Trump picks top Indian Americans in team to help revive US economy

DONALD TRUMP has named six Indian-American corporate leaders, including Sundar Pichai of Google and Satya Nadella of Microsoft, to his Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups.

The US president has roped in over 200 top American leaders from various industries and sections to create nearly a dozen and half different groups, who will advise him and offer recommendations on how to revive the American economy, which has hit an unprecedented ebb in just a few weeks due to the deadly coronavirus.

"They're the names that are, I think, the best and the smartest, the brightest. And they're going to give us some ideas," Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on coronavirus on Tuesday (14).

In addition to Pichai and Nadella, the president has named IBM's Arvind Krishna and Micron's Sanjay Mehrotra to the Tech Group. Other members of the group are Apple's Tim Cook, Oracle's Larry Ellison and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

Indian-American Ann Mukherjee from Pernod Ricard has been named to the manufacturing Group, which among others include Caterpillar's Jim Umpleby III; Tesla's Elon Musk, Fiat Chrysler's Mike Manley, Ford's Bill Ford and General's Mary Barra.

Ajay Banga from Mastercard has been named to the Financial Services Group along with, among others, Al Kelly from Visa, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman; Fidelity Investment's Abigail Johnson and Intuit's Sasan Goodarzi.

The various groups created by Trump are: agriculture, banking, construction/labor/workforce; defense, energy, financial services, food and beverages, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, real estate, retail, tech, telecommunication, transportation, sports and thought leaders.

These bipartisan groups of American leaders will work together with the White House to chart the path forward toward a future of unparalleled American prosperity, the White House said.

"The health and wealth of America is the primary goal, and these groups will produce a more independent, self-sufficient, and resilient nation," the White House said in a statement.

The global economy will this year likely suffer the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday, as governments worldwide grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic.

With schools and many businesses shut, the measures to slow the spread of the disease have taken a painful toll on the economy.

The coronavirus death toll in the United States crossed 25,000 on Tuesday, with the country witnessing the highest single-day tally of 2,129.

As of Tuesday, more than 6,05,000 Americans had tested positive for the novel coronavirus -- more than the other top three countries taken together -- according to Johns Hopkins University.

Globally, 126,722 people have died and nearly two million people have been infected by the novel coronavirus.