Alumnus President of US-India Business Council

For Dr Mukesh Aghi, president of the US-India Business Council, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to a joint session of Congress on June 8 had a special significance because in the mid-1980s, when he first came to Washington, DC, to work as a Congressional staffer on Capitol Hill, he was witness to then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's address on July 13, 1985, which set the tone for a transformed US-India relationship after the demise of the Cold War.

Dr Aghi, immediately after he completed his PhD in international relations at the Claremont Graduate University in California, came to Washington to work for then US Congressman Meryvn M Dymally, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

He also enjoyed a short stint with then Speaker of the US House of Representatives 'Tip' O'Neill. This was after he had received an advanced management diploma from the Harvard Business School, an MBA in international marketing from Andrews University, Michigan, and a BA in business administration from the Middle East College, Beirut, Lebanon.

In an interview with Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com, Dr Aghi said that buoyed by his PhD in international relations and despite all of his business degrees, he had come to Washington "to make a difference in the world."

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