Doing business in India was "tough": Mike Pompeo on his Bengaluru days
Pompeo will travel to India between June 24-30
Washington, Jun 13: Ahead of his visit to India, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has revealed that he had a "tough" time as a businessman in Chennai and Bengaluru while trying to sell machine parts for the aerospace industry in the country.
Pompeo said this during his address to a Washington audience that included Google's Indian-American CEO Sundar Pichai and top corporate executives from India and the US at the India Ideas Summit on Wednesday.
Pompeo will travel to India, Sri Lanka, Japan and South Korea from June 24 to 30.
Responding to a question, Pompeo said that as a businessman, before he ran for the Congress, he had spent some time in Chennai and Bangalore trying to sell products to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), India's leading public sector aerospace and defence company.
"I didn't tell the story I did business in India when I before I lost my mind and ran for Congress, I ran a small business that made machine parts for the aerospace industry.
"And I spent a fair amount of time in Bangalore and in Chennai working with HAL with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to sell products we a small joint venture," the 55-year-old Secretary of State said at the event hosted by the US-India Business Council
"I'll tell you what. It was tough," Pompeo told the audience.
Prior to joining the Trump Administration, Pompeo was serving in his fourth term as congressman from Kansas' 4th District.
Prior to his service in Congress, Pompeo founded Thayer Aerospace, where he served as CEO for more than a decade. He later became President of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment manufacturing, distribution, and service company, according to his profile on the website of the US Department of State.
"India was still opening up, it was still figuring its way through, but there was a real value proposition there, and we did well," he said recollecting his experience in India as a businessman.
"When I think about that, when I think about what businesses need when they go to invest in each other's countries, they need stability, they need a set of rules that they can understand, they need to make sure that the efforts that we put forward together from the United States have sufficient bipartisanship, that they won't be whipsawed, as we have elections here," he said.
Though Indo-US relation was moving ahead well, differences remain in some of the key trade and business issues, he acknowledged.
"But we remain open to dialogue and hope our Indian friends will drop their trade barriers and trust in the competitiveness of their exporters and private-sector companies," he said.
Pompeo said the US will also push for the free flow of data across borders not just to help American companies but to protect data and ensure consumer privacy.
The Reserve Bank of India last year issued a new regulation requiring payments companies to store all information about transactions involving Indians solely on computers in the country. The US has criticised the move.
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BESCOM to organise EV expo for Secretariat employees in Jan 2025
Bengaluru (PTI): To encourage the adoption of electric vehicles (EV), Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) announced on Friday that a special EV fair will be organised for the Secretariat employees in January 2025.
During a meeting at the BESCOM office, Managing Director Mahantesh Bilagi said, "The fair is being organised following a directive of Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh and will be conducted under the supervision of Energy Minister K J George and Additional Chief Secretary of the Energy Department Gaurav Gupta."
According to him, the event aims to educate attendees about the benefits of environmentally friendly EVs and to encourage the adoption of two-wheeled EVs.
"During the fair, dealer discounts to government employees, particularly those in the Secretariat will also be offered. There will also be opportunities for practical demonstrations of the vehicles at the exhibition site," added Bilagi.
He said the Secretariat employees will also benefit from no down payment and low-interest loans to purchase the EV vehicles.
"EV companies are eager to participate and the sales will extend beyond the exhibition, continuing in the future," the Managing Director said.
The state, particularly Bengaluru, has the highest electric vehicle (EV) users, said Bilagi, adding that to support this, the Energy Department has provided essential infrastructure.
"BESCOM's efforts in promoting EV usage have been recognised with the 'Charge India 2024 Excellence' award. This award is a testament to our commitment to establishing excellent charging facilities. Karnataka has the country's most public electric vehicle charging stations, with a total of 5,765 stations, of which 4,462 are located in the Bengaluru Urban district," said Bilagi.
The Secretariat Employees' Association president Ramesh Sanga and other office-bearers, BESCOM Technical Director H J Ramesh as well as senior officials attended the meeting.
