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President Joe Biden’s inaugural speech on Wednesday, Jan 20 addressed laying out the agenda for his administration.
Biden’s speechwriting team who helped him shape the draft is led by an Indian-American, Vinay Reddy, who was a speechwriter for the Biden-Harris campaign and previously served as chief speechwriter when Biden was Vice President in Barack Obama’s second term.
Notably, Vinay Reddy has roots in a remote village called Pothireddypeta in Karimnagar district of Telangana.
Raised in Dayton, Ohio, Reddy was the chief speechwriter to Biden during his second term as the vice president of the US from 2013 to 2017. He is the first-ever Indian American to be appointed as a presidential speechwriter.
Reddy is believed to have acquired his political acumen from his grandfather, Tirupathi, who served as the village head for 30 years.
During the Obama administration, Reddy served as a senior speechwriter at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services. After the it ended, he worked as vice president of strategic communications at the National Basketball Association. He also worked as a speechwriter for Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
“He wants to use the moment to call Americans to unity,” incoming White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal.
In his maiden address to the nation, soon after he was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, Biden delivered a forward-looking speech built around the theme of unity, advisors close to the President-elect said.
Biden spoke about the need to bring the country together during an unprecedented moment of crisis.
He reached out to all Americans and called on every citizen to be part of meeting the extraordinary challenges facing fellow Americans.
Biden’s “remarks was a forward-looking vision for his presidency while addressing the moment we are living in as a country. The speech was built around the theme of unity.”
The speech lasted for around 30 minutes. The theme of the speech was America United.
Reddy is the second of three sons. He obtained his undergraduate degree from Miami University and a law degree from the Ohio State University College of Law.
His father, Narayana, migrated to the U.S. in the 1970s to become a cardiologist, but he and his wife Vijaya still visit the village, where they have retained their ancestral agricultural land.
Reddy is now serving as speechwriting director of the White House.
“It’s a matter of pride not just for our family but the entire village that Mr. Vinay Reddy rose to such an important position in the US,” said Cholleti Sai Krishna Reddy, a relative, according to Gulf News.
Meanwhile, a former chairman of Telangana’s Lower Manair Dam told The Hindu, “The village is on the world map because of our family members and it’s a great honor for all the villagers.”
Reddy lives in New York with his wife and two daughters.