US President Joe Biden has renamed at least half a dozen Indian-Americans to key administration positions, a move that the Senate failed to confirm in the last Congress.

The 118th Congress began Tuesday with the swearing in of senators and the beginning of the election process for the speaker of the US House of Representatives.

Among those Biden reappointed and sent him to the Senate were Richard Verma, 54, as Assistant Secretary of State for Management and Resources and Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy (45) as the US representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization.

Verma, who served as the former US Ambassador to India from January 16, 2015 to January 20, 2017, is currently Chief Legal Officer and Head of Global Public Policy at Mastercard.

Murthy was confirmed by the US Senate as the country’s 21st surgeon general in March 2021. He previously served as the 19th Surgeon General under former President Barack Obama.

Biden also sent the Senate the reappointment of Anjali Chaturvedi as general counsel, Department of Veterans Affairs, Ravi Chaudhary as assistant secretary of the Air Force, Geeta Rao Gupta as ambassador for global women’s issues, and Radha Iyengar Plumb as assistant undersecretary of defense.

All of these key administration positions were nominated by Biden in the last Congress but not confirmed by the Senate.

Biden, who has maintained a close relationship with the community since he was a senator, often jokes about his Indian relationship. He made history in 2020 by choosing Indian native Kamala Harris as his running mate.

The list of Native Americans in the White House compiled by Indiaspora reflects that there would be few meetings at the White House or in Biden’s Oval Office that did not have an Indian-American presence.

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