Rohit "Ro" Khanna (born September 13, 1976) is an American teacher, lawyer and politician. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the United States Department of Commerce under President Barack Obama. Khanna is a member of the Democratic Party and was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives in California's 17th congressional district in 2014. In 2015 Khanna announced that he will again run for United States House of Representatives in California's 17th congressional district.

Early life

Khanna's maternal grandfather, Amarnath Vidyalankar, was part of Gandhi's independence movement working with Lala Lajpat Rai and spent years in jail in the pursuit of human rights and freedom.

Rohit Khanna's parents emigrated to the United States from India before his birth. His father is a chemical engineer who graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the University of Michigan, and his mother is a former substitute school teacher. Khanna was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1976. He received his B.A. degree in economics with honors from the University of Chicago in 1998, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Yale Law School, receiving his law degree in 2001. He specializes in intellectual property law.

Khanna may refer to:

Khanna is a surname of the Punjabi Khatri community.

Notable people named Khanna

References

Khanna (Punjabi: ਖੰਨਾ) is a city and a municipal council in the Ludhiana district of Punjab, India.

Toponymy

Khanna is a Punjabi word, which means one quarter (1/4 or 0.25). The city was named thus because it used to be very small, just a quarter of what a normal city should be.

History

Khanna has the largest grain market in Asia, followed by the grain market of Rajpura (Punjab). Khanna is an ancient town which came into existence 500 years back. History reveals that Sher Shah Suri built a number of sarais (inns) at every 12 to 15 miles along the Delhi-Lahore road. One of the sarais was built in this area which is still known as the Purani Sarai. After the decline of Mughal rule in the Punjab, Banda Bahadur captured the area from Sirhind to Hoshiarpur. After that a jathedar of Dahedu controlled and occupied the whole of the area from Dahedu to Nabha. He married his daughter, Daya Kaur, to the King of Nabha. When a family dispute arose between the King and his new wife, she left Nabha for good and went back to live with her parents in Dahedu. According to Indian conventions she could not remain there forever. Therefore, her father gave her a "kann", or a "small portion", of the territory between Dahedu and Nabha that was well known for its agriculture. Over time, the pronunciation of the name changed from "Kann" to "Khanna".