NEW YORK: US President Joe Biden has appointed Kiran Ahuja, a civil rights lawyer and an advocate for Asians, to head the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).  OPM oversees the federal government's civil service, coordinating the recruitment of government employees, and manages their health insurance and retirement benefits programmes.

Ahuja, whose nomination was declared on Tuesday by the White House, is joining at least 20 other Indian Americans nominated by Biden to senior positions in his administration.

As a member of Biden's transition team, she was in charge of ensuring a smooth move by the agency to the new administration.  In former President Barack Obama's administration, Ahuja had served in the (OPM) as chief of staff.

She will have to be confirmed by the Senate in her new position. Ahuja is now the CEO of Philanthropy Northwest, a network of charitable organisations across six states.

The White House said Ahuja grew up in Savannah, Georgia, "as a young Indian immigrant in the wake of the civil rights era." She shares an educational background with Vice President Kamala Harris having attended a historically Black institution like her. Harris went to Howard University for her bachelor's degree and Ahuja to Spelman College in Atlanta.

With a law degree from the University of Georgia, Ahuja "began her career as a civil rights lawyer at the US Department of Justice, litigating school desegregation cases, and filing the department's first student racial harassment case," according to the White House.

She also founded executive the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, an advocacy and membership organisation.

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