Natives of Hallegere, a village in Mandya district, are an elated lot, even as Joe Biden’s team is making transition plans, while Donald Trump is preparing to vacate the White House.
The residents of Hallegere, thousands of miles away from Washington DC, and its natives elsewhere, hope that Dr Vivek Murthy, former US Surgeon General, a key advisor to US presidential designate Joe Biden on Covid-19, who has his roots in their village, would play an important role in the US administration, under the new president. It has to be recalled that he was administered the oath of office, as the 19th US Surgeon General, by then Vice-President Joe Biden at Conmy Hall, in Fort Myer, Virginia State, on April 23, 2015. With the Covid pandemic still haunting the US government, Dr Vivek assumes more significance.
Youngest US Surgeon General
H A Venkatesh, former chairman, Mysuru Paints and Varnish Limited, a native of Hallegere, said, “Dr Vivek, who was US Surgeon General under the then President Barack Obama was the highest ranking official of Indian origin — in the rank of Vice Admiral — in the US, then. He was also the youngest, at 37, in the post. Hope he will be given a key post in the US government, again. It has to be noted that Dr Vivek was instrumental in the formulation and implementation of ‘Obamacare’, Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, that changed the healthcare scenario in the US,” he said.
H K Vasanth Kumar, one of Dr Murthy’s uncles, said even though Dr Vivek was nominated as US Surgeon General on November 14, 2013, his swearing in took a lot of time, due to the hurdles posed by some lobbies, for the approval by the Senate. “We wish there will be no such delay this time,” he said.
Mandya-Mysuru connect
Dr Vivek is the son of Florida-based Dr H N Lakshminarasimha Murthy and Myetraie Murthy. His grandfather H T Narayana Shetty was a director of Mysore Sugar (MySugar) Company in Mandya and also a director of Mysuru-based Vikrant Tyres. However, Dr Vivek was born in Huddersfield, in the United Kingdom, and was brought up in Miami in the US.
Dr Lakshminarasimha Murthy, an alumnus of Mysore Medical College, moved to London, after a short stint with the Acetate Factory Hospital, in Mandya.
Poll support
Dr Vivek is the co-founder of Doctors for America, which began in 2008, as Doctors for Obama, an organisation of physicians and medical students to campaign for Obama during the presidential election. The group was relaunched as an advocacy group for affordable healthcare in 2009, and was renamed as Doctors for America. In 2011, Dr Vivek was appointed as a member of the US Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.
Earlier, in 1995, he co-founded VISIONS Worldwide, a non-profit organisation which focuses on HIV/Aids education in India and the US. Dr Vivek received a BA from Harvard University, an MBA from Yale School of Management, and an MD from Yale School of Medicine. He was a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and was an instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr Vivek is also co-founder and chairman of the board of TrialNetworks, a cloud-based platform for pharmaceutical and biotechnology trials.
Social work
Dr Vivek’s uncle H N Sathyanarayana, residing in Bengaluru, said both -- his brother Lakshminarasimha and Dr Vivek -- are interested in social service. “In Hallegere and surrounding villages, they donated computers to government schools and used to conduct health camps, through their Society of Children of Planet Earth (SCOPE) Foundation. Dr Vivek used to personally diagnose patients, along with other doctors,” he said.
“Besides, their US-based Scope Foundation has taken up establishment of India’s first ‘Earth Worship Centre, where all community people can offer prayers, at Hallegere on a 11,000 square feet plot, their ancestral property. The centre will have 36 monolithic pillar depicting pictures, life, biographies and contributions of 36 humanists. He took oath on the Gita, proving that he has not forgotten his roots,” he said.