Coming from a culture of pagdis, patialas, kurthis and alu paratas, Punjabis are one of a kind in India, with their straightforward yet clean hearted nature that gives them a certain recognition and acceptance wherever they go. Take a look at six notable people from this state who have made their mark in America.
Singh Chatwal
Coming from a culture of pagdis, patialas, kurthis and alu paratas, Punjabis are one of a kind in India, with their straightforward yet clean hearted nature that gives them a certain recognition and acceptance wherever they go. Take a look at six notable people from this state who have made their mark in America.
Chatwal is a famous hotelier and businessman, who is the owner of the Bombay Palace chain of restaurants and $750 million hotel chain Hampshire Hotels & Resorts. Even though he has been a resident of America for more than 25 years, he says that ‘my tastes remain the same and I feel strongly rooted to my land of birth’.
Kanwal Rekhi
Kanwal is a managing partner of Inventus Capital Partners, a venture firm investing in technology-powered companies. He has been associated with more than 50 start-ups in the Silicon Valley, including prominent ones such as Exodus Communications, Versata and Instantis.
Rekhi has completed Electrical Engineering from IIT, Bombay and masters from Michigan Technological University. In the year 1997, Rekhi was honored with a Doctorate in Business and Engineering from Michigan Tech.
He is one of the most renowned Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
Bobby Jindal
Bobby Jindal is the current Governor of Louisiana who is the first Indian American to hold the position of a Governor in the United States . This Republican politician was elected to the post of Governor In the year 2007 and later on in 2011 he was re-elected to serve the same position.
Born to immigrant parents from Punjab, Jindal has come a long way, leading a life of hard work and determination to achieve the present stature he is enjoying now.
According to Jindal, ‘’to succeed, we have to be the party of change, we have to root out corruption in our own ranks and we have to be the party of solutions.’
In 1988, Jindal graduated from Baton Rouge Magnet High School and he also received M.Litt. Degree in political science from the University of Oxford, with an emphasis in health policy.
Preet Bharara
Preet Bharara is the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York who was nominated to the post by Barack Obama in the year 2009.This Punjab born Indian-American Lawyer even made it to the cover of Times magazine with a story about his movement against corruption and irregularities in Wall Street Magazine, getting recognized as the first Indian American to appear on the cover page of this prestigious magazine.
Bharara is responsible for a major attack on the illicit insider trading at Wall Street and he also manages hundreds of cases, both civil and criminal which involves international terrorism, fiscal fraud, corruption, insider trading, gang violence etc.
Bharara, who was born in 1968 in Firozpur to a Sikh father and Hindu mother, grew up in Monmouth Country of New Jersey. He completed his graduation in the year 1990, from Harvard University.
Ajay Banga
Ajay Banga is the President and CEO of MasterCard, a multinational financial services corporation headquartered in New York.
Banga is in charge of key business operations of the company, which mainly includes the customer relationships internationally in U.S. as well as global markets, products, services, marketing, technology and operations.
Prior to joining MasterCard two years back, Banga was lucky enough to be a part of some of the well-established companies such as Nestle, PepsiCo and Citibank.
Banga was honoured with ‘The Light of India Awards’ in the year 2011 for the category ‘Corporate Leadership’. Moreover, he was named as the fourth “Most Powerful Indian” in the world by The Economic Times of India. He has served on various boards such as Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., the National Urban League and the New York Hall of Science, and he was also the director of the Council for Economic Education.
Banga, born to a Sikh family from Pune graduated in economics from St.Stephen’s College, Delhi University and also attended the Indian Institute of Management based in Ahmadabad.
Nimrata Kaur Randhawa Haley, more popular as Nikki Haley is a prominent politician, who holds the post of the Governor of South Carolina. She is the first woman to hold this prestigious position and the second Indian origin Governor in South Carolina. She represented Lexington County in the South Carolina House of Representatives for four years, from 2005 to 2010
Haley has also been honored with many prestigious awards which include the Palmetto Leadership Award and India Abroad Person of the Year 2010. She was a prestigious member among the Board of Directors of Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce and Lexington Chamber of Commerce. She served as the treasurer and later on as the president of National Association of Women Business Owners.
Born to Sikh immigrants from Amritsar, Haley completed her graduation from Orangeburg Preparatory Schools and B.S. in accounting from Clemson University. She joined her mother’s business Exotica International, a clothing firm, after the completion of degree.
source:::::silicon india net….
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