Dr. Manmohan Singh

Dr. Manmohan Singh, the World renowned Economist and Politician, who served as the First Sikh Prime Minister of India from 2004-2014 with the distinction of getting re-election after completing a full five year term after Shri Jawaharlal Nehru. He was born on 26th September 1932 at Gah (Now in Punjab, Pakistan) in the house of S. Gurmukh Singh and Amrit Kaur. He lost his mother when he was very young and was raised by his paternal grandmother. His family migrated to India during its partition in 1947. He studied at Hindu College, Amritsar and after completing his Post Graduation went to get his Doctorate in Economics from Oxford. Singh worked for the United Nations during 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 70’s and 80’s, Singh held several key posts in t he Government of India, such as Chief Economic Advisor (1972-76), Reserve Bank Governor (1982-85) and Planning Commission Head (1985-87). When Shri P.V. Narsimha Rao invited him to join as the Finance Minister of India in 1991, he wrote a new Chapter in the history of the Country by carrying out several structural reforms that librated India’s economy.

The Economic policies brought in by him are still being followed even during the present regime of Bhartiya Janta Party. Although, the second term of the UPA under his Prime Ministership is generally criticized because of corruption charges against many persons, it is admitted by everyone that Dr. Manmohan Singh, at one point of time, the most educated Prime Minister in the World has always worked with highest sense of honesty and dedication. He is a great role model for the Sikhs not merely because he held such positions which made the identity of the Sikhs known to the people of the World and made them proud, but also because he is one of the few persons who possess a large number of those qualities which our Gurus have prescribed for a Gursikh, viz honesty, truthfulness, dedication, soft speech and a helping attitude for all in the true spirit of SARBAT DA BHALA. The role model Gursikh, former Prime Minister of India is presently the Member of Rajya Sabha and lives in Delhi with his wife Gursharan Kaur (born on 13th September 1937 in Jalandhar) who is a well known person in the Sikh community for her Kirtan singing. Their three daughters namely Upinder, Daman and Amrit are successful in their non-political careers. Upinder Singh is a professor of history at Delhi University. She has written six books, including ‘Ancient Delhi’ (1999) and ‘A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India’ (2008). Daman Singh is a graduate of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat, and author of ‘The Last Frontier : People andb Forests in Mizoram’ and a novel ‘Nine by Nine’. Amrit Singh is a staff attorney at the ACLU.