Dr. Manmohan Singh; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian economist who served as the 14th[1] Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014. The first Sikh in office, Singh was the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term. Born in Gah (now in Punjab, Pakistan), Singhs family migrated to India during its partition in 1947. After obtaining his doctorate in economics from Oxford, Singh worked for the United Nations in 1966–69. He subsequently began his bureaucratic career when Lalit Narayan Mishra hired him as an advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Over the 70s and 80s, Singh held several key posts in the Government of India, such as Chief Economic Advisor (1972–76), Reserve Bank governor (1982–85) and Planning Commission head (1985–87). In 1991, as India faced a severe economic crisis, newly elected Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao surprisingly inducted the apolitical Singh into his cabinet as Finance Minister. Over the next few years, despite strong opposition, he as a Finance Minister carried out several structural reforms that liberalised Indias economy. Although these measures proved successful in averting the crisis, and enhanced Singhs reputation globally as a leading reform-minded economist, the incumbent Congress party fared poorly in the 1996 general election. Subsequently, Singh served as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Indias Parliament) during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government of 1998–2004. In 2004, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power, its chairperson Sonia Gandhi unexpectedly relinquished the premiership to Manmohan Singh. This Singh-led UPA I government executed several key legislations and projects, including the Rural Health Mission, Unique Identification Authority, Rural Employment Guarantee scheme and Right to Information Act. In 2008, opposition to a historic civil nuclear agreement with the United States nearly caused Singhs government to fall after Left Front parties withdrew their support. Although Indias economy grew rapidly under UPA I, its security was threatened by several terrorist incidents (including the 2008 Mumbai attacks) and the continuing Maoist insurgency. The 2009 general election saw the UPA return with an increased mandate, with Singh retaining the office of Prime Minister. Over the next few years, Singhs UPA II government faced a number of corruption charges—over the organisation of the Commonwealth Games, the 2G-spectrum allocation and the allocation of coal blocks. Singh announced that he would not contest the 2014 general election.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 07:49:38 +0000
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