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Manmohan Singh
Dr. Manmohan Singh is the fourteenth Prime Minister of India and is reputed to be a scholar as well as an acclaimed thinker. He is known for the diligence he brings to his work along with an approach of an academician. By nature, he is approachable and his demeanor is very unassuming.
The present Prime Minister of the country, Manmohan Singh was born in 1932 on 26th September and has reputed as an economist. He is the second Prime Minister of India who came into the position for the second time after having completed the first term of five years. The first such prime minister was Jawaharlal Nehru. Also, he is the first non-Hindu prime minister of the country.
Early Life and Academics of Dr. Singh
Manmohan Singh belongs to the village of Gah, the Punjab of British India days, having born into the family of Sikhs on September 26 1932. His mother was Amrit Kaur, while father was Gurmukh Singh. At a very young age, Singh lost his mother and then his grandmother from the paternal side raised him with whom he was quite close.
When India was partitioned, Singh’s family migrated to India in the city of Amritsar and he continued his education in Hindu College. Then, he pursued Economics from Punjab University in Hoshiarpur which presently is in Chandigarh. In 1952, he got his bachelor’s degree, while master’s degree was received by him in 1954. Throughout his studies, he always was first. In 1957, he was admitted to St. John’s College, for which he could finish Economics Tripos from the University of Cambridge.
When his studies in Cambridge were completed, Manmohan Singh came back to India to Punjab University and continued with his academics teaching. Later in 1960, he got to do his D.Phil from University of Oxford, during which he was admitted to Nuffield College. In 1962, he did his doctoral thesis with the title “India’s Export Performance, 1951-1960, Export Prospects and Policy Implications”, with his guide being IMD Little. This thesis work then became the foundation for his book titled “India’s Export Trends and Prospects for Self-sustained Growth” in later years.
Family and Personal Life of Dr. Singh
Manmohan Singh got married in 1958 to Gursharan Kaur and of this wedlock, he had three daughters. All the three daughters do not use Kohli as their surname and so also Manmohan Singh, even though their clan name is Kohli. Upinder Singh, the eldest daughter, works as a history professor in Delhi University and has authored 6 books, two important being ‘A History of Ancient’ and ‘Early Medieval India’ in 2008 and ‘Ancient Delhi’ in 1999. Second daughter Daman Singh is married to Ashok Patnaik, an IPS officer, presently in Intelligence Bureau on deputation. Daman did her studies from St. Stephen’s College in Delhi and then management from Anand based Institute of Rural Management in Gujarat. She has authored a book titled “The Last Frontier: People and Forests in Mizoram” and also penned a novel with the title “Nine by Nine”. Amrit Singh, the youngest of the three, is presently working as attorney in the capacity of the staff at American Civil Liberties Union.
In recent years, Manmohan Singh has undergone many surgeries of cardiac bypass, the last one being conducted in 2009 January. He owns personally about five crore rupees. As per his declaration, property owned by him costs about 1.8 crore rupees, Chandigarh house of cost Rs 90 Lakhs and an apartment worth Rs 88 lakhs in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj area. He has deposits of Rs 3.2 crores in the bank.
Career of Dr. Singh
As soon as his D.Phil was completed by Manmohan Singh, he came back to India and started working in 1966 for the organization United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) till 1969. Then, he took up the job of advisor to the Foreign Trade Ministry possibly upon recommendation by Lalit Narayan Mishra, who saw that Singh had talent in economics. In 1969, Singh took up the job of a professor in Delhi School of Economics in International Trade.
By 1972, Manmohan Singh had become well known as an economist and was appointed to the Ministry of Finance as Chief Economic Advisor and then he became Secretary in Finance Ministry in 1976. He was also a Planning Commission member from 1980 – 1982 and Governor of Reserve Bank of India in 1982 by the appointment of Pranab Mukherjee, who was the Finance Minister. This post was held by him till 1985. From 1985 till 1987, he remained as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. After this term at the Planning Commission, he held the post of Secretary General of the South Commission which was an independent body for various economic policies, which had headquarters in Geneva in Switzerland and remained in this post till November 1990.
When he came back in 1990 to India, he was appointed as an Advisor to Indian Prime Minister, on matters pertaining to Economic Affairs, while VP Singh was the prime minister. In March 1991, Singh became the Union Public Service Commission chairman and also held the post of chairman in the University Grants Commission.
In 1991, in the month of June, when PV Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister, he went with Manmohan Singh as the Finance Minister of the country. Subsequently, Singh got first elected to Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Parliament of India in 1991 from Assam and then reelected in the years 1995, then in 2001 and in 2007 and again in 2013. From the year 1998 till 2004, he led the opposition in Rajya Sabha with Bhartiya Janata Party in power. In 1999, even though he fought the Lok Sabha elections from the constituency of South Delhi, he couldn’t win.
Honors, Awards and International Recognition
Punjab University gave Manmohan Singh an honorary doctorate in letters in 1983 and an Chair for Manmohan Singh was created in the department of Economics in 2009. University of Alberta gave him the Honorary Doctor of Law in 1997. In 2005 July, he was given the doctor of Civil Law Degree from University of Oxford, while in 2006, the University of Cambridge game him the same honor. A PhD scholarship in St. John’s College also announced in his honor, known as Manmohan Singh Scholarship. Doctor of Letters in an honorarium was given to him by Banaras Hindu University in 2008 and in the same year, University of Madras also conferred upon him an honorary doctorate. King Saud University gave him the award for honorary degree in 2010.
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