Obama appoints Indian-American lawyer to key post

[LahoreEstate]

LAHORE: United States president-elect Barack Obama appointed a leading Indian-American lawyer Preeta Bansal as general counsel and senior policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget at the White House.

According to a report in the Hindustan Times, the announcement came on the eve of his taking over as the 44th president of the US. It was reported that this indicated how quickly Obama wanted to “get on with the business of tackling the economic crisis by cutting waste and making the government more efficient”. Bansal is considered to be part of Obama’s inner circle. Earlier, it was mentioned that she could likely be solicitor general in the Obama Administration.

The Hindustan Times reported that Bansal is currently a partner at a prestigious law firm in New York City. She has also been a commissioner of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, it said, adding that in that capacity, she participated in various US diplomatic missions including Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, China, Russia, Vietnam, and South Asia, and presided over a nationally-acclaimed commission study on US Department of Homeland Security’s procedures for the expedited removal of US asylum seekers, according to the paper. She has been a commissioner on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Election Modernisation Task Force and serves on numerous non-profit boards, the report said .

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg7_35