 cash award to support their service work or higher education.

Ramaswami, an Indian American from California, was recognized for having founded the Mitty Advocacy Project, a network of over 1,000 students lobbying legislators to support bills that help the less fortunate by addressing social justice issues such as poverty and immigration.

Teams of students research issues such as poverty, education, immigration, and criminal justice, and then identify bills designed to address these issues. Students lobby legislators in Sacramento and have traveled to Washington, D.C. to do so at the national level. Five of the six bills they have lobbied for have been signed into law.

Ramaswami began her work as a high school freshman, invited by a teacher to prepare for and participate in Catholic Lobby Day, an advocacy event to mobilize Catholics in California to lobby state legislators. Inspired and empowered by that experience, she created MAP in her sophomore year to form a community of youth lobbyists to represent the interests of the less fortunate.

As the cornerstone of MAP, Ramaswami founded California Youth Advocacy Day, an annual event to promote civic engagement. For the past three years, over 600 high school students have taken part in the event, participating in issue-specific workshops led by MAP students and then lobbying their legislators at the state Capitol.

MAP has grown to involve 100 students at Sruthi’s school and has expanded to over 50 schools nationwide.

“I’ve learned that mobilizing people to believe in and work towards a common goal is not the purview of adulthood,” the teen stated in a press release. “Motivation and self-belief trump age.”

Source : IndiaWest