Mala Adiga appointed Jill Biden's policy director

Washington: US President-elect Joe Biden has appointed Indian-American Mala Adiga as the policy director of his wife Jill, choosing an experienced education policy hand as the incoming First Lady focuses on education and plans to continue teaching community college classes.

Mala Adiga was a senior adviser to Jill and senior policy adviser for Biden's 2020 campaign. She previously worked for the Biden Foundation as director for higher education and military families.

The appointment of Mala Adiga has brought joy to Kakkunje village in Kundapur taluk of Udupi district in Karnataka. She belongs to the family of K Suryanarayana Adiga, founder of the Karnataka Bank Limited, and Aravind Adiga, who won the Man Booker prize in 2008.

Mala's father Dr Ramesh Adiga (84) had left for the US when he was 25 to hone his skills as a vascular surgeon and her mother Jaya Adiga had studied medicine in Vellore.

Mala Adiga had come to Bengaluru with husband Charles and daughter Asha to attend the event with her parents in 2019. They had come to Kundapur village seven years ago and offered puja at the Kakkunje temple and they visited their ancestral house in Babbarianakatte, according to her relatives.