Thiruvananthapuram | The office of Kerala Health Minister Veena George on Thursday alleged that the central government denied her permission to travel to the United States to give a lecture at Johns Hopkins University.

According to the minister's office, she was invited by the world-famous university to speak at an event, and she had applied for political clearance from the Centre three weeks ago.

However, the permission was denied just three days before her planned departure, it said.

In March this year, the Centre had denied permission to state Industries Minister P Rajeev and his team to attend the annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) in Washington to speak about the 'year of enterprises' in the state.