Michael Newbill, an old India hand who has studied and worked in India and was in Mumbai during the 2008 terrorist attack, has been appointed director of South Asia on President Obama’s national security team.

He has been serving in Mumbai since 2007 until this year and fills a vacancy that rounds up the National Security Council’s India team three months before the President travels to India in early November, the Washington Post reported Aug. 27.

“It’s one of the most complicated and interesting places in the world,” Newbill says about India in an article about him on the alumni website of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana, Champagne. “Indians are incredibly friendly, they’re very inclusive, and they want to share their life and world with you very often. And I think that’s not always the case in many countries that you go to.”

On the day of the 2008 terrorist attack Newbill was supposed to be meeting a friend at the popular Leopold Cafe, a location where seven people were killed by the terrorists, the LAS site says. During those harrowing few days when the city was under siege, Newbill worked as part of the U.S. Consulate to gather accurate information about the attack and the Americans in the hotel. Six Americans were among the 170 killed.

“I think there are a lot of shared values between India and the United States that you don’t often see,” he is quoted saying in the article. “There’s a tremendous amount of growing ties between India and the United States, and a lot of it is outside the government.”

A double major in History and English who specializes in the Middle East and South Asia, Newbill studied in India for a year under a Rotary scholarship after graduating in 1994 from LAS, and went on to get his Masters in South Asian history at the University of Wrf isconsin.

He has also served in Philippines, Thailand, and on the India desk at the State Department in Washington, D.C.
The National Security Council (NSC) is the President's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials.