Dr Manmohan Singh passed away at AIIMS, Delhi, on Thursday evening at the age of 92 due to age-related medical conditions. Suddenly, he had a loss of consciousness at home after which he was rushed to the AIIMS Delhi. Manmohan Singh was born on September 26, 1932. Apart from being an economist, he served as Reserve Bank of India governor from 1982-1985. Significantly, he was the 13th PM of India with his tenure from 2004-2014 and was the longest-serving PM after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
How Dr Manmohan Singh landed in politics
As University Grants Commission chairman, Dr Manmohan Singh had just returned from a conference in Netherlands when he received a call late in the night that changed India's economic landscape and his career trajectory.
In 1991, when PV Narasimha Rao took charge as the prime minister, the country fought a balance of payments crisis and political lows and the world was rattled by the fall of the Soviet Union. At this time, Dr Singh at that time was woken up by an "out of the blue" call from Rao's then principal secretary PC Alexander, who told him that he was the pick to be the finance minister.
"He also jokingly told me that if things worked well we would all claim credit, and if things didn't work out well I would be sacked," he said in the book 'Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan' written by his daughter Daman Singh.
Manmohan Singh was called to Rashtrapati Bhavan to take oath
In the same year in 1991 on June 21, Dr Manmohan Singh was called to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to take oath. This oath-taking was the beginning of a change in India's economic landscape as liberalisation opened up India's economy to the world, albeit after as skeptical Rao was persuaded by Dr Singh.
After this, Dr Manmohan Singh went on to also free most industries from licensing controls, amended the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, put in place a new taxation regime and ended the public sector's monopoly in many sectors.
Dignitaries pay last respect to Manmohan Singh
Various dignitaries including President Droupadi Murmu, PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday paid their last respects to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence in Delhi.
Dr Manmohan Singh, renowned for introducing the 1991 economic liberalisation reforms as the Finance Minister of India, will be cremated near Rajghat, at the location where the last rites of Prime Ministers are performed.
Serving as the finance minister of India in PV Narasimha Rao's government, Dr Manmohan Singh has been credited with economic liberalisation in the country in 1991. The reforms made the Indian economy more accessible to foreign investors, which increased FDI and reduced government control. They greatly contributed to the country's economic growth.
Manmohan Singh's government also introduced the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which later came to be known as MGNREGA. The Right to Information Act (RTI) was passed in 2005 under the Manmohan Singh government, which made the transparency of information between the government and the public better.
He retired from the Rajya Sabha earlier this year after serving for 33 years.