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Dr. Hargobind Khurana |
09 Jan 2025 (Ali Imran Chattha) : Today is the birthday of Dr. Hargobind
Khurana, a Nobel laureate physiologist and researcher from Saraiki Wasib. He
was born on 9 January 1922 in Raipur, a village in Multan district - the
youngest of five siblings, Hargobind's father was a Patwari. Hargobind wrote
that despite his poverty, his father was very interested in the education of
his children. With his limited resources, he established a one-room school in
his village where his children, including Hargobind, received their primary
education. Hargobind matriculated from DAV (Dayanand Arya Samaj) High School
(now Muslim Model High School, Multan). Hargobind did his graduation from
Government College Lahore in 1943 and MSc Chemistry from Punjab University in
1945. Hargobind completed all his education through government scholarships
thanks to his superior academic ability. Khurana
lived in British India until 1945, when he moved to England to study organic chemistry
at the University of Liverpool on a Government of India Fellowship. He
received his PhD in 1948 advised by Roger J. S. Beer.
His family moved to Delhi from Multan as refugees during the partition of India and Khurana was never to visit his place of
birth after that. In 1968, when an Indian journalist
congratulated the doctor on receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology for being
an Indian, he said, "I have never had any connection with the present
India. I was born in Pakistani territory and after that I have lived abroad all
my life.Government College University Lahore has decided to establish a chair
in his name
