Smita Shah was the first Indian American to serve as a Democratic National Convention parliamentarian during the recent Party convention in North Carolina. A convention parliamentarian is responsible to help the chair apply and enforce the rules of the convention, and is available to respond to any questions on the order or nature of the proceedings, methods of voting.

Smita was born in Chicago and heads Spaan Tech, an information management tech firm. Her parents Niranjan and Pratima Shah migrated to the US from Gujarat in the 1970s. Mr Niranjan Shah her father, is credited with founding and running one of the most successful engineering companies in Chicago and was an influential member of the Indian American community and an active member of the Democratic Party.

Smita has been a major donor to the Obama Campaign and the Democratic Party. She founded Spaan Tech in 1998. In 2008 Spaan Tech was recognised as one of the fastest growing companies.

[ Back to Top ]

Kaushik Basu, a Cornell University professor and former Indian official has been named by the World Bank as Chief Economist and Senior Vice President.

Basu, an Indian national most recently served as chief economic adviser of India's Ministry of Finance while on leave from Cornell, where he was an economics professor and the C.Marks Professor of International Studies.

Announcing his appointment, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said Kaushik is uniquely suited to help offer evidence-based solutions and bring first-hand experience from a developing country that will be a terrific asset to the institution.

Basu 60, holds a doctorate from the London School of Economics and founded the Centre for Development Economics at the Delhi School of Economics in 1992.

In 2008 the president of India awarded Basu one of the country's highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, for distinguished service of a high order.

[ Back to Top ]

Harsh Chamria 23, is one of the youngest to qualify for the MBA programme at Stanford University in California, that is considered one of the best schools in the world. He will join Stanford in September.

Harsh studied at St.James School in Kolkata before going to Doon school, from where he went to the Appleby Colllege in Canada on an exchange programme. After passing Grade X he returned to his family in Kolkata for a Plus Two course. He passed Grade XII from La Martiniere for Boys then went on to Cornell. He was interested in the convergence of telecom, network and finance and Cornell offered the right courses.

He then partnered with Silicon Valley startup Bling National where he pioneered the concept to combine social-media connectivity at the point-of-sale and developed a blueprint for web-interface to identify consumer groups and measure the effectiveness of customised promotions based on simple analytics.

On the lighter when he is not planning new business ideas, Harsh is at the gym or dancing salsa. He was part of the Salsa troupe at Cornell and ran the half marathon in Mumbai. He is passionate about fitness and loves to dance.

[ Back to Top ]

US NRI astronaut Sunita Williams and her Japanese colleague stationed on the International Space Station ventured outside the lab to replace a faulty power-switching unit and a failing robotic arm camera of the International Space Station, their home in orbit.

This is the fifth spacewalk made by Williams 46, but is the first performed since the final shuttle mission in July 2011.

Williams was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1998 and assigned to the International Space station as a member of expedition 14, then joined Expedition 15. She holds the record of the longest spaceflight (195 days) for female space travellers.

[ Back to Top ]

Sundaresh Menon, currently Singapore's Judge of Appeal will assume the office of Chief Justice of Singapore on November 6.

Menon 50, obtained his Master of Laws from Harvard University after graduating from the National University of Singapore. He has been a leading lawyer and later became Singapore's Attorney General before he was appointed to the position of Judge of Appeals in 2012.

Reacting to his appointment Justice Menon said he was greatly honoured and privileged to be entrusted with this awesome responsibility.

[ Back to Top ]