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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BJP chief Vijayendra targets Siddaramaiah govt on law and order situation in Karnataka
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka BJP president B Y Vijayendra on Saturday targeted the Congress government in the state alleging the collapse of the law and order situation and raised concerns about the safety of women, while urging the Siddaramaiah-led administration to "wake up" and take immediate measures in this regard.
He also reiterated the party's demand that the state government hand over the probe relating to cases of sexual abuse of women against Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna to the CBI.
"From the time Congress came to power in the state, the law and order situation has completely deteriorated. Murders and extortions are taking place everywhere. There is rise in rape and love jihad cases. There are questions about women's security," Vijayendra said.
While speaking to reporters here, he said, the deteriorating law and order situation is bringing disrepute to the state.
"There is a sense as though there is no government here and the police system is not functioning. As the government is not taking stringent measures, murders are on a rise in Karnataka. So we have held a protest across the state.
"It is already late now, we urge that the government should wake up at least now and discharge its duty of maintaining law and order, and take measures to give protection to women," he added.
Protests were held by the mahila morcha (women's wing) of BJP across the state today and memorandums were submitted to Deputy Commissioners in all districts. In Bengaluru a delegation led by senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda submitted a memorandum to Director General of Police (DGP) Alok Mohan.
The BJP's stand is very clear regarding cases involving Prajwal Revanna and charges of sexual abuse of women against him, Vijayendra, in response to a question, said and added that the state government has to take the issue seriously and handover the probe to the CBI.
"Every day new things are coming forward in this case. So I demand that without any delay the Hassan's Prajwal Revanna cases should be given to the CBI probe. Why is the government hesitant? Names of several senior leaders are also being heard in connection with the cases, and leak of alleged explicit videos. There cannot be fair probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT)," he said.
The BJP is not supporting anyone in connection with these cases and only wants justice for women victims, Vijayendra said, adding that "Instead of using the cases politically, government should immediately hand over them to the CBI aimed at providing justice for women victims...there is no question of any party here, it (alleged sexual abuse) was a henious crime, whoever is guilty, however big they are, they should be punished."
The state BJP chief was responding to party leader and advocate G Devaraje Gowda, who is in custody after being arrested in a sexual abuse case and is also facing charges of video leak, on Friday alleged that Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and four other ministers are behind the circulation of pen drives containing explicit videos involving Prajwal Revanna, and that he was being fixed in false cases as he did not agree to be part of their plan.
Gowda has even alleged that he was offered Rs 100 crore by Shivakumar to "bring a bad name" to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and to tarnish the image of JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy in Prajwal Revanna's obscene video case.
