New York: President Donald Trump has appointed two Indian Americans as his special assistants dealing with national security and personnel matters. Ricky Gill will crucially deal with India at the National Security Council (NSC) as the senior director for South and Central Asian affairs. Saurabh Sharma will work in the Presidential Personnel office.

Gill had worked in the first Trump administration at the National Security Council as the director for Russia and European Energy Security, and at the State Department as the senior advisor in the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations. After leaving the NSC, he ran Gill Capital Group as its principal and general counsel. He was also an adviser on European and Asian energy at TC Energy, which owns the Keystone XL Pipeline that transports oil from Canada to the US. A part of the project approved by Trump was banned by former President Joe Biden.

The son of Jasbir and Param Gill, he was born in Lodi, New Jersey. Gill has a bachelor's degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He confirmed in a post in LinkedIn his appointment, which was reported by Politico. Bengaluru-born Sharma was the co-founder and president of the Washington-based American Moment, a conservative organisation that says its mission is to “identify, educate, and credential young Americans”.

A Republican activist, he was the state chairman of Young Conservatives of Texas. He had also done a stint as a journalist with the Daily Caller, a conservative publication. Sharma has a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from the University of Texas His appointment was reported by Politico and confirmed by American Moment on its website.

(IANS)