Choksi appointed Republican Indian Committee chief

The newly formed Republican Indian Committee in the United States has appointed Armeane M Choksi -- former World Bank official and venture capitalist and now real estate developer, adjunct professor and community activist -- as its first national president.

The Mumbai-born and raised Choksi, 66, was with the World Bank from 1974 to 1996, rising to vice president. He negotiated investment projects and economic policy changes with governments of several emerging markets, including India.

He ran the bank's operations in Brazil, Peru and Venezuela, managing a portfolio exceeding $8 billion, and as vice president was responsible for the bank's operations policies worldwide in education, health, social security and social sectors.

In 1996, he quit the World Bank and founded and was chairman and president of two investment companies: Rubicon Capital Investments, which invested in Latin America, and Hudson Fairfax Group, which invested in India.

Currently, he is developing several properties he owns, teaches a course on Privatisation: An International Perspective, at the Wharton School on Business and sits on various governing boards, including The University of Edinburgh United States Development Trust, The Washington Ballet, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and the International Advisory Board of Freedom from Hunger.

Choksi, who has written extensively on foreign trade and economic liberalisation, also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of International Security Affairs and is the founding president of Washington, DC-based think tank -- the US-India Institute.

Three years ago, along with the likes of Swadesh Chatterjee, Choksi was one of the community protagonists who was at the forefront working assiduously to see the US-India nuclear deal through in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate.

Choksi, an alumnus of Mumbai's Cathedral high school who came to the US in 1969 to pursue a doctorate in economics after receiving his undergraduate and graduate education in chemical engineering at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, said he was 'very excited and honoured to be the first national president of the RIC, and I look forward to being part of a great team.'

He said, "RIC has made tremendous strides in less than a year of its existence and, in that short period, it has already developed an excellent reputation across the country. I will focus my efforts on making RIC a major force for positive change in American politics. I took this position because I believe it is high time that the Indian-American community through the RIC becomes a serious force in American politics. We have the intellectual power and financial capacity to elect Republican politicians who share our objectives of supporting free market capitalism and promoting Indian Americans into positions of leadership in state and federal government."

Acknowledging that "many in our community vote for Democrats," Choksi argued, "I really believe they are really Republicans -- in their values -- but they just don't know it yet. I expect the RIC to reach out to all in our community and beyond so that in the next four to five years, the RIC becomes a recognised political organisation on the American political scene."

He said he is for "limited government, low taxes, free markets, free trade and strong national defense," which, he believed, are the values of the majority of Indian Americans.

Choksi underlined that the RIC was "growing very rapidly. We already have eight state chapters in less than a year of our existence, and currently are focusing on electing Republican governors" including Nikki Randhawa Haley in South Carolina.