NEW YORK // A mother of two, whose Sikh parents emigrated from Amritsar to the American south and its legacy of racism, was being hailed yesterday as one of the rising stars of the Republican party. Nikki Haley is now a step closer to becoming the first Indian American, and female, governor of staunchly conservative South Carolina after winning the Republican nomination.
She is part of a growing number of American politicians whose families came from the subcontinent, including Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana. Mrs Haley, 38, won a run-off election primary against Gresham Barrett, a US congressman, and she will battle her Democratic opponent, Vincent Sheheen, for the governorship in November. She overcame a bruising election campaign, which saw allegations of marital infidelity, questions about her faith and ethnic slurs.
In the most offensive insult, the Republican state senator Jake Knotts used racist remarks during a radio interview to compare her to the US president, Barack Obama, saying: "We've already got one raghead in the White House. We don't need another in the governor's mansion." Ironically, the controversy that erupted after his comment was the first time that many South Carolina voters realised that the light-skinned Mrs Haley was originally Sikh. She was born to Indian Sikh parents who immigrated to the United States but married a Methodist and had two weddings, one Christian and one Sikh.
She has become the second Indian American to achieve prominence in the region after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, the country's first Indian-American governor, who was born to Indian Hindu parents but became a Catholic and few know his given first name, Piyush. Mrs Haley's full name is Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley T Sher Singh, the editor of sikhchic.com, an online magazine for the diaspora Sikh community, criticised Mrs Haley for dropping her Sikh background.
"I know her, I've met her, I've met her family, I've been to the Carolinas and I know the area. She used to call herself a Sikh and until recently she went to Sikh events," he said by telephone from Canada. "But the South is like the Middle East in that there is also fundamentalism and narrow-mindedness there. She was weak in this regard and jumped the fence for expediency." He still saw her rise as a boost to the Sikh community. "It's a boost just as much as the election of Barack Obama was in terms of opening the door and educating Americans," he said.
Mrs Haley and Mr Jindal stand out compared with other Indian-American politicians and candidates because they are Republican. The Indian-American community, thought to number between 2.5 million and three million, mostly supports the Democratic party. Few young Indian Americans would agree with Mrs Haley's stance against taking federal stimulus money under Mr Obama's plan to boost the economy last year or her pro-life, social values. Young Americans of all ethnicities voted overwhelmingly for Mr Obama in 2008. Mrs Haley, meanwhile, saw her star rise after she won the endorsement of Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate who has become a beacon to right-wing conservatives.
When Mr Jindal became Louisiana governor in 2007, he had to give up his seat in the House of Representatives, leaving Congress without any Indian Americans. He was only the second Indian American to be elected to Congress after Dalip Singh Saund in 1956. At least six Indian Americans hope to enter Congress this year. They are: Ami Bera in California, Raj Goyle in Kansas, Ravi Sangisetty in Louisiana, Reshma Saujani in New York, Manan Trivedi in Pennsylvania, and Surya Yalamanchili in Ohio. Kamala Harris, who is half-Indian and half-black, is favoured to become California's attorney general. Religion has not been a factor in these races so far.
Vandana Kumar, the publisher of India Currents magazine in California, said the rising political prominence of Indian Americans was partly to do with the second-generation coming of age. Indian Americans were already well represented at the local and state level while national office was the next stage, she said. "Indian Americans first came here in large numbers only in the 1960s and they were busy making a living and culture here," said Ms Kumar, who emigrated from India 25 years ago. "It's the coming generations that find themselves freely wanting to participate in the process."
She did not want to condemn Mrs Haley or Mr Jindal for their seemingly complete assimilation, saying she did not know the South and the particular constraints they faced. "There are examples of people who held on to their religion and their office but we're living in the land of opportunity and people do whatever they need to do to achieve what they want." Over the next few years, there would be a flood of Indian Americans seeking office nationwide, said Sanjay Pari, the chairman of the US-India Political Action Committee, a bipartisan, non-profit group that provides financial and volunteer support to Indian-American candidates.
"The number of young people in politics is just going to explode over the next 10 years or so. We deal with young people because we go to campuses and give talks. "Before, Indian Americans would either become a doctor or an engineer but people are now realising it's our duty to give back to the nation," he said.
sdevi@thenational.ae
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
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- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
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Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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The specs: 2018 Nissan Patrol Nismo
Price: base / as tested: Dh382,000
Engine: 5.6-litre V8
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India: Kohli (c), Rahul, Shaw, Agarwal, Pujara, Rahane, Vihari, Pant (wk), Ashwin, Jadeja, Kuldeep, Shami, Umesh, Siraj, Thakur
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Church of South Indian Parish
St Andrew's Church Mussaffah branch
St Andrew's Church Al Ain branch
St John's Baptist Church, Ruwais
Church of the Virgin Mary and St Paul the Apostle, Ruwais
Our House, Louise Candlish,
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RESULT
Arsenal 2
Sokratis Papastathopoulos 45 4'
Eddie Ntkeiah 51'
Portsmouth 0
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
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Top Speed: 340km/h
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Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
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Porsche Taycan Turbo specs
Engine: Two permanent-magnet synchronous AC motors
Transmission: two-speed
Power: 671hp
Torque: 1050Nm
Range: 450km
Price: Dh601,800
On sale: now
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
The five pillars of Islam
