Indian American official in Trump's entourage strikes an emotional note
Washington: Around five decades after his parents landed in the US, Indian American Ajit Pai is travelling to India on board the Air Force One along with President Donald Trump.
Pai (47), who is the first ever Indian American Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, wonders how his parents would have reacted years ago had they been told that their son would one day accompany the US president to India.
He is among the two Indian Americans travelling to India along with Trump, the other being Kesh Patel, special assistant to the president and senior director for counter-terrorism.
"If I could go back in time to 1971, just after my parents' weddings, I wonder what those two young adults would say if you told them that just one generation later their son would be representing the top levels of the United States government visiting the country in which they had grown up,"said Pai.
"I have a feeling that they would say what they often do now and a belief I carry in my bones, only in America," Pai said in a video posted on Twitter. Pai said during his India trip, they we will be discussing issues of mutual interest like 5G and bridging the digital divide.
"We will aim to deepen the friendship between the worlds oldest democracy and its largest," he added.
Looking forward to this trip not just professionally but personally, Pai said his mother grew up in Bengaluru while his father was raised in Hyderabad.
Shortly after their wedding in 1971, they came to America with just USD 8, a transistor radio and the "faith that the American dream would be within reach", he said.
"Like so many immigrants, they sacrificed to give me opportunities they did not have. And it was my grandparents who instilled in us the value of hard work and the vision to dream big," he said.
"As the first Indian American to serve as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, I feel a responsibility to them and other immigrants like them to be worthy of their sacrifices," Pai said.
In another tweet, that he had posted in 2019, Pai shared the passport of his maternal grandfather which was issued in 1937 to work as a clerk in Bahrain, where his mother was born in 1945.
Almost fifty years after my parents came to the U.S. from India, I’m looking forward to traveling to India along with @POTUS and other U.S. government officials, and participating in bilateral meetings aimed at deepening the friendship between our two nations! ???? pic.twitter.com/QTtSYY210k
— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) February 23, 2020
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Three booked as crackers burst during election campaign trigger fire in Mumbai
Mumbai (PTI): A case has been registered against three Shiv Sena (UBT) workers for allegedly violating campaign conditions after they burst firecrackers at an election rally, sparking a fire in Mumbai, officials said on Sunday.
The incident occurred on Saturday evening near the Govardhan building in central Mumbai’s N M Joshi Marg area, they said.
Sena (UBT) leader and former mayor Kishor Pednekar, who is contesting from ward no. 1999, was taking out a rally at the time. Sena (UBT) worker Ramchandra Yesode had organised the rally, and it had been granted police permission with certain conditions.
As Pednekar began visiting houses as part of the campaign for the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls, some of her supporters burst firecrackers on the road despite objections from policemen deployed for the rally, an official said.
The firecrackers exploded in all directions, triggering a fire in a room on the fifth floor of Irani Chawl and in three other houses, he said.
Police later identified Soham Sarwankar (21) and Omsai Pansare (20) as those who burst the firecrackers.
A case was then registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Maharashtra Police Act against organiser Yesode, Sarwankar and Pansare at the N M Joshi Marg police station, he said, adding that further probe is underway.
