by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions, World

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
In this year’s election Joe Biden won and so did the American democracy. That is a good thing for the United States, for India and indeed for the world, writes Frank F Islam

Frank F. Islam
Former Vice President Joe Biden has defeated President Donald Trump in a tightly contested American election held in the backdrop of the biggest health crisis in more than one hundred years. The election was followed closely in India for three reasons: the presence of a candidate of Indian origin on the Democratic ticket; the rising prominence of the Indian American community in US politics; and the foreign policy implications that every new administration presents.
Let me address these three factors, one by one, beginning with the significance of the Indian American community in this year’s elections.
A new era for Indian Americans
Symbolically, for Indian Americans, the Biden victory heralds a new era, with one of their own, Kamala Harris, assuming the position of vice president which is only a heartbeat away from the presidency. The elevation of the multiracial California senator to this critical leadership position is a historic occasion, not just for Indian Americans, but also for African Americans, other minority groups, and women.
There were many other positives for the Indian American community as well. As widely reported, the community was actively courted by both campaigns, especially in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina.
The reelection of the four Indian American members of the US House of Representatives is another reason for the community to celebrate. Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal and Raja Krishnamoorthi, all Democrats, secured easy victories.
Additionally, more than a dozen Indian Americans won various state and local races, including five women. That increased the overall representation of the community at various governmental levels.
There were some Indian American losses. Even though she was the favorite, Sara Gideon failed to unseat Sen. Susan Collins. And, former diplomat Sri Preston Kulkarni lost in Texas’ 22nd Congressional District. Another Indian American, Hiral Tipirneni, lost in Arizona’s 6th district. All three are Democrats.
However, the losses of these three candidates do not in any way diminish the accomplishment of the Indian American community, which fielded more candidates in this election cycle at all levels than ever before.

Frank Islam and Debbie Driesman Islam with elected US President Joe Biden
Good for India
Champions of India-US relations should be reassured that there will be a man in the Oval Office of the White House who has known India longer than any American president at the beginning of his term. Joe Biden has been a good friend and valuable supporter of India during his Senate years and as a vice president
There are pundits in Delhi that believe that Trump would have been better for India. As evidence, they point to the current president’s silence on the Kashmir issue and the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Some in India also saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s relation with Trump as advantageous for New Delhi.
During PM Modi’s September 2019 US visit, Trump made a cameo appearance at the “Howdy Modi” event in Houston with Modi at a gathering of 50,000 Indian Americans. Earlier this year, Trump addressed a large rally in Ahmedabad during his two-day India trip in February.
These interactions might be seen as being advantageous for India-US relations. But the truth is that Trump’s attitude toward India has been transactional all along.
While he benefited from these two events politically, they did not translate into any meaningful gains for India. In fact, under the Trump administration, bilateral trade and commercial relations have deteriorated considerably. In fact, a bilateral trade deal that was expected to be inked has not materialized to this day.
On issues such as H-1B, Trump’s anti-immigrant policies have adversely affected India and hundreds of thousands of Indian nationals currently working in the United States. Biden has promised that he will reverse many of Trump’s immigration and economic policies. This will strengthen the bilateral ties between India and the U.S. and make the relationship a strategic one once again.
Counting delays
The slow pace of counting votes in several states, which caused a delay in reporting the results, has raised eyebrows in India. Some on social media have been gloating about the superiority of the Indian electoral system where votes are counted and results are usually declared within a 12-hour period.
In this regard, it is worth pointing out that the American electoral process is not coordinated and regulated by a central authority like the Election Commission of India. It is highly localized, with states and more than 3,100 counties in charge of all aspects of the election, ranging from the issuance of ballot paper to counting and certifying the results.
In this year’s election contest, an unprecedented number of Americans used mail-in ballots because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tabulating and making sure of the accuracy of these ballots is more difficult than doing so for those votes cast on site. Doing so, however, is critical to ensuring the integrity of the elections, which are sacrosanct in a democracy.
Therefore, the delays in counting votes and the slow pace of the entire process should not be seen as a weakness of American democracy. They denote its strength.
In this year’s election Joe Biden won and so did the American democracy. That is a good thing for the United States, for India and indeed for the world.
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(The writer is an entrepreneur, civic leader and thought leader based in Washington DC. The views expressed here are personal)
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
It can safely be concluded that 2020 is the year the Indian American community has become relevant in American politics, writes Frank Islam

Frank F. Islam
On November 6, 1955, Dalip Singh Saund, an Amritsar-born mathematician and farmer stunned America when he won a congressional election from California’s 29th district, northwest of Los Angeles. Saund’s victory, who had come to America at the age of 19, more than three decades earlier, to pursue a master’s degree at the University of California, Berkley, won against all odds.
Coming nearly ten years before the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which opened doors for Indians and citizens of other Asian and African countries into America, it was a case of a man willing himself to victory in a not-so conducive environment. Saund, who went on to obtain a PhD in mathematics at Berkley, holds many firsts.
He was not only the first Indian and Asian American to enter Congress. He was also the first politician of non-Abrahamic faith to enter US Congress.
The trailblazing nature of Saund’s victory is evidenced by that it took nearly half a century for another Indian American to get elected to Congress. That second congressman was Republican Bobby Jindal, who won from Louisiana’s first district in November 2004.
Fast-forward to August 11, 2020. The political process that began with Saund’s election nearly 65 years earlier, culminated when Vice President Joe Biden picked Sen. Kamala Harris, daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican- American father as his running mate.
Harris is the first woman of colour to be on a major party ticket. If the Democrats win in November, she will become the first woman to serve as the Vice President of the United States. Harris’ nomination as the second in command to Biden at the Democratic National Convention shows how far the Indian American community has traveled in the past six and a half decades – especially in the past decade and a half.
From Bobby Jindal to Kamala Harris
If the community’s journey from Saund to Jindal was on a slow train, its voyage from Jindal to Harris has been on a rocket ship. Until the 1990s, it worked hard for a seat at the table at every level, but results were few and far between.
One major milestone was the election of Kumar Barve, who was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1990. Barve, the first member of the community to represent in a state legislature, continues to serve in the statehouse.
Between Barve and Jindal’s 2004 election to the US House, a few more Indian Americans were elected to statehouses across the country, including Nimi McConigley (Wyoming State Legislature, 1994), Satveer Chaudhary (Minnesota House of Representatives, 1996), Upendra Chivukula (New Jersey General Assembly, 2001) and Swati Dandekar (Iowa House of Representatives, 2002).
Since Jindal’s election in 2004, however, there has been an electoral bonanza for Indian Americans. After being in the House for just two terms, the Louisianan, who served in the Bush administration briefly prior to entering Congress, ran for governor in his home state of Louisiana in 2008 and became the first member of the community to be elected the chief executive of a US state.
Two years later, another Republican, Nikki Haley, became the second Indian American to become a governor, when she won in South Carolina.
Indian Americans in key positions
In recent times, the number of Indian Americans serving in various positions on Capitol Hill and in administrations has been steadily increasing. In 2009, President Obama appointed Raj Shah to become the head of the USAID; Arun M. Kumar and Nisha Desai Biswal were named assistant secretaries; and Vinai Thummalapally a US ambassador.
In 2012, Ami Bera became the third Indian American to get elected to the House, when he ousted the incumbent Republican from California’s 7th Congressional District.
Another major political milestone for the community came in 2016, when the size of its congressional delegation quintupled overnight. Bera was joined in the House by Ro Khanna (California), Pramila Jayapal (Washington) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (Illinois). Harris, then the attorney general of California and a rising star in the state politics, became the first African American and Indian American to serve in the US Senate.
Harris’ elevation as her party’s vice-presidential nominee earlier this month wasn’t surprising. In fact, it had been many years in the making. Although one of the primary reasons Biden chose Harris was the senator’s African American affiliation, she has played up her Indian heritage repeatedly – an indication of the growing political clout of the community.
It can safely be concluded that 2020 is the year the Indian American community has become relevant in American politics. Today, both major campaigns court the Indian American community. While Harris’ presence in the ticket itself is a political statement by Biden, the Trump campaign has been trying hard to woo Indian American voters, who have been reliably Democratic until now.
There are three main reasons the community has become such a politically potent force in such a short time. The first is the huge growth in its numbers since the 1990s.
According to an estimate by the American Community Survey, there are at least 4.1 million Americans of Indian heritage, comprising 1.3 percent of the U.S. population. The community has a sizable presence in many so-called battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio, which more or less decide the presidency.
The second reason is their economic might. With a household income of nearly $127,000, they are the richest ethnic group in the country. (In comparison, the average household income in US is a little over $65,000). With money comes visibility and prominence.
Best is yet to come
Finally, over the years the community has become more and more politically active. Until the late 1980s, Indian Americans mainly organized themselves for cultural events. In the mid-1990s, that began to change.
Today, Indian Americans are engaged in political activities as never before. Many Indian Americans support candidates from the community irrespective of the party affiliation. For example, Jindal’s first House race and Haley’s maiden gubernatorial campaign were fueled by Republican and Indian American donations from across the country,
In my opinion, the best is yet to come for the Indian American community. In upcoming electoral cycles, as more and more of its members enter electoral politics and the current officeholders gain more experience and seek higher office, the community is set to wield increasingly greater influence in American politics,
In 2016, when Jindal entered the race, an Indian American ran for president for the first time. In 2020, Harris ran. In 2024, you might even see — Harris, Jindal and Haley — running for the highest office in the land at the same time. The rocket ship will have taken off and the sky will be the limit.
(The writer is an Indian American entrepreneur, civic and thought leader based in Washington DC. The views expressed are personal)
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Opinions

Frank F. Islam
By Frank F. Islam
Before returning to New Delhi recently after attending the annual IMF-World fall meeting, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman provided an upbeat perspective on the Indian economy. She asserted that its fundamentals are strong and attributed the majority of the problems ailing the Indian economy to a global slowdown. In the same time period, the World Bank announced that India had jumped 14 spots from 77th to 63rd on its Ease of Doing Business ranking. Together, these indicators might suggest that it should be plain sailing for strong growth of the Indian economy going forward.
That”s not exactly the case. Growth will be more difficult than these pronouncements make it appear. Economists, both Indian and international, have pointed out that the nearly $3 trillion economy faces a number of problems. For example, the Reserve Bank of India and the International Monetary Fund, among other domestic and international groups, have cut the country”s growth projections — in part due to the decline in global growth but also because of other internal factors.
There is no doubt that much of the progress that was made in the Indian economy during Prime Minister Narendra Modi”s first term is due to reforms and new initiatives. It is also unquestionable that additional reforms and corrective actions will be required to move the economy forward.
The results-producing economic reforms during the first term focused primarily on business and domestic welfare. On the welfare front, cooking gas connections for millions, assistance to farmers, and government-funded health care made a difference for citizens and at the ballot box for Modi. On the business side of the ledger, changes to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, the Make in India campaign, and special incentives bolstered investor confidence and attracted a large amount of direct foreign investment.
Not all of the economic reforms produced the desired results. There is a general consensus among economists today that two of the biggest economic initiatives, the demonetization and the introduction of the nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST), have not had the desired effects.
Demonetization, which removed nearly 86 per cent of the existing banknotes worth $210 billion from circulation, was initially seen as an audacious move to curtail the country”s shadow economy. But the cash shortage badly impacted several sectors, including manufacturing and agriculture.
The job market was also affected, with an estimated loss of 1.5 million jobs, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. This contributed, to India”s GDP growth rate at the macro level falling under 7 per cent for the first time since 2011.
The GST, which was introduced in the summer of 2017, replacing the existing taxes collected by the central and state governments, was seen as a necessary move to reform India”s tax regime. However, after an uneven rollout that resulted in a lot of confusion, GST has still not been fully embraced by small businesses and industries.
In addition to the unintended consequences of these initiatives, a third internal factor that has contributed to the less than satisfactory growth of the Indian economy over the past five quarters was a slowdown in reforms. It was widely reported that in the run-up to the general election, the government more or less stopped the reform process altogether.
As a result of all these factors and others, the Indian economy today is definitely sluggish. Consumption has slowed down three quarters in a row. The automotive industry, one of the fastest growing sectors for several years, has shrunk significantly in the past year. There have been poor performances in several other important sectors such as banking, manufacturing and real estate as well.
The IMF projects India to grow at 6.1 per cent this fiscal year. The Center for Monitoring Indian Economy makes an even lower prediction. It expects the economy to grow at 5.9 per cent, “the slowest growth in the last seven years.”
What is required to get the India economy to turn the corner and change the current narrative that it is stuttering? First and foremost, the Modi administration should recommit itself to and accelerate the economic reforms process. In this regard, Simeon Djankov, Director of Development Economics at the World Bank, said that to continue to improve on its ease of doing business ratings, India will need a “
fresh set of reforms.”
It appears that India has begun to relaunch the reforms process. In September, Finance Minister Sitharaman cut the corporate tax on profit from 30 per cent to 22 per cent, which was universally welcomed by businesses and investors in the country. Now, similar bold reforms are required in multiple areas in a sustained manner, including deregulation of sectors such as energy and increasing foreign investment caps in areas such as insurance, retail and defence.
Another key requirement for growing the economy is modernizing the country”s infrastructure. Roads and railroads in India, except in some pockets, require major upgrades. Recently, Union Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced that the country will spend about $1.4 trillion on infrastructure development over the next five years. Taken together, both the corporate tax cut and the announcement of $1.4 trillion spending on infrastructure signal, that the government is serious about reforms. The government has also announced several stimulus measures. Additionally, the Reserve Bank of India has slashed the repurchase rate nearly half a dozen times this year.
There is much underway. But India is a huge economy and there is much that will need to be done in order to continue to move the needle dramatically over time.
The current quarter, which began in October, is pivotal. If the corporate tax cut and the stimulus measures have an impact, it will be reflected in the quarterly numbers, which will be available early next year. One hopes those numbers will be headed in the right direction. If they are, then progress will have to be sustained. If they are not, adjustments will have to be made.
State Bank of India Chairman Rajnish Kumar, who accompanied Finance Minister Sitharaman as part of the Indian delegation to the World Bank and IMF meeting, stated that Indian economy is in “transition” and opined that he thought India was “
at the bottom as far as growth is concerned.” By staying the course and updating the reform playbook that it had in its first term the Modi administration can prove his assessment to be correct.
Author Frank Islam is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, civic leader, and thought leader. Learn more
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Opinions
Delhi has failed to take advantage because of its own manufacturing weaknesses and disputes with the US

Frank F. Islam
By Frank F Islam
The long-standing trade disputes between the United States (US) and China turned into a full-blown war last year, with each country slapping tit-for-tat tariffs on goods imported from the other. Predictably, economic hostilities between the world’s two largest economies rattled global markets. However, a few countries in China’s neighbourhood saw opportunities in the trade war between the two giants, with India being one of them.
Several economists and analysts predicted that India would be a primary beneficiary of the biggest trade war of this millennium. This was based on two assumptions. One, more and more US companies would move out of China and set up shop in India to avoid paying higher American tariffs. Two, some Chinese firms that are suppliers to American companies would shift their productions to manoeuvre around the US tariffs.
More than a year later, those predictions have not panned out. A review of data from the US department of commerce, which keeps track of America’s bilateral trade with partner countries, reveals that India’s gains have been only marginal.
In 2018, the trade in goods between India and the United States was $87.9 billion, up from $74.2 billion in 2017. This year, through August, their bilateral trade was $62.7 billion, compared to $58.2 billion in the first eight months of 2018.
To date, Vietnam seems to be the only country in China’s neighbourhood to have benefited from the Sino-American trade war. Why has India been unable to take advantage of this opportunity?
There are three primary reasons.
First and foremost, despite the provocative rhetoric and tit-for-tat tariffs, the US-China trade volume hasn’t really slowed down that much, except in a few areas. The commerce department data shows that the trade in goods between the two countries has been worth more than $1 trillion dollars since the beginning of 2018. China’s trade surplus against the US during that same period was more than $651 billion.
The US trade deficit for the comparable 22-month period under the Barack Obama administration (from January 2014 to August 2015) was $583 billion. In other words, the US-China bilateral trade was 12% larger under Donald Trump. In fact, since Trump moved to the Oval Office, the US trade deficit with China has increased by more than $1 trillion. In comparison, during the first 32 months of Obama’s second term, the US deficit was a little over $900 billion.
What this suggests is that not many US companies, or Chinese firms doing business with America, have moved away from the mainland. A big reason for this is that there were no viable alternatives. Notwithstanding the higher tariffs, China continues to be a better option for American businesses than other countries.
Second, even if these businesses had decided to relocate, India was not, and isn’t, in a position to replace China as the manufacturing base of the world. Despite the Narendra Modi administration’s Make in India initiative, India has not made significant progress in building the kind of manufacturing infrastructure that would enable it to compete with the big three of East Asia: China, Japan and South Korea.
According to the Brookings Institution, India’s manufacturing output last year was less than $300 billion. By comparison, China’s manufacturing output was more than $2 trillion. Despite the size of its economy, India’s manufacturing output was less than a third of Japan and less than half of Germany.
There are several factors that are hampering the growth of manufacturing in the country. And inadequate infrastructure is one of them.While India has built some world class airports in the past decade, it needs to drastically upgrade its roads, railroads and ports, in order to grow its manufacturing sector. To accomplish this, the country needs a huge inflow of foreign investments. But due to the slow pace of reforms, India has not been able to attract enough Foreign Direct Investment.
Under Prime Minister Modi, India has improved its ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index — which measures the regulatory environment is business friendly. India’s ranking came down to 77 last year (among 190 economies) from 132 in 2014, and it is now 63rd. To become a manufacturing hub, however, that ranking needs to be brought down below 50.
The third major reason India has been unable to take advantage of the US-China trade war is New Delhi’s own trade dispute with Washington. Despite their closer strategic alignment in recent decades, India and the United States have not been on the same page on trade.
Those differences have played out in the open repeatedly since Trump came into the White House in January 2017. Earlier this year, the US made a series of moves on the trade front, including levying tariff on Indian steel and aluminium last year, and terminated the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme benefits to New Delhi. Recently, the US has voiced displeasure with two new Indian regulations that affect US credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard, and e-commerce giants Amazon and Walmart.
India and the US were expected to sign a major trade deal, addressing some of these concerns, during Modi’s visit to the United States last month. It has been nearly a month, however, since the Prime Minister returned after his successful trip and the two sides have not announced the contours of a deal yet.
It may be too late for India to make any meaningful gains from the current US-China trade war in the near term. But with the United States and China being global competitors in every sphere, trade wars between them are certain to flare up again and again in the future. Given this, India would do well to take the steps required to take advantage of that competition and to ensure that it doesn’t miss the bus the next time around.
Frank F Islam is an entrepreneur, thought leader and civic leader based in Washington, DC.
The views expressed are personal
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Muslim World, Social Round-up

Indian-American businessman Frank F. Islam (R) conferred Sir Syed Global Excellence and Leadership Award 2018 in Dubai on Dec 22, 2018.
By Mumtaz Alam,
Dubai/New Delhi: India’s former Vice President Hamid Ansari and renowned Indian-American businessman and philanthropist Frank Islam were conferred with the first Sir Syed Global Excellence & Leadership Awards here on Saturday. Both are alumni of India’s prestigious Aligarh Muslim University.
While Hamid Ansari, who was Vice President of India for 10 years after serving as Vice Chancellor of AMU and chairperson of National Minorities Commission, received the award in the category of administration excellence, Frank Islam got the Sir Syed Global Philanthropist Excellence Award. Frank had recently donated $2 million to his alma mater AMU for a new complex for business and management studies.
Besides the two, 15 other eminent alumni of AMU were also honoured with the award in different categories. They include Tariq Chauhan, Group CEO of EFS Facilities Services Group, filmmaker Anubhav Sinha and journalist Rifat Jawaid. Ten of the 17 winners reside in UAE. All the winners are AMU alumni. The award was named after the university’s founder Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. The lifetime achievement award went to AMU chancellor Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin.
Speaking on the occasion, Frank Islam recognized the role of AMU in making him what he is.
“It is an honor because I come before you as a son of Aligarh and a brother to each of you. Like you I am part of the Aligarh family tree. I am here this evening because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. These giants have been the faculty, students, and the alumni of Aligarh Muslim University,” he said.
He described Sir Syed as his hero.
“I am honored to receive the Sir Syed Global Philanthropist Excellence Award for 2018. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan is my hero. He was one of the greatest leaders in the history of AMU. We have been enriched and empowered by Sir Syed’s educational initiatives. I accept this award with humility, not for me, but in recognition of all those Aligarh giants, who have made a difference in society through their leadership, education, and public service.”
“To be given any award named after Sir Syed is special. To be given an award that relates to philanthropy is even more so because it relates directly to the vision that Sir Syed had when he founded Aligarh Muslim University in 1875,” he added.
Early in his speech, Frank praised Hamid Ansari for his strong belief in “building the most diverse, inclusive, and fair vision of India.”
“I want to thank him (Hamid Ansari) for being the guiding light and for helping and advocating to create a unified and just environment where people of different creeds and different faiths can all work together to help shape a better future for India and the world. I admire and respect his strong belief in embracing hope over fears and in building the most diverse, inclusive, and fair vision of India. His firm belief that we cannot be pulled apart and we need to stand together and we need to build bridges and to promote dialogue of understanding and a shared sense of community because we are Indian, bonds that binds us together,” said Frank.
He also highlighted the significance of purposeful philanthropy.
“Philanthropy takes many forms. The philanthropy that is of pivotal importance, in my opinion, is purposeful philanthropy. Purposeful philanthropy is making investments directed at creating a difference in pivot point areas that matter to the future of society. The returns on those investments are changes to problematic conditions and/or the creation of individuals who will become change agents to address those conditions,” said Frank.
About the idea behind the awards, Pushkin Agha, managing director of Vertex Events, which organized the awards, was quoted as saying by Gulf News: “This is the first event held to recognise AMU alumni who have excelled in their field. Leading establishments such as Forbes and Harvard University have awards for their alumni. AMU is a prestigious institution that is almost 100 years old, our alumni are spread around the world. So this event will bring them together and recognise their achievements on an international platform.”
At the Dubai event, special guests included AMU Vice-Chancellor Professor Tariq Mansoor and former AMU vice chancellor Zameeruddin Shah.
(Source: India Tomorrow)