Haryana CM seeks Johns Hopkins help for Kalpana Chawla varsity

Washington, Aug 19: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has sought assistance of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in the US for developing the Kalpana Chawla University for Health Sciences as a world class health institute in his state.

Khattar, on a visit to the US, met officials of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health yesterday in the city of Baltimore in Maryland state, to invite them for the construction, maintenance, expert training and research activities of the Kalpana Chawla University in Haryana.

The chief minister said the Haryana government wants to promote super speciality services in the health sector so that people could get specialist health care services in the state, a media release said.

In his remarks, Khattar said the Kalpana Chawla University of Health Sciences in memory of the Indian-origin astronaut who hailed from Haryana, would be developed as a centre of excellence to improve the health of people through best clinical care, innovative research and by imparting education to future leaders in medicine and allied fields.

Chawla was one of the seven crew members killed in the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster.

Later, the Haryana delegation led by Khattar met Maryland Lieutenant Governor Boyd Rutherford, in state capital Annapolis where they agreed to explore the possibilities of cooperation in the fields of bio-technology, life sciences and agriculture, cyber security and engineering.

They also decided to explore the scope for working with companies engaged in the sector of low-cost housing in Maryland, the release said.

In a bid to take forward sister-state relations between Haryana and Maryland, the chief minister said that the state government was also looking forward to exploring cultural exchanges and avenues for cooperation.

Later, the chief minister paid rich tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, offering flowers at his statue in Washington DC. He also visited Swami Narayan temple at Robbinsville.

PTI