US President Barack Obama has appointed the son of an Indian migrant couple from Bihar as the US Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference
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| Rashad Hussain, new US envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). PIC/AFP |
US President Barack Obama has appointed the son of an Indian migrant couple from Bihar as the US Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Rashad Hussain will travel to India from August 1 to 9 to discuss the Obama Administration's initiatives on education, global health, entrepreneurship and countering violent extremism with Muslim leaders and academics.
Hussain's father, a mining engineer, moved from Bihar to Wyoming in the late 1960s. A few years later, during a visit to India, he married Hussain's mother, now an obstetrician in Plano.
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Hussain will visit Aligarh, Mumbai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, and Patna, where he will meet local university faculty and students, Muslim leaders, and government officials, the State Department announced Friday.
As special envoy Hussain, both, a Quran scholar and an ardent North Carolina Tar Heels basketball fan, is charged with helping bridge the cultural divide in US relations with Muslims inside and outside America's borders as part of President Obama's new approach to engage the Islamic world.
After the 2008 election, Hussain was recruited to the White House counsel's office where he has worked on
national security and new media issues.
