Washington:

“Samosa Caucus” — the group of Indian-Americans in US Congress — has a strong chance of getting another member next year with the victory of Suhas Subramanyam in the Virginia Democratic primaries.

He won the intra-party election on Tuesday to pick the Democratic candidate to contest the November general election for the House of Representatives from a constituency held by it.

The constituency includes some suburbs of Washington.

Meanwhile, in primaries in New Jersey last week, Indian-American Rajesh Mohan won the Republican ticket for a House seat but faces an uphill battle because it is in a strongly Democratic constituency.

There are now five Indian-Americans in the House of Representatives, all Democrats who call themselves the “Samosa Caucus”: Ami Bera and Ro Khanna from California; Pramila Jayapal from Washington State; Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois, and Shri Thanedar from Michigan.

A State Senator, Subramanyam bested 11 other candidates in an ugly contest where his main adversary faced allegations of sexual harassment.

He was backed by the retiring House member Jennifer Wexton, who flipped the seat to the Democratic side in 2018 and was re-elected twice, winning 53 per cent of the votes in 2022 making it a safe seat for the party.

Mr Subramanyam’s family is from Bengaluru.

A 37-year-old lawyer, he was President Barack Obama’s technology advisor working on cybersecurity and modernising government agencies.

In 2019, he was elected to the Virginia General Assembly, and the State Senate last year.

He is also a volunteer medic and firefighter.

Mohan, who defeated his three Republican rivals, will be contesting from a constituency held by a Democrat.

Andrew Kim, who is giving up the seat to run for the US Senate, flipped it from the Republican Party in 2018 and won his second re-election in 2022 by 55 per cent.

Three ratings of the race surveyed by Ballotopedia declared it a solid or safe Democratic seat.

A cardiologist, Mohan received his medical degree from the Delhi University College of Medical Sciences.

In New Jersey, Ravinder Singh Bhalla, the Mayor of Hoboken, lost the Democratic Party primary for the House seat to Rob Menendez who currently holds the seat.

The sitting representative’s father, Senator Bob Menendez, is on trial on corruption charges but undeterred, he waged an ugly campaign against Bhalla, a turban-wearing Sikh, alleging that he made quid-pro-quo deals with the Mayor of a neighbouring city and used images marring his appearance in TV ads.

Susheela Jayapal, the sister of influential Representative Pramila Jayapal, lost the primary for a Democratic seat in Oregon.

Pramila Jayapal heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of leftist Democratic Party legislators.

She represents a constituency in Washington State, a neighbour of Oregon where her sister Susheela Jayapal was a county commissioner and was among several leftist candidates who faced an ideological backlash in the Democratic primaries.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

“Samosa Caucus” — the group of Indian-Americans in US Congress — has a strong chance of getting another member next year with the victory of Suhas Subramanyam in the Virginia Democratic primaries.

He won the intra-party election on Tuesday to pick the Democratic candidate to contest the November general election for the House of Representatives from a constituency held by it.

The constituency includes some suburbs of Washington.

Meanwhile, in primaries in New Jersey last week, Indian-American Rajesh Mohan won the Republican ticket for a House seat but faces an uphill battle because it is in a strongly Democratic constituency.

There are now five Indian-Americans in the House of Representatives, all Democrats who call themselves the “Samosa Caucus”: Ami Bera and Ro Khanna from California; Pramila Jayapal from Washington State; Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois, and Shri Thanedar from Michigan.

A State Senator, Subramanyam bested 11 other candidates in an ugly contest where his main adversary faced allegations of sexual harassment.

He was backed by the retiring House member Jennifer Wexton, who flipped the seat to the Democratic side in 2018 and was re-elected twice, winning 53 per cent of the votes in 2022 making it a safe seat for the party.

Mr Subramanyam’s family is from Bengaluru.

A 37-year-old lawyer, he was President Barack Obama’s technology advisor working on cybersecurity and modernising government agencies.

In 2019, he was elected to the Virginia General Assembly, and the State Senate last year.

He is also a volunteer medic and firefighter.

Mohan, who defeated his three Republican rivals, will be contesting from a constituency held by a Democrat.

Andrew Kim, who is giving up the seat to run for the US Senate, flipped it from the Republican Party in 2018 and won his second re-election in 2022 by 55 per cent.

Three ratings of the race surveyed by Ballotopedia declared it a solid or safe Democratic seat.

A cardiologist, Mohan received his medical degree from the Delhi University College of Medical Sciences.

In New Jersey, Ravinder Singh Bhalla, the Mayor of Hoboken, lost the Democratic Party primary for the House seat to Rob Menendez who currently holds the seat.

The sitting representative’s father, Senator Bob Menendez, is on trial on corruption charges but undeterred, he waged an ugly campaign against Bhalla, a turban-wearing Sikh, alleging that he made quid-pro-quo deals with the Mayor of a neighbouring city and used images marring his appearance in TV ads.

Susheela Jayapal, the sister of influential Representative Pramila Jayapal, lost the primary for a Democratic seat in Oregon.

Pramila Jayapal heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of leftist Democratic Party legislators.

She represents a constituency in Washington State, a neighbour of Oregon where her sister Susheela Jayapal was a county commissioner and was among several leftist candidates who faced an ideological backlash in the Democratic primaries.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A Virginia-based IT services company has been fined $38,500 (Rs 32,11,177) for a job advertisement that sought only white, US-born applicants, BBC reported. The discriminatory advertisement was posted by Arthur Grand Technologies in March 2023 for a business analyst position on the hiring site. It asked in a bolded note for ”Only Born US Citizens [White] who are local within 60 miles from Dallas,” according to a Justice Department news release. ”Don’t share with candidates,” the advertisement read in brackets.

The ad sparked outrage on social media and soon caught national attention, leading the Justice Department and the Department of Labor to launch an investigation. Arthur Grand is now required to pay $7,500 in civil penalties to the US treasury as well as $31,000 in total compensation to people who filed complaints over the incident.

The US Department of Justice announced the penalty, stating the ad violated federal civil rights and labour laws. 

In the settlement agreement, the company said the ad was ”generated by a disgruntled recruiter in India and was intended to embarrass the company,” and that it never intended to dissuade non-citizens from applying.

The company has also promised to provide training for all company employees involved in recruiting, selecting candidates or tracking expressions of interest for open positions.

”It is shameful that in the 21st century, we continue to see employers using ‘whites only’ and ‘only US-born’ job postings to lock out otherwise eligible job candidates of colour. I share the public’s outrage at Arthur Grand’s appalling and discriminatory ban on job candidates based on citizenship status, national origin, colour and race,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s civil rights division in a statement.

In a statement to CNN, the company’s CEO said it “vehemently denies any guilt or wrongdoing”.

”This unauthorized posting was made by an upset employee on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) from their email address and account. Upon discovering this, we took immediate and decisive action to ensure that this type of incident will never happen again, including the immediate termination of the responsible employee,” Sheik Rahmathullah said.

Heman Bekele, a 14-year-old school student, has achieved the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist” by creating an innovative soap specifically formulated to address skin cancer.

1. Heman Bekele is a ninth-grade student at WT Woodson High School in Annandale, Virginia. He has achieved the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist” by creating an innovative soap specifically formulated to address skin cancer.

2. According to The New York Times, Heman spent the last four months competing against nine other finalists, and he developed a compound-based bar of soap designed to treat melanoma. The bar of soap costs about less than $10 to make.

3. Heman hopes to refine his innovation and create a non-profit organisation to distribute the soap to communities in need over the next five years, according to 3M and Discovery Education.

4. According to The New York Times, Heman’s idea for the competition came from the early years of his life in Ethiopia. “There, I always saw people who were constantly working under the hot sun,” Heman said.

5. The soap could help fight skin cancer at a cost of less than $10 per bar. The soap would be made with compounds that could reactivate the cells that guard human skin, enabling them to fight cancer cells.

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