Historic victory throws up monumental challenges to OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

The recent United States presidential election would go down in history as path-breaking and remarkable making a new beginning not only for America but the entire world. With the help of hundreds of thousands of organizers, volunteers, donors, supporters, and — most of all — voters who made this possible, putting their faith in Barack Obama, together making history. This election process has been in many ways, about uniting community in a common purpose, creating a "new new world," as TIME wrote on its cover story last month.

Overcoming divisions of ideology and party affiliations, Obama said, as the elections are behind us, it's time for unity. "One thing we can all agree on is that our country faces great challenges. We need the strength, energy and faith of all Americans to get our country back on the right track," he said. As Madhu Patel from Chicago suggests that a struggle for justice and equality, which began one hundred and fifty years ago with the declaration of emancipation by President Abraham Lincoln, also an Illinoisan and kept alive by of a long line of patriots and social reformers within the African American Diaspora and had catapulted to prominence by the martyrdom of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. has become a reality with the victory of Barak Obama as the President of the United States.

The entire world tuned to television and radio to know the outcome of the historic American election. When the final results were telecast on TV networks across the world, the mood of the people turned festive and exuberance burst into unprecedented scenes of joy as tears rolled and greetings exchanged with unparalleled emotional feelings. President Elect Obama carried the hopes, dreams and aspirations of all the individuals especially of the poor, Black, martyred civil rights workers and others, who valiantly struggled for equal opportunity in America over the past centuries. Raghu Nayak, former president of FIA and a leading community activist who had lobbied for the passage of Nuke Deal in US Congress said that the victory of Barack Obama was a foregone conclusion once he got the Democratic nomination defeating Sen. Hillary Clinton. The events subsequent to this proved correct. Vice President-elect Joe Biden is a friend of India and helped see through passage of Nuke Deal in Senate. "He will see to it that Barack goes to India on a state visit during his presidency," Raghu Nayak felt.

The new administration, which will take office on January 20, 2009, will be faced with several challenges unprecedented in history. Everyone is hoping that Obama will initiate concrete measures for building a brighter future and a better tomorrow for our country as the country and the world is going through very difficult times on almost all areas. The president-elect will inherit two major wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, being fought simultaneously by its military for relatively a long period of time. The image of the United States has taken a beating as never been before around the world. The leadership of the world's largest economic and political power on earth has come to be questioned by the rest of the world in serious ways. The moral leadership of the only superpower is on the decline. The world no longer looks to the United States as a "beacon of hope."

On the domestic front, inequality between the rich and the poor has increased to an all time high. While the rich have grown richer by manifold, the poor and the middle class have been left behind not able to reap the benefits of the economic expansion of the past decade. The turmoil in the financial, housing, and manufacturing market has left millions of people unemployed and homeless for the first time since the Great Depression. The entire nation's as well as the rest of the world's economic outlook seems to be grim. Jobless claims remain at recessionary levels, consumers have cut back on their spending by the largest amount since the 2001 terrorist attacks, orders to U.S. factories have plunged anew and home sales have fallen to the lowest level in nearly 18 years.

There are deeper divisions between people of different faiths, ideologies and classes. The environment has been in danger of posing a grave threat to the survival of many species and ultimately affecting the very existence of humanity. Terrorism has become a major threat to the very existence of the entire civilized world. The recent attacks on Mumbai's luxury hotels have the raised alarm bells across the world as to the threats posed by small groups of terrorists, often with the help of States, especially on innocent civilians.

The election of president-elect Barack Obama has given hope to one and all, as he has earned the trust of the people from all walks of life. "I hope that everybody understands that we are going to be able to get through these difficult times but we're just going to have to make some good choices," Obama said. "I was elected with the charge of getting this economy back in shape but also making sure that it's working on behalf of middle-class families."

Obama pledged the day after his historic victory to have an economic plan ready for action on the nation's financial crisis on his first day in office. "Help is on the way," he declared. He also said his Cabinet would "combine experience with fresh thinking" as he builds his new economic team. Obama said his new economic panel will include people from business, labor and academia "who will bring to bear their wisdom and expertise on the formulation, implementation and evaluation of my administration's economic recovery plan."

And true to his promise, Obama chose former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to head President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to help create jobs and bring stability to the ailing financial system.

Volcker, 81, will head the board's top staff official will be Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago
economist.

Obama is expected to restore America's standing, reputation and authority in the world by respecting civil liberties, ending torture, restoring habeas corpus, making the U.S. electoral processes fair and transparent and fighting corruption at home.

In appointing experienced and forward thinking individuals to key jobs, Obama has chosen pragmatism and the wellbeing of the country before his personal gains and appeasing groups within his own party. Focusing on the international scene and national security, Obama has named Hillary Rodham Clinton as his secretary of state.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is to remain at the Pentagon for a year at least, giving some counter perspective to the new administration.

James Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander is Obama's pick to be national security adviser. The veteran leader Tom Daschle is his pick for Health, which needs a major overhaul. His former opponent, Bill Richardson will be in-charge of Commerce.

Worldwide, an estimated 100 million children are not attending school, according to Human Rights Watch. Barack Obama has plans to invest part of increased U.S. assistance to establishing a $2 billion Global Education Fund that spurs the world to join together to eliminate the global education deficit.

Nearly 6 million people in South Asia are living with HIV/AIDS. India has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Barack Obama has been a global leader in the fight against AIDS. He traveled to Kenya and took a public HIV test to encourage testing and reduce the stigma of the disease. Obama believes that a comprehensive, long-term approach to combating HIV/AIDS is an important investment in our common security and humanity. He has pledged to provide at least $50 billion by 2013 for the global fight against HIV/AIDS, including a fair share of the Global Fund, in order to at least double the number of HIVpositive people on treatment and continue to provide treatments to one-third of all those who desperately need them.

Barack Obama has planned to invest in a strong economy for all Americans. He is expected to double federal funding for basic research, expand the deployment of broadband technology and make the research and development tax credit permanent so that businesses can invest in innovation and create high-paying, secure jobs. As president, Obama will make long-term investments in education, language training, and workforce development so that Americans can leverage our strengths – our ingenuity and entrepreneurialism – to create new high-wage jobs and prosper in a global economy.

Many South Asian Americans are successful small business owners who help grow the American economy by providing needed jobs and services throughout the country. Barack Obama will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Barack Obama has promised to restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they deserve. He believes that people who work full time should not live in poverty. Twenty one percent of South Asian Americans lack health insurance coverage. He is committed to signing legislation by the end of his first term in office ensuring that all Americans have highquality, affordable health care coverage.

In large parts of the world, just as in India, Obama administration will be a welcome change after eight years of George Bush, whose efforts to change the world as he found it had some disastrous consequences. Obama will be a breath of fresh air in almost every part of the world. Lots of hope is being generated with his victory, especially for the Indian community in the US and for India as well. However, there is some caution among Indian leaders and diplomats.

As Siddharth Varadarajan wrote, "There is no denying the fact that the Democratic re-conquest of the White House has filled the strategic establishment with a certain sense of foreboding and dread. Some fear the "rehypenation" of India and Pakistan in American foreign policy and renewed activism on the question of Kashmir. Others worry about protectionism and curbs on outsourcing." He went on to add that India has unhappy memories of some of Obama's foreign policy advisers — Anthony Lake, Strobe Talbott, Robert Einhorn and Richard is also contributing to a sense of unease on Raisina Hill.

NRIs in the Historic US Elections: This campaign has always been about uniting our community in a common purpose. South Asian Americans, particularly, the nearly three million Indian American community played a key role in the election of the first ever African American President. As a diverse community that is over 2.7 million strong in the United States, South Asians have a vital stake in the policies that will be put forth by the new Administration and Congress.

Hundreds of thousands of Non Resident Indians (NRIs) in Americans joined in the election process, contributing their time, talent and resources leading to the Obama victory. From across the nation, several groups of NRIs took an active part in the elections. South Asians for Obama (SAFO), one of the many such groups is a grassroots movement that worked hard to mobilize the South Asian American community to help elect Barack Obama as the President of the United States.

"SAFO has spearheaded a movement to rally the South Asian American community behind Obama," Hrishi Karthikeyan of SAFO said. "SAFO's efforts to organize this increasingly politically active constituency not only helped secure Obama's groundbreaking victory but also engaged a new generation of South Asians in the political process." SAFO's organization, which consisted of thousands of activated volunteers located in chapters across the country worked to educate and register voters, raise contributions and engage in get-out-the vote efforts that contributed to unprecedented voter turnout particularly in the key battleground states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, which were critical to Obama's victory. "When we started SAFO, our twin goals were to mobilize the South Asian community to support Barack Obama for President, and to change the nature of our community's participation in the political process," said SAFO co-founder Dave Kumar. "We wanted to get beyond the old model of simply giving candidates money in search of a photo-op and actually build a grassroots network of volunteers nationwide. Aided by Senator Obama's inspirational message and the community's hunger for change, SAFO built the largest and most active grassroots South Asian American political network our community has seen."

"In Senator Obama, we saw an opportunity to change not just the face of our policies but the character of our politics. We thought it was critical for our community to participate actively in effecting such change," noted Hrishi Karthikeyan, SAFO co-founder and National Coordinator. Nicholas Rathod, SAFO co-founder and National Outreach Director, said, "With his now-famous line, 'We are the ones we've been waiting for,' Senator Obama evoked Mahatma Gandhi's message that we must be the change we wish to see in the world. But Senator Obama's campaign hasn't just borrowed Gandhi's message, it has also used the grassroots organizing principles used by Gandhi and others to build a campaign from the bottomup." "This has been a truly amazing journey," added SAFO Media & Communications Director Anhoni Patel. "For the last year or so, hundreds of SAFO organizers have worked tirelessly on Senator Obama's campaign. We have not only forged lasting friendships and contributed to this historic moment, but we hope that the organization that we have built across this country will have a lasting effect on our community and how it engages in the political process for years to come."

Rajinder Singh Bedi, Jatinnder Bedi and Balwinder Singh, front ranking community activists have been ardent supporters of Barack Obama even before he was elected to US Senate. They have been instrumental in mobilizing support from the South Asian community in the midwest. According to Niranjan Shah, a leading Indian American activist and long time observer of political vicissitude, the change in the leadership of American polity could be a beginning of far-reaching changes in the domestic as well as international policies. "President-elect Barack Obama has been a good friend of Indian American community. Ram Emanuel is our good friend and therefore more accessible," Niranjan Shah said. Dr. Bharat Barai feels that the Pres-elect knows the Indian American community very closely and they will have better access to him. "In the midst of a growing welfare society and dwindling economy, without any prospect of economic recovery. I hope Congress will not let this happen in view of their collective wisdom," forewarned Dial Meshri.

Dr. Sudhir Parikh, leading physician and community activist of New York described the victory of Sen. Barack Obama as an epoch making event for all the citizens of the U.S., irrespective of their color, creed and any human differences. "Our country has proved that Americans can achieve what they dream," he asserted.

Anil Shah, an accountant and businessman dealing in the international currencies reflected the popular opinion of the average man or women, holding out the fact that Obama was right in urging to bring about changes in our thinking and actions. Iftekhar Shareef, the first dual citizen and a former president of FIA has been a strong supporter of President elect Barack Obama and has worked actively with other Indian Americans in his election campaign. He said building strategic partnership with India and seeing India as a natural strategic ally of the US should be the top priority of the new president. Mafat Patel said that the prime task that Obama should address is the fastest possible economic recovery. Naren Patel, president of AIA and Care and Share International, said, Obama pitched for CHANGE and now it is up to him to prove that the Change at the Helm is for better.

South Asia is key to America's interests. Barack Obama has long recognized that South Asia is critical to U.S. interests and will ensure that strong U.S. relations in the region are a top foreign policy priority. Barack Obama seeks a strong South Asian region, which in turn will strengthen the U.S. and its international interests. Experts suggest that the South Asian region can be a key future trade and economic partner with the United States, which will be mutually beneficial. Prime Minister Manmohan has invited Barrack Obama to India, ensuring the warmest welcome all around. A team of representatives from Indo-American community would very soon approach Obama and Joe Biden requesting them to visit India.

Indian Americans on Obama Transition Team: Several Indian Americans have been appointed to the Obama-Biden transition team, including a possible contender for the post of Patent and Trademark Office director. Preeta Bansal, Sonal Shah, Anjan Mukherjee, Nicholas Rathod, Parag Mehta and Anita Rai are among those who have been appointed to the Obama-Biden Transition Team. The Indian-American community overwhelmingly supported Obama in the November 4 elections and are said to have voted for him by more than a two to one margin.

Nicholas Rathod, 33, has been appointed director of Inter-Governmental Affairs on the Obama transition team. Rathod was earlier appointed to serve as Strataumanis's deputy on the strong recommendation of Preeta Bansal — who was a senior advisor to the Obama campaign and is now among five key advisors charged with overseeing personnel operations to the new administration.

"I am thrilled about the appointment," Rathod said. "It's such an honor and I am humbled that of all of the people Presidentelect Obama's team went with, I was chosen for this position, I believe strongly in his vision of America and so the prospect of being able to shape and carry out his vision is extremely humbling and personal to me." Rathod is the national outreach director of South Asians for Obama and one of its founding members. He also co-founded South Asian Americans Leading Together. The civil rights attorney previously served as deputy director and federal counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of the New York governor and worked briefly with transition team chair John Podesta at the Center for American Progress.

Recalling his past, he said, "I think about how just one generation ago, my family was living in dirt huts in Gujarat. They didn't have much of any education and opportunities and now, only a generation later, I am serving in a senior level for the transition of a President of the United States. Only in this country is that story even remotely possible, which is why I will work diligently to assure that I serve my country to the best of my abilities," he added.

Rathod said his responsibilities "will include, working with governors and mayors to make sure they are part of the transition process. We will be engaging both governors and mayors and talking to them about the issues that are most important to them in the near and long term and how we can work with them moving forward."

Rathod was quoted to have said, "I want to make sure that we build a strong federal state and local partnership at the outset in a way that honors state and local autonomy, while also respecting the role of the federal government. Rebuilding this relationship will only serve to provide a smart, strong and efficient government at all levels moving forward," he said.

Parag Mehta, 31, has been named the deputy director of inter-governmental affairs and public liaison of the Obama-Biden transition team, charged with outreach to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other minority groups. Mehta resigned from his job as director, external communications for the Democratic National Committee, a post to which he was appointed four months ago. It was the highest-ranking staff position held by an Indian American in the party apparatus. Earlier, he was director of training for the DNC.

The Worcester, Massachusetts-born Mehta told the media that he was 'absolutely thrilled and excited' to join the Obama-Biden transition team, which could be a springboard to a position in the Obama administration. He said that besides outreaching to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, his mandate would also include reaching out "to lesbians, gays and bi-sexuals and also a couple of issue areas. So, I will be reaching out to these groups too besides Asian Pacific Americans." But Mehta explained that "the office is not just for minority groups. The office also includes small businesses, doctors, lawyers, rural farmers-so it's a pretty large portfolio." Mehta, a passionate and avowed Democrat, said, "My family is in this country because of the Democratic Party — from Robert Kennedy to Barack Obama, it is the Democrats who stand up for the values of fairness, fiscal responsibility and an approach to foreign policy that tries to lead by our principles, rather than rule by chest-thumping." On the involvement of Indian Americans, particularly the second generation, he said, "It's amazing to see how many Indian Americans are working in campaigns. We used to get together in small groups after work to commiserate about being brown kids in politics. Now there are so many of us that we have to pull tables together in the Congressional cafeteria just to fit everyone who shows up."

Mehta, who was raised in Temple, Texas, received his bachelor of arts from the University of Texas at Austin and Master of Public Administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. His father, Dr Vijay AMehta, is a general surgeon who hails from Jamnagar in Gujarat and his mother, Dr Vinoo V Mehta, is a psychiatrist was raised in Mumbai.

Anjan Mukherjee, a managing director at the private equity firm Blackstone, has been appointed one of several leads on the economics and international trade agency review team. He is also a director of Steifel Laboratories, one of his firm's investments. Mukherjee also campaigned with Asian Americans for Obama.

Mukherjee has been involved in the execution of a number of investments in a wide range of industries. He has received a BA from Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude as a Harry S Truman Scholar and an MBA from Harvard Business school. Before joining Blackstone, he worked with Thomas H. Lee Company and Morgan Stanley & Co. He has also worked at the Department of Education (in the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education) as well as the Brookings Institution.

Arti Rai, a professor of patent law at Duke University, has been appointed as a member of the agency review team on science, technology, space, arts and humanities. The agency review teams for the Obama- Biden transition are charged with completing a thorough review of various departments, agencies and commissions in the U.S. government to craft policy, budgetary and personnel decisions prior to the Jan. 20, 2009 inauguration date Rai, a classmate of Obama at Harvard Law School, joined the Duke Law Faculty in 2003. She is an expert in patent law, law and the biopharmaceutical industry, and health care regulation. Congress Daily has named Rai as one of several picks for the post of Patent and Trademark Office director. And, according to reports, Rachana Bhowmik, Subhasri Ramanathan, Natasha Bilimoria and Puneet Talwar will all serve as members of the state, national security, defense, intelligence and arms control agency review team.

Bhowmik was part of Sen. Obama's legislative counsel, handling civil rights, civil liberties and national security issues such as intelligence, homeland security and veterans' issues for the senator, who was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prior to joining Obama's staff, Bhowmik served for three years as Judiciary and Education counsel for Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. The University of Virginia law school graduate was previously a staff attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, D.C. Ramanathan was a senior analyst with the Government Accountability Office's Homeland Security and Justice team. Prior to joining the GAO, she was Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director to the Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security, specializing in border security, visa and immigration policy issues. The Rutgers law school graduate served as senior policy advisor and counsel to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D.- Calif.

Bilimoria is the executive director of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, a non-profit organization aiming to engage Americans in the 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 the U.S. Department of Treasury. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago and has a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Talwar is a senior staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and previously served on the State Department's policy planning staff.

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SONAL SHAH'S APPOINTMENT TO OBAMA TEAM EVOKES PROTESTS

While the fast growing Indian American community took pride in the appointment of Sonal Shah as a leader of US President-elect Barack Obama's key policy working group, thousands of secular Indian groups in the U.S have protested about her alleged links with radical Hindu groups.

In naming Shah to head a policy group, the President-elect has seemingly not heeded to the Leftist activists in the U.S who loudly protested her inclusion in the Obama transition team, ostensibly because of her family's connections in India to the RSS and the VHP. Shah is one of nine leaders who heads seven Policy Working Groups tasked with ''developing priority policy proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for action during the Obama-Biden Administration,'' the transition team announced. Shah will cochair the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform panel along with Julius Genachowski and Blair Levin.

Other panels, all of which will be headed by a single person, are as follows: Economic: Daniel K. Tarullo, Education: Linda Darling- Hammond, Energy and Environment: Carol M. Browner, Health Care: Senator Tom Daschle, Immigration: T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar National Security: James B. Steinberg, Dr. Susan E. Rice.
Indian Christian Forum (ICF) an umbrella organization for Indian American Christians in US that promotes human rights and religious freedom in India expressed its grave concern to President-elect Obama on the appointment of Sonal Shah as a member of his transition team.

According to Thomas T. Oommen, President of ICF "While Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) also known as World Hindu Council is currently engaged in killing innocent people and ethnically cleansing Christians from Khandamal District in Orissa, India, it is quite ironic that one of their own past National Coordinators is assuming an important role in the new administration which promised a new emphasis on Human Rights referring to Shah's appointment to the transition team.

Shah responded with a statement that her ''personal politics have nothing in common with the views espoused by VHP, RSS, or any such organization,'' and she has always ''condemned any politics of division, of ethnic or religious hatred, of violence and intimidation as a political tool.''

Shah, who was named the 'Person of the Year 2003' by 'India Abroad' publication, currently works for Google.org on their Global Development team, where she is engaged in defining their global development strategy and promoting the firm's philanthropy work. Prior to joining Google, she was Vice President at Goldman, Sachs and Co. and developed and implemented its environmental strategy. She has also served as the Associate Director for Economic and National Security Policy at the Centre for American Progress, where she worked on trade, outsourcing and post-conflict reconstruction issues.

In the past, she also worked with the Department of Treasury on various economic issues and regions of the world. Shah is the co-founder of the US-based non-profit organization Indicorps, which offers one-year fellowships for Indian-origin Americans to work on specific development projects in India. Her father moved from Gujarat to New York in 1970 and she along with her sister and mother joined him in 1972.

BY AJAY GHOSH