Kiran Jain, past president of the South Asian Bar Association of Northern

Kiran Jain, past president of the South Asian Bar Association of Northern California, has been appointed to California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s transition team.

Jain will serve on Harris’s civil rights team, addressing immigration issues, hate crimes and disability rights.

“I am extremely honored to be on Attorney General Harris’ transition team,” Jain, a deputy city attorney in Oakland, Calif., told India-West.

“I hope to bring my experiences and perspective as regional governor of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, board member of the Asian Law Caucus — the oldest civil rights organization serving Asian American communities — and former president of the South Asian Bar Association of Northern California,” she said.

“Attorney General Harris’ commitment to representing the citizens of California at one of the highest levels of government is reflected in the all-star cast of civil rights leaders and activists she has assembled for her transition team, including Bill Lann Lee, former Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Civil Rights; and Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers of America,” said Jain, who had volunteered on the Harris campaign.

Harris’s civil rights team will immediately have to address the case of Trilochan Singh Oberoi, a bearded Sikh who has been fighting the state since 2005 to serve as a prison guard in Folsom State Prison.

The California State Personnel Board ruled in favor of Oberoi on Nov. 10, 2008, noting that the CDCR had made no efforts to accommodate a religious requirement.

But the Attorney General’s office has vigorously defended the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation which has not yet allowed Oberoi to work in the state’s prison system.

At her victory speech Nov. 30, Harris told India-West she would look into Oberoi’s case. But on Jan. 10, attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who is representing Oberoi pro bono, received a motion for summary judgment from Harris’s office, which would seek to dismiss the case before it goes to trial in May.

“The state is saying the case is baseless and that it has no obligation to accommodate Mr. Oberoi. This is shocking and disappointing from a civil rights perspective,” Dhillon told India-West.

A judge must rule on the motion at least a month before trial.

In related news, Bharatnatyam dancer Vidya Sundaram kicked off the Harris inaugural with a 10-minute performance that highlighted Harris’s heritage as the daughter of the late Shymala Gopalan, a breast cancer specialist from Tamil Nadu.

Sundaram danced “Behaag Thillana, Kanda Eka Talam,” choreographed by Kerala-based dancers V.P. Dhananjayan and wife Shanta Dhananjayan.

Several Indian Americans attended Harris’s inaugural, held Jan. 3 at the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento; and the inaugural for Governor Jerry Brown, held the same day in Sacramento at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, which was followed by a reception at the Railroad Museum.

via indiawest.com