This February, Kappanna was one of 4,000 employees laid off by General Motors in a round of restructuring, brought on by fears of an imminent slowdown in car sales. He was accepted as a Master’s student in West Virginia University, which was then making a name for its emissions tests of pickup trucks. It was a layoff in 2009 that brought him back to the West Virginia University, where he enrolled as a PhD student. Kappanna was working in General Motors, when the global scandal of Volkswagen’s deception broke. He had 60 days to find a job, once General Motors reported his termination to the USIS on March 1.

Source: Indian Express May 09, 2019 23:48 UTC