CHENNAI: Around a decade and a half before Los Angeles elected her as its first Indian-origin mayor, Kerala-born Tamil Nithya Raman sat with residents of a south Chennai suburb to map the notorious traffic snarls that would routinely disrupt their lives.On Thursday, WhatsApp groups in Nanganallur were buzzing with messages claiming the face riding the crest of the blue wave along Southern California's glitziest skyline as one of their own.Someone wrote in about being part of the group of 10-odd residents she interacted with regularly as an urban planner helping find solutions to the suburb's civic problems. Another spoke of how "curious and eager" she was to understand local issues and use her expertise to resolve them."What we didn't know was that she would go on to be a politician and get elected as mayor of LA," said K Sankaran, ex-president of Thillai Ganga Nagar Residents' Welfare Association.The distance between Los Angeles and the Tamil Nadu capital, separated by 7,800-odd nautical miles, wasn't the only one to be bridged by mutual celebration of a bright, young politician straddling different worlds.Around…
It's all about the Raman effect: From Transparent Chennai to City of Angels
In short
Born in Kerala and raised in Louisiana, the new mayor honed her civic strategy between 2004 and 2013 while leading community initiatives in Chennai. Her work centered on gathering grassroots data to address local infrastructure failures, ranging from sanitation to pedestrian safety. In addition to surveying municipal facilities, she conducted dedicated research on the working conditions of local recycling workers. Her political ascent has prompted cross-continental celebrations among family in Thiruvananthapuram and her former activist collaborators.
Key points
- The new mayor holds a degree in urban planning from Harvard University.: The new mayor holds a degree in urban planning from Harvard University.
- Former collaborators praised her approach of presenting grassroots data directly to munic…: Former collaborators praised her approach of presenting grassroots data directly to municipal corporations and traffic police.
- Raman was born in Kerala in 1981 and relocated to Louisiana when she was six years old.: Raman was born in Kerala in 1981 and relocated to Louisiana when she was six years old.