Rishi Sunak likely 31st ruler of Indian descent in foreign country

LAHORE: Destined to assume charge as the 57th British Prime Minister anytime soon, the 42-year-old, Rishi Sunak, will be the 31st ruler of Indian descent who will be calling shots in a foreign country since 1968, research conducted by the “Jang Group and Geo Television Network” shows.

Britain will now be having five Prime Ministers in the last six years. Before Rishi, the 30 world Presidents and Prime Ministers of Indian origin include: Mahendra Chaudhry, the first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister in 1999, former Prime Minister and President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo also had Indian roots, as another former Guyana Presidents Cheedi Jagan, Donald Ramotar and Moses Nagamotoo. By the way, Irfaan Ali, the incumbent head of state of this West Indian country, also traces his history in India.

Similarly, Ireland’s former Premier, Leo Varadkar, former Malaysian Premier, Mahathir Mohamed, the first Governor General of New Zealand, Anand Satyanand, sitting Portuguese Premier, António de Costa, a former Portuguese Premier, Alfredo de Costa, three Presidents of Singapore, various PMs and Presidents of Suriname, Noor Hassan Ali (President of Trinidad and Tobago), Sookdeo Bissoondoyal (one of the three founding fathers of independent Mauritius), former Governor General Mauritius, Dayendranath, Anerood Jugnauth and Navin Ramgoolam (former PMs of Mauritius) and current head of government of this country, Pravind Jugnauth, and various Presidents are of Indian descent.

Born to parents of Indian descent, who migrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s, Rishi has studied at both Oxford and Stanford. During his professional career, he also worked as an analyst for the esteemed Goldman Sachs, a 153-year-old American multinational investment bank and financial services firm with a Net Income of $21.6 billion and assets worth $1.5 trillion.

According to BBC News, Rishi tied the knot with Akshta Murty, the daughter of noted Indian tycoon, Narayana Murty, who owns the Bangalore-based Messrs Infosys. Both are Standard University class fellows, although Murty is just a month older than her husband.

Infosys is the second-largest Indian Information Technology company after Tata Consultancy Services. By 2021, Infosys had become the fourth Indian company to cross $100 billion in market capitalization.

Sunak and Murty are the 222nd richest people in Britain, with a combined fortune of £730million as of 2022. They have two daughters, Anoushka and Krishna, according to the BBS News and the Economic Times.

The BBC News stated: “Chancellor Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty have made the Sunday Times Rich List of the UK's wealthiest 250 people for the first time. Their joint £730m fortune ranks them at 222 on the newspaper’s annual list. Recently, Ms Murty's tax affairs came under scrutiny after it was revealed she had "non-domicile" status - meaning she did not pay UK tax on overseas income.

Ms Murty, the daughter of an Indian IT billionaire, later agreed to pay UK taxes on all her earnings. Her 0.9% stake in her father Narayana Murty's IT company Infosys, estimated to be worth around £690million, earned her £11.6million in dividend income last year. It is estimated her use of non-domicile status could have saved her £ 20 million in taxes. Sri and Gopi Hinduja, who run the India-based conglomerate Hinduja Group, topped the list with their £28.47billion fortune - a growth of over £11billion in a year.

The incoming British Premier’s mother-in-law was the first female engineer to work for India's then-largest car maker; she is now a philanthropist and a member of the Bill Gates Foundation.

Research further shows Rishi Sunak is one of the many people of Indian heritage who hold or had held powerful positions across the planet, apart from being chosen or elected heads of government and state.

The sitting American Vice President, Kamala Harris, was born in the United States, but her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, arrived from India in 1958 as a 19-year-old graduate student in nutrition and Endocrinology at the University of California (Berkley Camous).

According to the Los Angeles Times, “some 77 Indian American candidates had run for US Congress by July 2021,” a new record. According to an August 11, 2022 “CNBC TV,” report, 60 of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are of Indian origin.

A few years ago, a study revealed that of the estimated 7,300 American tech startups founded by immigrants, 26 per cent have Indian founders, CEOs, presidents or head researchers. For example, Parag Agrawal was appointed Twitter's CEO in 2021, the India-born Gita Gopinath assumed charge as International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s First Deputy Managing Director last year; a few of them like Jagmohan Dakmiya, Shashank Manohar and Sarhad Pawar have served as Chairmen/Presidents of the International Cricket Council. Men like Narinder Batra were re-elected as the International Hockey Federation (FIH) President for a second term in 2021, while magnates like Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani are among the richest people on the globe. The list of illustrious Indians is very long though.

In recent years, Satya Nadella was CEO of Microsoft, Sabeer Bhatia was recognized as Co-founder of Hotmail, Sundar Pichai was senior vice president of Google Chrome and Apps, Vinod Khosla started his own venture capitalist firm, Khosla Ventures, which manages around $1billion of investment capital, Padmasree Warrior was the senior vice president and Motorola’s chief technology officer.

In December 2021, BBC News maintained: “Indian-origin people account for just about 1% of the US population and 6% of Silicon Valley's workforce - and yet are disproportionately represented in the top brass. Indian-born Silicon Valley CEOs are also part of a four million-strong minority group that is among the wealthiest and most educated in the US. About a million of them are scientists and engineers. More than 70% of H-1B visas - work permits for foreigners - issued by the US go to Indian software engineers, and 40% of all foreign-born engineers in cities like Seattle are from India.”