WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 8: It was only fair that Bill Clinton dropped by Vinod Gupta's house. After all, Gupta stayed over at Clinton's house a few weeks back.The US President, now in his final days in office amid a messy, controversial election to choose his successor, took time off to visit Nebraska, the only American State he had never visited during his eight years in office. It's not hard to imagine why: Nebraska is hardcore Republican territory. One of the counties the President visited on Friday put him in third place in the 1992 election behind George Bush and Ross Perot.In fact, there are so few Democrats in Nebraska that the delightful President, whose sense of humour gets better each day with the imminence of his exit, had a special joke for the locals. He told a crowd of 6,000 that came to hear him in Kearney town that he had instructed his aides to find a building that could accommodate all the Democrats in the state - and therewould still be space for a few good-heartedRepublicans. Kearney is about as Middle America as it gets. It's 1500 miles from either coast.But there's a little bit of India even in the American boondocks. Nebraska is also home to Vinod Gupta, an Indian-American info-tech tycoon who is a stray and loyal Democrat in the Republican heartland. A big-time contributor to the Clintons' political coffer, Gupta'sprize for devotion was a sleepover in the LincolnBedroom following the dinner banquet in honour ofPrime Minister Vajpayee last September.Clinton did not exactly reciprocate that visit. He just dropped in at Gupta's Regency-area home on Friday afternoon for a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser en route to an address at the University of Nebraska.It's not the first time Gupta has contributed to the Clinton kitty. A similar gathering in March raised $100,000 for Hillary Rodham Clinton's US Senate campaign. Last December, Gupta shelled out $1 million for the White House's New Year celebration in Washington. And there are assorted contributions running into more than $ 150,000.Maybe Clinton had all that in mind when he invoked, not for the first time, the success of Indians in America's new economy while preaching the gospel of diversity and engagement. In what was widely described as his last foreign policy address, the President, in an obvious message to the next administration, stressed the need to be engaged on foreign policy matters, especially with countries like Russia, China and India. ``We've been estranged from India for 50 years. Do you know how many people live in India? Nine hundred and eighty million. In 30 years, India will be more populous than China,'' Clinton told the mostly student audience.Then, in his now familiar refrain about Indiansuccess, Clinton told them that ``In Silicon Valley today, there are 700 high-tech companies headed by Indians - 700, in one place!''``This is totally off the radar screen of American policy during the Cold War. So I would encourage all of you who are involved in some sort of international studies, not to just think about America's traditional concerns. You really ought to care a lot about foreign policy, about our relationship to the rest of the world,'' he said. The University of Nebraska is, of course, Gupta's alma mater. He arrived there in 1967 with a suitcase and $58, and went on to earn degrees in business and engineering. When his boss at his first job told him one day to make a list of every recreational vehicle dealer in the country, he tackled the problem with the thoroughness of an Indian babu: he got hold of telephone directories across the country and beganwriting down the names.That's when he had his epiphany - which led him to create what amounted to the first national Yellow Pages.Gupta's original printed business lists have since given way to floppy discs, then to CD-ROMs, and now the Internet. And he has moved from immigrant techie to a respected member of the community. His contribution to universities and colleges in India and the US - more than $6 million, including $2 million to the Vin Gupta School of Management in India - pales before his political donations.But the political lolly is what has made headlines in America. His sleepover in the Lincoln bedroom was widely reported in the American media, especially the conservative press, which believes the Clintons turnedthe White House into a motel.``I grew up in a world where my dad made 20 bucks a month,'' Gupta said at that time. ``There were days we didn't have food. For me to be able to come from there and stay in the White House seems like, you know, like a long road.''But according to the rightwing media, Gupta's children may not have to traverse that long and hard road. In what is described as one of the most egregious cases of campaign contribution shenanigans, Gupta is said to have got around political donation limits by giving money to Democrats in the names of his three sons,Jess (17), Benjamin (14), and Alexander (11).For now though, all that is white noise in thebackground. Even the nastiest Nebraskans who turned up their nose at Clinton for eight years, were bidding him a sentimental goodbye on Friday. Just having a President for the next six weeks or so seemed something to be thankful for amid the Gore Vs Bush spat.The Gupta visit was not the only India-centric thing Clinton did this week. On Monday, in one of his final appointments, he announced the nomination of the Indian-American, Islam Siddiqui, as Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).A long-time resident of California, Dr. Siddiquireceived his BSc in Plant Protection from UttarPradesh Agricultural University in Pantnagar, India, before coming to the US for his Masters and Doctorate in Plant Pathology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Siddiqui was previously Senior Trade Advisor at the Department of Agriculture and accompanied Clinton on his visit to India earlier this year.
