In the inauguration of his new administration last week, Governor James McGreevey of New Jersey appointed 40-year-old Seema Singh as the state’s public advocate. Says Singh: “Gov. McGreevey’s charge is put the people first, look after their interest and hold the Government accountable.” The public advocate’s office was created in 1974 as a cabinet level agency but In 1994 Governor Christie Whitman’s public advocate restructuring act basically eliminated the $57 million, 975-person agency.

“He wants to recreate this office so that there’s a public advocate who can speak for the voiceless, represent the disadvantaged and the tax-payers and make the Government more accountable,” she adds. The McGreevey transition team did not release figures on how much it will cost to operate the restored department.

Singh is well qualified to tackle her new job. An associate in the Princeton office of Pepper Hamilton LLP, a multi-practice law firm with more than 425 lawyers, she has specialised in arbitration, mediation and contractual litigation, as also considerable pro bono work in parental rights termination cases and guardian rights cases.

For Singh, caring for those in need began when she was an eighth grader in Calcutta where she worked at Mother Teresa’s mission and stayed in leper homes as a volunteer. The trend has continued right through. Says Singh: “My career has revolved around helping others and fighting for their rights and providing a voice for them.”

Singh, who lives with husband Sham and eight-year-old daughter Sabrina, is deeply involved with the Indian community through the Asian Women’s Organisation and as vice president of the Asian Indian Chamber of Commerce.

Suma Chakrabarti finds a berth in Whitehall

If one needs proof that Bla-ir's Britain is progressive, multicultural and family conscious, the appointment of 42-year-old Suma Chakrabarti as Whitehall Permanent Secretary proves it beyond all doubt. The Bengali babu from Jalpaiguri made history three times over when he took up his post as one of the country’s 22 elite, high-flying civil servants: he is the first ever Asian to hold such an important position; he is the youngest ever permanent secretary and is the first to set the trend of making the civil service family friendly.
Chakrabarti has managed to negotiate a unique arrangement which allows him to work fixed hours and to work from home on alternate Fridays in order to spend more time with six-year-old daughter, Maya. Everyday by 5.30 p.m., Chakrabarti wraps up work at the Department for International Development and sets off home to see Maya into bed. In a society where long working hours and double income households are the norm, there is little time for child rearing. Chakrabarti has set a precedent of sorts.

He is also determined to ensure that his staff follows suit and is to issue for his department new guidelines to promote flexible working hours, job sharing, home working, career breaks and secondments.

Spotted by Downing Street talent scouts soon after Labour came to power in 1997, Chakrabarti was appointed from the Treasury to set up the Prime Minister’s Performance and Innovation Unit in the Cabinet Office. “Working in the international and domestic sectors helped me to think across department boundaries, especially when working with Gordon Brown in the Treasury in 1998,” he says.

Chakrabarti has no plans to change policy but says the management could be made more effective and wants his staff to think more quickly and take more risks. He also wants to see more young people in senior positions. “Perhaps we wait too long to get promoted. At the moment, a very small per cent of people in senior positions are under 40 in the civil service,” he laments.

Chakrabarti has achieved what most Asians can only dream of. For now though, he is still dealing with the news of his appointment. “I was gobsmacked when I heard. Actually even now I am not completely over it,” he says.

Currently he is pushing his department’s priority, that is to support Blair’s G-8 initiative in Africa. About India, he says: “I am an Indian but I don’t know much about it.” Perhaps that will change with his visit there come February.

—Ishara Bhasi