Amar Bhardwaj and Praveena Fernes to study in UK from Sep 2020.
Two Indian American graduates are among 46 Marshall scholars selected for the British Government’s Marshall Scholarships for American students for the year 2020 to pursue degree courses at leading British universities.
The two Indian-American scholars, Amar Bhardwaj from Columbia University and Praveena Fernes from Tulane University, will start their studies in September 2020 at the University of Edinburgh and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) respectively.
“The Marshall Scholarship scheme continues to be one of the most important and successful programs the British Government supports across the world,” said Michael Tatham, Chargé d’Affaires at the British Embassy in Washington, DC.
It’s only for the second time in the program’s 66-year history that as many students have been chosen for the scholarships given to highly accomplished university students and recent graduates from across the US.
Next year, “we will have the largest ever number of Scholars studying in the UK,†said Marshall Commission chair Christopher Fisher noting that this is the third consecutive year in which more than 40 graduates have been selected.
“While this Program’s origins are in recognizing the generosity of the past, its continuing currency reflects the value of supporting the promise of the future as represented by our Scholars,†he said.
The 2020 Marshall Scholarship recipients represent a wide diversity of cultural, academic, institutional and socio-economic backgrounds and more than one-third of this year’s class are from minority backgrounds and 61 percent of this year’s class are female scholars, said the organizers.
Two American universities, Washington State University and Rutgers University, New Brunswick, will send Marshall Scholars to the UK for the first time in their history. The State University of New York, Stony Brook has won only its second Marshall Scholarship since the first one in 2006.
Over one-third of scholars hail from state or public universities and five from military service academies. They come from a diversity of backgrounds such as entrepreneurs, documentary filmmakers, record-holding Division I athletes, Shakespearean actors and climate scientists.
The batch of 46 winners has been selected following a rigorous and high-competitive selection process that drew over 1,000 applications from top undergraduate students.
Though the program is funded by the British Government, it is designed to benefit contributions from partnership arrangements with world-leading British academic institutions, allowing winners to pursue graduate degrees in almost any academic subject at any university in the UK.
The 2020 class will take up their studies at 16 different institutions across the UK, ranging from Imperial College London to the University of the Highlands and Islands in the Scottish Highlands.
The scholarship program also receives grant and support from the Association of Marshall Scholars (AMS), the official alumni organization of the Marshall Scholarship. Through the AMS, alumni provide substantial support to the program.
Here’s the full list: Winners of the 2020 Scholarship – Marshall Scholarships
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San Jose – Another group of Indian Americans was sentenced to prison for their role in a case of H1-B visa fraud scheme and other related crimes by the US District Judge Lucy H. Koh. this week according to court documents.
Earlier, a federal grand jury had indicted Venkat Guntipally, 49, his wife, Sunitha Guntipally, 44, of Fremont, and two other defendants, Pratap “Bob†Kondamoori, 56, of Incline Village, Nev., and Sandhya Ramireddi, 58, of Pleasanton, in a 33-count indictment filed May 5, 2016. The indictment contained charges in connection with the submission of fraudulent applications for H-1B specialty-occupation work visas.
Venkat Guntpally was now sentenced to 30 months in prison for his role in this conspiracy to commit several crimes including visa fraud, obstruction of justice, use of false documents, and mail fraud.
“Through this multi-year conspiracy, Mr. Guntipally and his co-conspirators exploited foreign workers for profit, defrauded the United States, and engaged in brazen obstruction of justice,†announced Acting United States Attorney Alex G. Tse. “Today’s sentence reflects that such crimes harm the nation’s immigration system and erode public trust. This office will continue to prosecute defendants who are out to make an unlawful profit and abuse our immigration laws for purely personal gain,†added Attorney Tse.
Venkat Guntpally pleaded guilty on April 24, 2017, at which time he admitted that he and his wife founded and owned DS Soft Tech and Equinett, two employment-staffing companies for technology firms. In addition, Guntipally admitted that between approximately 2010 and 2014, he and his wife, together with others, submitted to the government more than one hundred fraudulent petitions for foreign workers to be placed at other purported companies.
“Unscrupulous actions by employers to gain an unfair advantage will not be tolerated and HSI will commit its resources to stop these types of criminals from gaming our immigration system to line their pockets with money at the cost of others,†said Ryan L. Spradlin, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operations, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) in northern California and northern Nevada.
The scheme’s intended purpose was to create a pool of H-1B workers who then could be placed at legitimate employment positions in the Northern District of California and elsewhere. Through this scheme, Venkat Guntipally, along with his co-conspirators, gained an unfair advantage over competing employment-staffing firms, and the Guntipallys earned millions in ill-gotten gains.
“As the lead agency in this investigation, the Diplomatic Security Service demonstrated its commitment to maintaining the integrity of US visas. We pursue those who fraudulently use worker visas, like the H-1B, for personal gain,†said Special Agent in Charge Perlman. “Diplomatic Security Service’s strong relationship with our law enforcement partners and the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, continues to be essential in the pursuit of justice,†the statement added.
The end-client companies listed in the fraudulent H-1B applications either did not exist or never received the proposed H-1B workers. In addition, none of the listed companies ever intended to receive those H-1B workers. Venkat Guntipally also admitted that he and his codefendants obstructed justice, including by directing workers to lie to investigators and by laundering money.
The prosecution is the result of an investigation led by the US Department of State Diplomatic Security Service’s representative to the Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force (DBFTF) overseen by the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations. The DBFTF is a multi-agency task force that coordinates investigations into fraudulent immigration documents.