Washington, March 5: Americans who have lost their jobs and politicians who claim to speak on their behalf may be railing against information technology guest workers from India, but Indian Americans, the most visible symbol of the H-1B influx, are firmly tightening their grip on America's computer establishment.
The appointment of Vivek Kundra to a newly created White House post of Federal Chief Information Officer crowns a recent trend in the US, where Chief Technology Officers in four states have been of Indian origin.
Minnesota, Virginia, Alaska and the District of Columbia — of which Washington is a part — all have had Indian Americans as Chief Technology Officers for some time now.
“I have directed him to work to ensure that we are using the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations,” President Barack Obama said in a statement this morning announcing Kundra’s appointment.
“As Chief Information Officer, he will play a key role in making sure our government is running in the most secure, open, and efficient way possible.” Kundra is only 34.
White House sources said that in his new job, Kundra will be the czar of disbursing $80 billion that US federal government agencies spend annually on technology.
The appointment was a complete surprise because Kundra and another Indian American, Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology Officer of computer giant Cisco, were rumoured to be contenders for the post of Federal Chief Technology Officer, which Obama had promised during his election campaign to create.
Instead the President this morning named Kundra as Chief Information Officer, a different post in the White House which is also new.
Kundra was born in New Delhi, but spent his boyhood in Tanzania and considers Swahili as his first language. He moved to the US with is parents 23 years ago.
He was said to have been recommended to Obama’s transition team — where he was Technology Adviser — by Virginia governor Tim Kaine, who is also chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The governor earlier appointed Kundra as his Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Technology.
In that capacity, Kundra took a delegation of more than 100 Virginia businessmen to India and brought $99 million worth of business to the state.
Unlike some other Indian Americans in public life who are shy of advertising their Indian links, Kundra lists the success of his India mission in his official biography.
Two years ago, Washington’s Mayor, Adrian Fenty, appointed him to a cabinet post in the District of Columbia by making him Chief Technology Officer. Fenty is also said to have strongly recommended Kundra for the White House job.
His appointment is source of satisfaction for Indian Americans who have watched the much-publicised pick of CNN Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as US surgeon general fall by the wayside.
Another Indian American, Preeta Bansal, former Solicitor General of New York, was tipped for an important job in the Obama administration, but wound up with a relatively insignificant post of general counsel in the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Sonal Shah, who was initially a significant figure in the Obama Transition Team, has returned to her job in Google as head of Global Development Initiatives, unwilling to take up any administration job in the face of a sustained campaign by secularists in India and the US over her alleged sympathy for Hindutva causes.
The top most Indian American appointment in the Obama team so far has been that of Neal Katyal as Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the US, but his choice is said to have been pushed by the Jewish lobby. Katyal’s wife, Joanna Rosen, is Jewish and his brother in law, Jeffrey Rosen is one of America’s legal luminaries.
