“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. This idiom seems to be a passe. Do in America as you do in India – is the new idiom set by the extravagant Indian wedding in New York that took over the Wall Street and broke the internet over the last few days of May. Over 400 wedding guests (baraatis) turned the financial district into an open-air dance floor with a DJ churning out foot-tapping music and making them groove to electrifying beats. There was everything common to a well-off Indian wedding, designer lehengas to boundless energy.

PC: Instagram.com/trueeventslive

The viral videos of the Indian baraat on Wall Street sent global netizens into a tizzy googling whether the couple is billionaire, how they managed to shut down the busy Wall Street for their pre-wedding revelry. It was a lavish multi-day Gujarati wedding in Manhattan. Not an Ambani or Adani one though there are billionaires in the Gujarati community worldwide. The Indian couple whose jubilant wedding procession on Wall Street became a viral spectacle online is identified as high-profile professionals from Boston.

The groom who arrived in a white vintage car during his baraat on Wall Street was Varun Navani, the founder and CEO of Rolai, an enterprise AI solution for businesses. His family hails from Gujarat. He was featured on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2023. The bride was Amanda Soll, the director of legal compliance and risk management at MasterCard in Boston.

As they chose to solemnize their wedding in the Big Apple, some of their guests took business class flights to New York from Delhi, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad. CEO Varun Navani’s Indian wedding festivities covered multiple locations in New York City, from Conrad Hotel to The Glasshouse and Cipriani Wall Street. Both in America and India, the traditional baraat on Wall Street amused some, while some found it an unnecessary hurley burley in the public space.

The couple not only broke the internet but also their bank to take over New York’s Wall Street for a half day. As reported by several media, including New York Post, they officially filed 28 permits with the Mayor office to shut down the public areas in the financial district – which cost them between $25,000 and $66,000 per area. Some netizens despised the event as a mere display of wealth by super rich Indians, while others resonated with the celebration of traditional culture away from India.

Indians, especially Gujaratis and Marwaris can go the extra mile to make weddings an unforgettable bash full of fashion, food, culture, pride, and celebration. This reminds us of the first big fat Indian wedding hosted by Air India in the sky. What’s not available in the US these days! Nearly everything from homemade Indian snacks to Sabyasachi lehengas,” said Sourav Agarwal, Senior Editor of Travel Beats, a leading community portal for Indians in North America

The post Meet CEO Varun Navani whose Baraat with 400 Guests Rocked Wall Street as a Dance Floor in New York appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

Four decades after Rakesh Sharma’s historic 1984 spaceflight, India is all set to make a grand comeback to human spaceflight with Captain Shubhanshu Shukla as a pilot of Axiom Space’s Ax-4 Mission scheduled on May 29, 2025. The Ax-4 Mission, as long as 14 to 21 days, aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is a collaboration between Axiom Space, NASA, and ISRO. Making the human spaceflight mission a lot more special for India’s future is not only Shubhanshu Shukla from the Indian Air Force, but also Indian American Tejpaul Bhatia, the newly appointed CEO of Axiom Space.

Axiom Space, headquartered in Houston, specializes in building and operating a commercial space station for human spaceflights as a leading space infrastructure developer. Most recently, Axiom Space passed the ‘CEO’ baton to Indian-origin Tejpaul Bhatia, who joined the company as Chief Revenue Officer in 2021. His appointment as CEO of Axiom Space with a valuation of US$2 billion came at a pivotal moment, as both ISRO and NASA teamed with Axiom to send four astronauts to the International Space Mission, including Shubhanshu Shukla.

In a statement, Bhatia expressed his long-standing passion for space exploration: “I’ve been inspired by space exploration since childhood, and leading Axiom Space at this critical inflection point in human spaceflight is the realization of a lifelong ambition.” With Bhatia at the helm, Axiom Space is aiming even higher. The company’s big goal is to build Axiom Station, the world’s first fully commercial human space station, and to attach its first module to the ISS by 2027.

Born to Indian immigrant parents in New York, Tejpaul Bhatia, as Axiom Space CEO, entered the elite C-suite of America where he shares space with other Indian American CEOs of major conglomerates, like Neal Mohan at YouTube, Sridhar Ramaswamy at Snowflake, and Ravi Kumar Singisetti at Cognizant, other than Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Arvind Krishnan, and Santanu Narayen. Bhatia holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Columbia University.

Since he joined Axiom Inc. from Google in 2021, he has been the instrumental in securing revenue-generating deals and contracts worth over one billion dollars in total. With his 25 years of experience, business acumen, and technology leadership, he headed four revolutionary human spaceflight missions that put Axiom Space a notch higher above other private players in commercial space ventures, while transforming commercial spaceflight into a scalable business.

Before his ‘American Dream’ career skyrocketed as CEO of Axiom Space, he played a key role in leading strategic narrative for Google Cloud to startup founders, venture capital firms, and Fortune 100 corporations. He drove Google’s narrative on the future of work through direct CXO engagements and thought leadership across industries, according to his LinkedIn profile. In May 2018, he had joined Google as the startup ecosystem manager in New York City and worked with the startup community as an ambassador of Google Cloud.

Under Bhatia’s leadership, Axiom Space is strengthening international partnerships and bridging commercial innovation with national space agencies like ISRO and NASA. His role in the Ax-4 mission underscores Indian Diaspora’s growing contributions to global science and technology. Like many Indian-Americans, Bhatia embodies this rising influence, joining the ranks of Indian-origin leaders who are helping to shape America’s future.

Other than climbing the totem pole through his professional milestones in American corporate, Axiom Space CEO Tejpaul Bhatia actively contributes to non-profit organizations, like serving in voluntary leadership roles at the Make-A-Wish Foundation. His journey from an immigrant family to the CEO of a pioneering human spaceflight company is an inspiration, embodying the possibilities that arise from perseverance and vision.

The post Indian American Tejpaul Bhatia is New CEO of Axiom Space that is Set to Mark India’s Return to Human Spaceflight appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

A national security risk or a bold bet on young recruits? A giant leap in the pursuit of American Dream or the beginning of the end of a bright career? The US media is rife with this debate on 21-year-old Indian American Akash Bobba, one of the newly hired engineers in the 19-23 age group for key roles in Elon Musk’s DOGE, a federal agency. He is possibly the youngest Indian-origin recruit in the Trump administration 2025.

Who is Akash Bobba in the Department of Government Efficiency that Tesla chief Elon Musk formed with President Trump’s executive order on 20 January? It is one of the trending social media topics and popular Google searches this week. He is a UC Berkley graduate with impressive credentials in coding, analytics, and artificial intelligence. One of the six recruits, the youngest being a 19-year-old, whom Elon Musk handpicked for his ambitious experimentation at DOGE. Akash interned at Silicon Valley giants, Palantir, and wrote AI models for Meta.

What made Elon Musk hire Akash Bobba is that the latter is a future-ready tech leader with a proven track record of solving business-critical problems under pressure and in a very short time. He also excelled at the prestigious Management Entrepreneurship Technology (MET) program at UC Berkeley and gained first-hand knowledge of financial modelling techniques at the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. His mental agility, boundless enthusiasm, zest for learning, adaptability, and passion for everything tech make a collective drive for Elon Musk’s DOGE – a cost cutter for the US government’s federal spending.

Scheduled to end in July 2026, Elon Musk-led DOGE project’s objective is to “modernize federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” It aligns with Trump’s election campaign promises to curtail federal overheads, reduce the government’s fiscal deficit, and ensure proper utilization of the federal budget. Musk, the world’s richest billionaire, has proposed that his DOGE project and team may make the federal budget shrink by up to $2 trillion through rigorous measures, including but not limited to, trimming the workforce, shutting down redundant agencies, and consolidating federal agencies from 400 to fewer than 100.

What caused the uproar among Americans over Musk’s appointment of Akash Bobba and other young engineers to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)? It is their high-level security clearance to access classified data of federal budget and taxation, as well as the government IT system, despite having no prior experience in any public service domain. A group of Trump’s supporters call it a potential threat to the national security citing that unprecedented access to restricted government systems is usually granted to experienced federal officials with clean records, not fresh college graduates.

Critics of the Trump 2.0 administration describe the bold government system overhaul by Elon Musk-led DOGE team as a ‘high-stake gamble.’ However, Akash Bobba’s meteoric rise from coding internships to a key federal agency in the new US government is grabbing the headlines. Alongside the news of Akash Bobba in DOGE, an anecdote about his remarkable coding skills is making rounds on social media. Charis Zhang, one of his former classmates, shares the anecdote,

“During a project at Berkeley, I accidentally deleted our entire codebase. I panicked. Akash just stared the screen, shrugged, and rewrote everything from scratch in one night – better than before. We submitted early and got first in the class.”

The post Who is Akash Bobba in Elon Musk’s DOGE? A Young Indian American Takes a Big Leap from Coding to US Government appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

The Padma Awards 2025, India’s highest civilian honors, are about to recognize remarkable individuals who have made lasting impacts across diverse fields. Among this year’s honorees are four trailblazers from the USA — Nitin Nohria, Ajay Bhatt, Vinod Dham, and Sethuraman Panchanathan — whose extraordinary contributions to technology, education, and innovation are impacting a global audience. In this article, we dive into the stories of these distinguished leaders and their journey to receiving India’s prestigious Padma Awards.

Prof. Nitin Nohria, highest-paid Dean of HBS

Indian American Nitin Nohria, the first foreign-born dean of Harvard Business School, is among the four Indian-origin achievers on the list of Padma Awards 2025. Born into a business family in Rajasthan, he made it big in business studies. He is a distinguished alumnus of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, with a PhD in management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He has 16 titles to his credit, like “Management: An Integrated Approach”, “The Handbook of Teaching Leadership”, and “Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices.” He co-authored some of the books with his colleagues and contemporaries.

A devout advocate of ethical business leadership, Padma Shri Nitin Nohria, who lives in Lexington near Boston, believes that business is a sacred activity and that business leaders should honor their ethical responsibilities just as good doctors conduct themselves by the Hippocratic oath. Sustainable economy and corporate accountability are among the subjects of his interest. A close friend of India’s richest business tycoon Mukesh Ambani, Nitin Nohria made the headlines in 2019 as the highest-paid dean of HBS, earning $904,506 in salary and benefits.

Ajay V Bhatt, the inventor of USB

Indian American Ajay V Bhatt, who is widely famed as the inventor of USB, will receive the Padma Shri honor, among the Padma awardees in 2025. The decision to do a master’s degree from the City College of New York was his call to pursue the great American Dream. His career at Intel spanning 26 years starting in 1990 made America his home away from home. Today, he is a celebrated technologist and thought leader in the US Silicon Valley with as many as 132 international patents.

Born in Vadodara, Gujarat, Padma Shri Ajay V Bhatt was featured in the 2010 issue of GQ India, as one of “The 50 Most Influential Global Indians.” The Light of India Award in 2012, the European Inventor Award in 2013, and the Asian Award are among the recognitions he has earned as a computer architect. Currently, he resides in Portland, Oregon.

Vinod Dham, the Father of Pentium Chip

The list of India’s Padma Awards 2025 includes Indian American Vinod Dham, the ‘Father of the Pentium Chip’ in the land of American Dream. With a BE degree in electrical engineering from India, Vinod Dham travelled to the USA for an MS degree, with only $8 in his pocket, and became one of the immigrant technology pioneers in the US Silicon Valley. His pivotal role in developing Pentium Micro-Processor and co-inventing Intel’s first Flash Memory technology catapulted him to dizzying ‘leadership’ heights at Intel.

Like Dr Amarjit Singh Marwah, a pioneer of American Dream for Indian families in the 1950s; Vinod Dham’s parents with four children had migrated to India from Rawalpindi after the 1947 Partition. He calls himself an accidental engineer as engineering happened to him by chance; physics was his first choice. He was hesitant to leave his mother and siblings alone in India for higher studies in USA after his father died. “You must go. America is your destiny. I will manage. Don’t worry about me,” Vinod recalled his mother encouraging him back then.

The Government of India named entrepreneur and venture capitalist Vinod Dham for Padma Bhushan 2025.

Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan

Indian American Sethuraman Panchanathan, the Director of the US National Science Foundation, is one of the 113 names for Padma Shri 2025. Born and brought up in Chennai, Dr Panchanathan is an undisputed leader in electrical and computer engineering. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, earned an MTech degree from IIT Madras, and then pursued PhD at the University of Ottawa in 1989. His pursuit of American Dream started at the University of Ottawa where he was promoted to associate professor and went through Arizona State University where he became the chief research officer in 2009.

The post India Announces Padma Awards 2025 and Names 4 Indian Americans as Padma Shri Honorees This Republic Day appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

High-paying job placements are on the decline for MBA graduates of Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, and other top B-schools in America, according to a recent study by The Wall Street Journal. 23% of Harvard Business School’s 2024 MBA batch have remained unemployed for the past 3 months. It provides a contrast to the non-corporate sector with myriad opportunities for purpose-driven leadership that zeroes in on a noble vision and mission, rather than revenues and ROI.

Teach for America, one of the largest nonprofits in the US, has decided to trust Indian American Aneesh Sohoni with its top leadership baton from the departing CEO Elisa Villanueva Beard. Aneesh Sohoni, as the next CEO of Teach for America, is looking to come back home in April 2025. He euphorically looks upon this opportunity as his homecoming as he started his career and the journey to becoming a leading educationist at Teach for America in 2009.

PC: Twin-cities.umn.edu

Teach for America is a nationwide community of changemakers, including “leaders who teach, and teachers who lead” to illuminate your minds from low-income families in US public schools. As CEO of the organization with 35 years of impact on the uneven landscape of American education, Aneesh Sohoni will be heading a network of 70,000 alumni, teachers, tutors, and staff to prepare every child for a bright future, thereby driving the country’s socio-economic growth.

Aneesh whose Indian immigrant parents live in Minneapolis, was in the pool of promising college graduates that Teach for America had recruited in early 2009. Two years of teaching English as a corps member of TFA set his career path forever. “My life changed when I became a corps member. My students in my Twin Cities high school classroom were incredible and their potential was only matched in size by the challenges they faced in an unjust education system. I knew then I needed to make this my life’s work,” Aneesh shared in a LinkedIn post.

His passion for transformative education catapulted him to Tennessee where he worked as the Chief of Staff to Assistant Commissioner for Teachers and Leaders for nearly 3 years. The role of a project director at a New York-based nonprofit that strives to improve America’s education system in high-needs schools was his next venture for two years. His dedication to uplifting communities through education led to him being roped in as Teach for America’s Executive Director for Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana.

After shouldering the responsibilities of a zonal Executive Director for TFA, from 2016 through 2021, Aneesh Sohoni took a leap as CEO of One Million Degrees in Chicago. OMD empowers Greater Chicago’s deserving community college students from low-income families to excel in education, career, and life, so they could become important cogs and wheels in America’s growth engine. As CEO of One Million Degrees, Aneesh collaborated with several bodies of civic importance, like City Colleges of Chicago and Complete College of America, to further drive the impact of OMD in the past 3 years.

In his new role as Teach for America’s CEO, Aneesh Sohoni believes, “the current trajectory of education and learning in our country does not have to define our future,” and says, “I am proud that TFA prioritizes coalition-building with students and communities to achieve a shared vision for a future that is brighter than today.”

The post Who’s Indian American Aneesh Sohoni, New CEO of Teach for America, to Reform Education in Trump 2.0 Era appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

Dr Amarjit Singh Marwah, an Indian American community leader, philanthropist, and scholar, is among the few Indian Americans whom the US honored by renaming major thoroughfares and intersections after them. The City of Los Angeles immortalized Dr. Marwah by naming the intersection of Vermont and Finley Avenues, Marwah Square, in 2019, just 2 years before Berkeley City got a street named after Indian American Kala Bagai in 2021.

A pioneer of American Dream for Indian students in the 1950s, a decade of possibilities and uncertainties for a free India; Dr Marwah took his last breath on January 7, 2025 at the age of 98. His journey from Pakistan to India to the United States after the 1947 Partition became a legacy of achievements, community activism, and unparalleled philanthropy. Air India having started international flights in June 1948, gave a runway to the dreams and aspirations of young Indians amidst the socio-economic volatility across the country. Dr. Marwah was one of them.

PC: Dr. Rajwant Singh | LinkedIn

Not many Indian immigrants in USA know that it was Dr Amarjit Singh Marwah who founded Hollywood Sikh Gurdwara, the first Sikh temple in America, in 1969. Early in the 1950s, he came to the US on a Fulbright Scholarship after 4 years of practice as a dentist in Punjab. He graduated in dentistry from King Edward Medical College in Lahore before his family of physicians shifted to Punjab after the partition. He dared to dream big while the aftereffects of the partition continued to linger.

Turban-clad Amarjit in his 20s was an anomaly in the 1950s’ New York. Owing to his bushy beard and inherent benevolence, he earned the nickname “Young Santa” alongside having secured the Guggenheim Foundation’s Pediatric Dentistry Fellowship in New York. His pursuit of American Dream took an exciting turn with an MS degree in Pathology from the College of Dentistry at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

In 1954, he became not only a Doctor of Dental Surgery at Howard University in Washington DC but also the first Indian to obtain a license to practice dentistry in America. In the same year, he returned to his alma mater, the University of Illinois, as a faculty member, very much in line with what he had grown to be known for – a man of roots.

At the same time, Amarjit was not blind to the underlying social alienation faced by Asians, particularly Indians, in the 1950s USA. He recognized that increasing the community’s representation within the establishment could be of great help. In 1957, he managed the election campaigns for Dalip Singh Saund, the first Sikh and the first Indian American to be elected to the US Congress, thus opening doors for Indians in the American corridor of power.

In 1957, Dr. Marwah was granted U.S. citizenship, the culmination of his American Dream. This was the first brick to the first-ever Indian home that came up in Los Angeles after he relocated to Baldwin Hills, as a professor at the University of Southern California.

Dr. Marwah’s skilful hands in dentistry quickly earned him a prominent place in the field. His fame spread, attracting some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Among his clients were Gregory Peck, Elizabeth Taylor, sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, spiritual teacher Harbhajan Yogi, and champion boxer Muhammed Ali. Singer-actor Barbra Streisand was one of his neighbors at 14-acre Malibu Ranch where he owned a property.

As Dr. Marwah’s influence expanded, he became well-acquainted with influential personalities from different walks of life. He hosted both President Zail Singh and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at his California home. The Marwah family property at Malibu Ranch overlooking the Pacific Ocean served as the wedding venue for the 38^th US President Gerald Ford’s son.

The experience of social depravity brought Dr. Amarjit Singh Marwah close to Tom Bradley, Los Angeles’ first Black mayor. Bradley appointed Dr. Marwah as a City Commissioner, a position he held for 18 years, setting a record for any Indian American. During his tenure, he chaired both the Cultural Heritage Commission and the Hollywood Art Commission, overseeing the protection of nearly 300 historical sites, including the Walk of Fame and Roosevelt Hotel. This was poetic how an immigrant conserved the nativity of a foreign land.

Dr Marwah built a community nest in California and offered warm hospitality to many Indian immigrants there. Additionally, he supported many humanitarian causes in USA and India. He helped establish a Los Angeles High School in Mumbai, with an annual contribution of $10K to support the school. He adopted two villages, Guru Ki Dhab and Guru Nanak Basti, in Punjab. He founded KK Marwah College for Girls (named after his wife, Kuljit Kaur Marwah) in Punjab. He co-founded the Bank of Punjab, a precursor to present-day HDFC Bank.

The post Dr Amarjit Singh Marwah, a Pioneer of American Dream in 1950s, Leaves USA Forever appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

Sometimes, blessings come in disguise. A layoff is not always the end of the world. Rather, it may be an opportunity to start a more fulfilling career, turn a passion into a fruitful venture, and unlock a hidden treasure of fortunes. Indian American Priyanka Naik’s success story started from a mass layoff at Twitter (now X) after Elon Musk took over the company in 2022 and axed half of the workforce in a week of his ownership. Priyanka Naik from New York, an award-winning chef and cookbook writer, was among the total 6000 layoffs at X.com.

Chef Priyanka Naik, who cashed in on her passion for vegan cooking and became her own boss with a six-figure income in US dollars after being laid off, has no regrets for her impressive 12-year career, from Bloomberg to Conde Nast to Twitter, which ended abruptly. She put on a chef’s hat, grabbed a blender, armed herself with a knife, sharpened her olfactory sense, took to vegan cooking, and started culinary blogging. The pink slip from Elon Musk laid her unconventional passage to fame and popularity.

Culinary experimentation is neither her newly found niche nor her new shot at success. When her professional career was peaking up, she won Cooks vs Cons, a cooking competition on Food Network, in 2017. It was her first recognition in the world outside the corporate sector and her first stepping stone to what she is today—a self-taught vegan chef, celebrated cookbook author, TV personality, globetrotter, and food columnist for The Washington Post.

With her roots in Maharashtra and a little down the south, Priyanka is a vegetarian. Food has been one of the few ways for her parents to stay connected to the roots and culture since they immigrated to America. Apparently, it was her mom’s kitchen where her destination was scripted, in childhood. Food gave her not only a second inning in her career, but also a baton to advocate for a plant-based lifestyle through her vegan cooking. She believes, “What we eat impacts not just our health but our planet.”

Just like her signature look, accentuated with a pair of glasses in burgundy color, her vegan recipes and cooking stand out for sustainable measures. Sustainability being her USP, Chef Priyanka educates her social media followers on the importance of the ingredients we choose and use in everyday cooking for environmental health. Whether it is her kitchen, a culinary event, or a live TV show, she sticks to environment-friendly practices, from sourcing local ingredients to using unprocessed food grains and ditching single-use plastic items.

Cultural fusion and experimentation, other than sustainability, are among the hallmarks of her cooking. She is not shy of doing experimentation even with everyday fun snacks like panipuri, a most versatile and adaptable street food in India. Panipuri with a tongue-twisting fusion of the Mexican flair and Indian spices is very representative of who Priyanka Naik is. The filling of panipuri with Mexican elote (grilled corn in mayo cream sauce, garnished with chilli powder, and seasoned with lime) elevates the taste a notch above the traditional taste.

Chef Priyanka Naik’s pledge to further her mission of sustainable vegan cooking across geographies took shape as a cookbook “The Modern Tiffin” early in 2024. The Modern Tiffin that documents her love of Indian vegan cooking and global cuisines seeks to broaden the prevailing view about vegan food and prove that easy-to-cook vegan recipes could make it fun to lead a plant-based lifestyle. One of the recipes in her debut cookbook shows how to make Chicken 65 vegan.

Her commitment to building a global community of vegan lifestyle aspirants and enlightening people on sustainability in the kitchen did no go unnoticed at the White House. “The Modern Tiffin” author, Chef Priyanka Naik was among the guests who were officially invited to attend President Biden’s last Diwali celebration at the White House this year. Her blog and Instagram page have piqued the interest of high-profile public figures, like Kamala Harris and Chrissy Teigen, in a vegan diet.

The post From Layoff to Six-figure Food Business: Indian American Chef Priyanka Naik’s ‘American Dream’ Story appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

Two Indian American research scientists with a PhD degree made it to White House for a prestigious fellowship program (early this month) before the United States named Indian-origin Sirish Subash as the nation’s top young scientist recently. Instituted on the premise – A genuinely free society cannot be a spectator society – in 1964, the White House Fellow program is an opportunity of distinction for highly competent achievers to have first-hand experience of policy-making leadership and gain insights into the process of governing the world’s biggest economy.

Of the 15 meritorious young professionals selected for the White House fellowship this year, Dr. Padmini Pillai and Dr. Nalini Tata will be working under senior federal officials and participating in roundtable discussions with policymakers from public as well as private sectors. The program is designed to give them precise knowledge of how various federal agencies work and what challenges they face. On completion of the program, they may continue to participate in national affairs.

Who is Dr. Padmini Pillai among White House Fellows?

A highly accomplished immunoengineer from Boston, Dr. Pillai is doing the fellowship at the Social Security Administration. She invents effective treatment of life-taking human diseases by bridging the gap between immunology breakthroughs and the development of new biomaterials. With a PhD degree in immunology from Yale University, she reveals that excessive lung inflammation could increase mortality rate from flu infections. Her research is suggestive of a new strategy to boost vulnerable individuals’ disease tolerance to improve their likelihood of survival.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ story of her mother resonates with Padmini Pillai, among the Whitehouse fellows. Her fearless mom, whom writer RK Narayan called “Bright Eyes”, was from Bangalore and earned a NASA fellowship after pursuing her masters in pure math. She was only 17 back then. Her mother was the only woman in the department of Applied Math at Brown University, Rhode Island, in 1963.

“Mom has always been an advocate for the vulnerable. She taught me and my brother about compassion and how to use our privilege as Indian Americans to help others. After being offered jobs at places like NASAJPL in the 70s, she chose to devote her career to inspiring and empowering women to pursue careers in math. Mom is an amazing Carnatic singer. As a proud first generation immigrant, mom worked on political campaigns in the 60s and 70s, and stayed outspoken her whole life. She used to send part of her graduate stipend home to ensure her siblings went to good school,” Padmini shared on Instagram.

Dr Pillai has received a cash award of $2 million in funding for her research on engineering a tumor-selective RNA nanotherapy that would help destroy cancel cells and enhance anti-tumor immunity.

Who is Dr. Nalini Tata among White House Fellows?

Dr Nalini Tata, in the 2024-2025 batch of White House Fellows, is a neurobiology expert from New York City, home to one of the largest Indian immigrant populations. She has been inducted into the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs. An MD from Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a BSc in Neurobiology from Brown University speak volumes about her as an individual of high calibre.

A Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government is also what made her eligible for the White House Fellows program for public service leadership. Dr. Nalini Tata has spearheaded the treatment of elective neurosurgical conditions as a resident doctor at Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Centre and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York. She has co-authored a book on the principles and philosophy of neurosurgical practice before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The post White House Selects Dr Padmini Pillai and Dr Nalini Tata of Indian Origin for a Fellowship in Federal Policymaking appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

‘Humanity is dead.’ We see this note of criticism and disgust spewed on social media by netizens across geographies even in response to the least important incidents of apathy in any part of the world. But, humanity is not dead. Rather, few people make sure to keep it alive in different forms such as compassion, empathy, mercy, benevolence and selflessness. In a recent instance of humanity, Indian American Jay Singh, in the US state of Ohio, took a corrective measure instead of a punitive action for teaching a lesson to a teen thief in his store.

Jay Singh, who owns and runs a 7-Eleven store in Toledo in Ohio, has become an inspiring figure after the locals went gaga over what he did to a teen boy upon discovering the teenager’s act of thieving in his store on the night of April 6.

Picture credit: CBS News

At his 7-Eleven store in Toledo, Jay Singh spotted a boy, who pretended to be a customer, and observed his suspicious behavior for some time. He saw the boy putting some stuff into his pockets, as reported by CBS News. He caught the thieving teenager red-handed and asked an employee to call 911.

When caught, the boy felt unnerved and said that he would put the stolen stuff back. Jay Singh told him to put the things on the counter so that he could see what the boy had stolen. On discovering that the stolen stuff was nothing but food, Jay Singh wondered, “Why was he stealing?”

On being interrogated, the teen boy said that he was hungry, and that he was stealing some food for himself and his younger brother. The moment the 7-Eleven storeowner Jay Singh got to know the reason, he stopped his employee from calling 911.

“You need food? I will give you food. That’s not a problem,” Jay said to the boy out of compassion for him and his brother.

Jay thought for a while that if the boy were handed over to the cops, he would be a thief on the police record forever, and that his life would deteriorate further leaving him without a good job. He realized that punishment would not correct the teen; it would rather perpetuate his misery.

On seeing no point in meting out punishment to the teenager for the thieving act, Jay took a corrective step. He filled a bag with food and gave it to the boy for free.

On being asked by CBS News why he took pity on the boy, Indian American Jay Singh said, “Giving food to the hungry is a fundamental Indian value, and it’s believed that the Almighty will bless you for such acts of kindness.”

This inspiring story is brought to you by Travel Beats, a leading community portal for Indians in America. Travel Beats is a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, the most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians for best flight deals from USA to India. Subscribe to our newsletter for latest updates on Indian immigrants, US-India airlines, transit visa, US visa and immigration.

The post Indian-origin Storeowner Feeds Hungry Thief Rather than Punishing him for Stealing Food appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

In an emerging social media trend, some Indians are bragging about their decisions to choose America over India, whereas some other Indians are proudly announcing their move back to the home country and reasoning why. Their posts are going viral from public platforms to private WhatsApp groups, inviting praise and criticism alike, with netizens at loggerheads over their individual views on living in America vs living in India.

In one of the recent X posts (formerly tweets), Viba Mohan, an O1 visa holder from Bengaluru, wrote, “I have been bouncing between Bengaluru and America. After lots of overthinking (and probably too much coffee), I decided America’s going to be my new home…”.  She listed and elaborated a little the vibrant tech scene, optimistic culture, outdoor safety in the US, along with her O1 visa, among the considerations that influenced her decision and put an end to her dilemma.

Both resident and non-resident Indians on X divided themselves into two groups over Viba Mohan’s X post. One group sided with her, while the other group schooled her. “Choosing America is a rational and low risk decision. Choosing India is an emotional and courageous decision” is one of the remarks that inundated her post. One user countered her, “You did not come here on H1B. Neither you studied here or borrowed a loan, so naturally everything appears green and optimistic.”

Another user went on to comment, “The US is good as long as you have a good job. U need to be extremely good to have your job. Craftsmanship can be experimented. Safety is a concern in USA. Plus, you are always treated as a 2^nd grade citizen. Divorce rate is high. Traffic is still a problem in San Francisco.”

“The recent mass shooting that killed two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Georgia on 5 September raises eyebrows over Viba Mohan’s observation of safety in the US that she described as ‘living somewhere safer doesn’t just make you feel calmer — it makes you more productive too.’ The Apalachee High School shooting is the 30^th mass killing incident in America alone this year, according to USA Today and The Associated Press. If she meant the safety of women’s dignity in the US, then her observation becomes a different debate altogether,” said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats.

In July 2024, Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi took netizens aback with her perception of true quality of life in USA vs India after having spent only 11 days in the land of American Dream. She went uninhibited in her X post about the conveniences of living in India, such as affordable domestic help vs the fundamental necessities for a quality life in USA, like clear air and green spaces.

She opined certain conveniences that make daily life comfortable in India are sheer luxuries, not basic needs in America. Clean air, green pastures, good roads, uninterrupted electricity, and personal freedom, among the benefits of living in USA are far more valuable than material comforts, such as doorstep food delivery, 10-min grocery delivery, and affordable domestic help in India. Her perspective is that one does not need quick grocery delivery in USA where there are good roads to walk to nearby stores without the fear of getting hit by a car or stray animals. It is relatively easy to drive without ‘crazy congestion’ at crossroads in the US.

In her viral X post, Niharikaa listed “freedom to wear what you want to be comfortable instead of men ogling at you” as one of the things that have made her happy in the US, except family time in India.

Simple yet profound pleasures like morning walks in the calm environment, breaths of fresh air, chirping of birds, etc. took center stage in her definition of quality life – which elicited various responses from netizens who enjoy a plenty of such luxuries in rural India. But Niharikaa thwarted their arguments by citing the lack of basic amenities, such as power supply, clean drinking water, and accessible healthcare in rural pockets of India. While she asserted that even semi-urban areas cry for good infrastructure in India, some netizens voiced that no place is a utopia on earth; every place has its pros and cons.

Of late, Nayrith Bhattacharya and Rishita Das – a working couple and IIT graduates – shared their list of 10 observations one year after they moved back to India from America in August 2023. They referred to the list as an honest compilation of 10 differences between life in USA and life in India, with a disclaimer.

Contrary to Niharikaa’s picture of American streets without ‘crazy congestion’, Nayrith Bhattacharya observed in the past 12 months of his stay in India that downtown New York/San Francsico/Chicago has traffic no way better than his home country. At the same time, he unhesitatingly said, “Traffic in India is definitely irritating and slow because of the unpredictable driving practices and multi-modal transport.”

In his personal observations about the difference between USA and India, Nayrith said that making meaningful connections is a lot easier in India than in America. While staying in the US, he found it challenging to make connections beyond usual coffee meetups and mere work/sports related discussions.

“I beg to differ with him though it is his personal view. Being editor of a leading Indian immigrants community portal in the US, I have observed them closely. Every Indian community, be it Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, or Marathi, lives like a bonded family there. They celebrate their respective cultures, festivals and heritage together, ensuring no dearth of camaraderie among them. Maybe, Nayrith felt too nostalgic about the cultural milieu in Kolkata,” said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats.

The post NRIs Share Views on Comforts of Life in India and Benefits of Living in USA; an Emerging Social Media Trend appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.