Richard Verma named new US ambassador to India

“My mother was born in what is today Pakistan. She was a product of the partition as her and her family would resettle in northern India shortly after 1947… My father was the only literate person in his family. He would be imprisoned as a teenager for protesting British occupation. My mother… would go on to get her master’s degree. And my dad would get his PhD, and become the first person in his family who could read and write,” his speech said.

“My dad, like other immigrants, left his wife and kids behind, to find a better opportunity, a better future. He arrived in New York City in 1963 with $24 dollars that he had borrowed, and a bus ticket to Northern Iowa… My mom and brothers and sisters would come over a few years later.

“I still recall…seeing my mom in her sari waiting for the bus to go to work in 20 degree temperatures…The times were hard. We had no money. The kids could be mean in school to this new immigrant family. But they persevered…they taught us to be proud of our roots,” the speech said.

Verma, who served as the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs between 2009 and 2011, is now in the private sector. He is said to be a close confidant of the US President and also former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton. He is currently a senior counselor at Steptoe & Johnson LLP and Albright Stonebridge Group, and a senior national security fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Verma also served in the US Air Force between 1994 and 1998, for which he has received the Meritorious Service Medal and the Air Force Commendation Medal. Verma has also been a field representative for the National Democratic Institute in Eastern Europe and worked in the House of Representatives for Congressman John P Murtha.

Verma currently serves on the boards of Human Rights First, the Clinton Foundation, and the National Democratic Institute. He received a BS from Lehigh University, a JD from American University, and an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center.