Bengaluru’s Bowring medical college renamed

Team Udayavani, Nov 22, 2020, 6:37 PM IST

Bengaluru: The Bowring and Lady Curzon Medical College and Research Institute in Bengaluru has been renamed as Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Institute.

The government has decided to name the state-run medical college after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Health and Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar said here on Sunday.

The institute was set up in 2018-19 on the campus of Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital in Shivajinagar.

Deemed an autonomous university, the institute was named Lady Curzon Hospital by then Mysore Commissioner Lewin Benthon Bowring when he opened it in 1868 with 104 beds, including 24 for women patients.

“The college-cum-hospital has been in the forefront of fighting the coronavirus pandemic along with the state-run Victoria Hospital in the city market area,” said Sudhakar.

Born on December 25, 1924, in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior, Vajpayee was the first leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party to become the Prime Minister. He served as Prime Minister thrice — briefly in 1996, from 1998 to 1999, and then for a full five-year term between 1999 and 2004.

It was during his tenure that India had carried out Pokhran tests on May 11 and May 13 in 1998. (ANI)