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Manmohan Singh

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Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh
Appointed PM May 23, 2004
PM Predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Date of Birth September 26, 1932
Place of Birth Gah, West Punjab, Pakistan
Political Party Congress (I)
Profession Economist
Tenure Order 14th Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh (Template:Lang-pa, Template:Lang-hi) is the fourteenth, and current, Prime Minister of India. He was born on 26 September, 1932, Gah, West Punjab (now in Pakistan) and is member of the left-of-centre Indian National Congress party. The first Sikh Indian prime minister, Singh was sworn in on May 22, 2004.

Singh is an economist by training, and has formerly served in the International Monetary Fund. His economics education included an undergraduate (1952) and a master's degree (1954) from Punjab University; an undergraduate degree (1957) from Cambridge University (St. John's College); and a doctorate (1962) from Oxford University (Nuffield College). Singh is also known as a low-key politician, enjoying an image as "squeaky clean." He was awarded the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 2002. Singh is held in high esteem, and regard, all over the country and the world. Before becoming prime minister, he served as an advisor to opposition leader Sonia Gandhi and as the finance minister under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.

Singh has been married since 1958; he and his wife, Mrs. Gursharan Kaur have three daughters.

Although his economic policies - which included the reduction of several redundant socialist policies - were widely popular, especially among the middle class, Singh lost his seat in the Lok Sabha from South Delhi in 1999. He was also a member of the Rajya Sabha from Assam since 1991 and the upper house leader of the opposition from 1998 - 2004 when India was governed by the right-of-centre Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP.

Economic Reforms and Ascent to Power

Singh served as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India in the late 1980s, and was elevated to finance minister in 1991 by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.

Singh is widely regarded as the architect of India's original economic reform programme which was enacted in 1991 under Rao's administration. He was mentored by earlier PM Rao .The economic liberalization package pushed by Singh and Rao opened the nation to foreign direct investment and reduced the red tape that had previously impeded business growth. The liberalization was prompted by an acute balance-of-payments crisis whereby the Indian government was left without sufficient reserves to meet its obligations, and had begun preparations to mortgage its gold reserves to the Bank of England in order to obtain the cash reserves needed to run the country.

Many see the 1991 liberalization as the first of a series of economic liberalizations throughout the 1990s and 2000s that have raised India's growth rates substantially since the early 1990s. Despite its economic liberalization policies, Rao's government was defeated in the next election because Rao and other top ministers were widely seen as corrupt. Singh, however, was able to escape with minimal harm to his reputation as a reformer.

Opposition and 2004 Election

Singh stayed with the Congress Party despite continuous marginalization and defeats in the elections of 1996, 1998 and 1999. He did not join the rebels in a major split which occurred in 1999, when many major Congress leaders objected to Sonia Gandhi's rise as Congress President and Leader of the Opposition. Being touted as the Congress choice for the PM's job, she became a target for nationalists who objected to her Italian birth. It seemed that a party which turned to old links to the Nehru family and a foreigner for political leadership had no future or potential to look forward to. But Singh continued to stay on as a leader within the party, most notably helping to revamp the party's platform and organization.

The Congress alliance won a surprisingly high number of seats in the Parliamentary elections of 2004, owing largely to a nationwide disenchantment of millions of poorer citizens with the BJP's focus on the surging middle-class, and also its dismal record in handling religious tensions. The Left Front decided to support a Congress alliance government from outside in order to keep the "communal forces" out of power. Sonia Gandhi was elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party and was expected to become the Prime Minister. In a surprise move, she declined to accept the post and instead nominated Singh. Singh secured the nomination for prime minister on May 19, 2004 when President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam officially asked him to form a government. Although most expected him to head the Finance Ministry himself, he gave the job instead to [P.Chidambaram]].

His appointment is notable as it comes 20 years after India witnessed significant tensions between the Indian central government and the Punjabi Sikh community. After Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the mother-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, ordered central government troops to storm the Golden Temple (the holiest site in Sikhism) in Amritsar, Punjab to quell a separatist movement, she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. The result was a tremendous nationwide crisis in which many innocent Sikhs were murdered in riots.

Tenure as Prime Minister

File:Manmohan singh with bush.jpg
Manmohan Singh with US President Bush at Oval Office.

Since May 2004, Singh has presided over a fairly popular government. His self-composed image is of an intellectual, a political leader of integrity (a prevalent stereotypical public perception denounces most national bureaucracies as corrupt and tainted), someone who is compassionate and attentive to common people, and as a recognised technocrat. Although legislative achievements have been few and the Congress-led alliance is routinely hampered by conflicts and scandals, Singh's administration has focused on reducing the fiscal deficit, providing debt-relief to poor farmers, extending social programs and advancing the pro-industry economic and tax policies that have launched the country on a major economic expansion course since 2002. Singh has been the image of the Congress campaign to defuse religious tensions and conflicts and bolster political support from minorities like Muslims and Christians.

Mexican president Vicente Fox and Manmohan Singh

The Prime Minister's foreign policy has been to continue the new peace process with Pakistan initiated by his predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Exchange visits by top leaders from both countries have highlighted this year, as has reduced terrorism and increased prosperity in the state of Kashmir. The peace process has also been used by the government to build stronger relations with the United States, China and European nations.

But the Government suffered a setback when it lost the support of a key ally, Russia, for its bid for a permanent membership to the U.N. Security Council with veto privileges. Plans to expand the Council and reform the U.N. did not empower the nation's role as an Asian leader, although foreign leaders and its own hail it as the next Asian economic and strategic giant; Albeit, after all, representing 1/6 of the global population and, measured by the PPP, the fourth largest economy in the world. Media reports usually cite India as Asia's third largest economy (after Japan and China), as the more conventional measure of nominal GDP is used to compute this ranking.

Cabinet

MINISTRY NAME
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram
Defence Pranab Mukherjee
Home Affairs Shivraj Patil
Human Resource Development Arjun Singh
Petroleum and Natural Gas Mani Shankar Aiyar
Civil Aviation Praful Patel
Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath
Agriculture, Consumer Affairs Sharad Pawar
Chemicals, Fertilizers, Steel Ram Vilas Paswan
Communications and IT Dayanidhi Maran
Law and Justice H. R. Bhardwaj
Parliamentary Affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad
Information & Broadcasting Minister of India, Culture S. Jaipal Reddy
Company Affairs Prem Chand Gupta
Tourism Renuka Chowdhury
Urban Employment Kumari Selja
Health and Family Welfare Anbumani Ramadoss
Continued
Shipping, Highways T. R. Baalu
Food Processing Industries S. K. Sahay
Rural Development Raghuvansh P. Singh
Water Resources P. R. Dasmunshi
Power P. R. Dasmunshi
Textiles Shankersinh Vaghela
Social Justice & Empowerment Meira Kumar
Non-Conventional Energy Vilas Muttemwar
Heavy Industries & PSEs Santosh Mohan Dev
Small Scale Industries Mahavir Prasad
Railways Lalu Prasad Yadav
Mines Sish Ram Ola
Labour and Employment K. C. Rao
Tribal Affairs, Doner P. R. Kyndiah
Environment and Forests A. Raja


Other Portfolios currently held by Dr.Manmohan Singh

Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
Ministry of Planning
Ministry of Coal
Ministry of External Affairs
Department of Atomic Energy
Department of Space

Career

Preceded by Governor of the Reserve Bank of India
1982–1985 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Prime Minister of India
2004– 		Succeeded by
Current Incumbent
Preceded by Deputy chairperson of the planning commission of India
1985–1987 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Finance ministers of India
1991–1996 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chairperson of the planning commission of India
2004– 		Succeeded by
Current Incumbent
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