NEW DELHI: The gentle-spoken Manmohan Singh, who passed away on Thursday, December 26, at the age of 92, was seen as a “reluctant king” during his first term as prime minister and was undoubtedly one of India’s most effective leaders.
Singh served a record two terms as prime minister from 2004 to 2014, making him the first Sikh to lead his country. He had been receiving treatment for ailments associated with ageing. Singh is recognized for leading India to unheard-of economic expansion and rescuing hundreds of millions from extreme poverty. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared, “India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders,
Manmohan Singh was born into a low-income family in what is now Pakistan, a region of British-ruled India. He studied by candlelight to get admission to Cambridge University before continuing to Oxford, where he completed his doctoral thesis on the contribution of free trade and exports to the Indian economy.
He rose to prominence as an economist, served as governor of India’s central bank, and advised the government. However, when he was unexpectedly appointed finance minister in 1991, he had no clear ambitions to pursue a political career.
Singh oversaw the implementation of deregulation, changes that prevented India’s economy from experiencing a severe balance of payments crisis, and other initiatives that opened the closed nation to the outside world from that time till 1996.
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