Manmohan Singh (: Punjabi

Download as docx, pdf, or txt
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 1

Manmohan Singh (Punjabi: [mnmon s] (

listen);

born 26 September 1932) is an Indian

economist who served as the 14th Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014. The first Sikh in
[2]

office, Singh was the first prime minister sinceJawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing
a full five-year term.
Born in Gah (now in Punjab, Pakistan), Singh's family migrated to India during its partition in
1947. After obtaining his doctorate in economics from Oxford, Singh worked for the United
Nations in 196669. 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 (198285) and Planning Commission head (198587).
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 India's economy. Although these measures proved successful in averting
the crisis, and enhanced Singh's reputation globally as a leading reform-minded economist, the
incumbent Congress party fared poorly in the 1996 general election. Subsequently, Singh served
asLeader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of India's Parliament) during
the Atal Bihari Vajpayeegovernment of 19982004.
In 2004, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power, its
chairperson Sonia Gandhiunexpectedly 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 Singh's government to fall after Left Front parties withdrew their support.
Although India's 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 Sing

You might also like