Manmohan Singh

Dr. Manmohan Singh (, ) is the 14th, and current Prime Minister of India. He was born on 26 September, 1932, in Gah, West Punjab (now in Pakistan) and is a member of the left-of-centre Indian National Congress party. The first Sikh Indian prime minister, Singh was sworn in on May 22, 2004. He is a native Punjabi speaker.

Dr. Singh is an economist by trade, 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). He is the most educated Indian Prime Minister, in history. Singh is also known as a unassuming politician, enjoying a formidable, highly respected and admired image. Due to his work at the UN, International Monetary Fund and other international bodies, he is very highly respected in the world. He was awarded the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 2002. Before becoming prime minister, he served as the finance minister under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. He is widely credited for transforming the economy in the early 90s, during the financial crisis. He was leader of the opposition, of the Upper house, from 1998 - 2004 when India was governed by a coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Singh has been married since 1958; he and his wife, Mrs. Gursharan Kaur have three daughters. His economic policies - which included the reduction of several socialist policies - were popular, especially among the middle class. He enjoys strong support among the middle and educated classes of India due to his educational background. Singh lost his seat in the Lok Sabha from South Delhi in 1999. He is thus the only Indian Prime Minister never to have been an elected member of the Lower House of Parliament. He is also a member of the Rajya Sabha for Assam since 1991. Moreover, he has acted in the past as a political advisor to Sonia Gandhi.

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. 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.

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 entrusted the job to his long time colleague 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 at the behest of Congress party heavyweights.

Tenure as Prime Minister

Singh's image is of a formidable 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.

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.

Singh, the Politician

While Manmohan Singh has a long and illustrious past as an administrator, his role as a political figure has been relatively low-profile. He contested the Lok Sabha once in his career, when he lost to BJP candidate Vijay Kumar Malhotra from the South Delhi seat in 1999. Since 1991, he has been consistently re-nominated to the Rajya Sabha. In June of 2001, briefly following the Congress victory in the eastern state of Assam, space was made for his election to Rajya Sabha from that state. If the Congress loses power in Assam in 2006, he will almost certainly be re-nominated from another state.

While Singh is the dominant leader of the United Progressive Alliance government, Sonia Gandhi is considered by some as a partial background head of the Congress Party. Some of the Indian media have speculated that some of the ministers in Singh's cabinet have been nominated at the request of Mrs Gandhi. Singh has rarely made appearances during canvassing for the party, he stayed in the background during the 82nd All India Congress plenary in Hyderabad. The Leftist parties are supporting the government from outside but not directly. There has been strong criticism and condemnation in the Indian media, middle and educated classes over the unprofessional conduct of a small minority of ministers in his cabinet. Moreover, there is strong criticism and pressure on the UPA by the Indian media, to make it easier for the Prime Minster to sack incompetent & unprofessional ministers from his cabinet.

Singh is a soft-spoken man who has dealt with a major transition between comfortable administrative work and being India's political leader. This has been illustrated by his ability to influence & mingle with world leaders and become vocally critical of the opposition. His lack of involvement in political affairs has also meant that he has been able to dedicate himself to pet projects, especially on the financial front. It is his highly respected image which is expected to make Singh an highly-regarded choice of Prime Minister for the Congress, its allies, and the Leftist parties for the full five-year tenure.

Dr. Manmohan Singh's Cabinet

For complete list of the Indian cabinet see Indian Cabinet Ministers


MINISTRY	NAME

Prime Minister	Dr. Manmohan Singh
Finance Minister	P. Chidambaram
Defence	Pranab Mukherjee
Home Affairs	Shivraj Patil
Human Resource Development	Arjun Singh
Petroleum and Natural Gas	Murli Deora
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	Hansraj Bhardwaj
Parliamentary Affairs	Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi
Information & Broadcasting, Culture	S. Jaipal Reddy
Company Affairs	Prem Chand Gupta
Tourism	Ambika Soni
Urban Employment	Kumari Selja
Health and Family Welfare	Anbumani Ramadoss


Continued

MINISTRY	NAME

Shipping, Highways	Thiru Raju Baalu
Food Processing Industries	S. K. Sahay
Rural Development	Raghuvansh P. Singh
Water Resources	Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi
Textiles	Shankersinh Vaghela
Social Justice & Empowerment	Meira Kumar
Non-Conventional Energy	Vilas Muttemwar
Heavy Industries & PSEs	Sontosh Mohan Dev
Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs	Vayalar Ravi
Small Scale Industries	Mahavir Prasad
Railways	Lalu Prasad Yadav
Mines	Sis 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 External Affairs

Department of Atomic Energy

Department of Space

Dr. Manmohan Singh's Career

First Class Honours degree in Economics, University of Cambridge, (1957)
Punjab University, Chandigarh, India
- Senior Lecturer, Economics (1957-1959)
- Professor of International Trade (1969-1971)
- Reader (1959-1963)
- Professor (1963-1965)
D.Phil in Economics, Nuffield College at Oxford University, (1962)
Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
- Honorary Professor (1996)
Chief, Financing for Trade Section, UNCTAD, United Nations Secretariat,New York
- 1966 : Economic Affairs Officer 1966
Economic Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Trade, India (1971-1972)
Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, India, (1972-1976)
Honorary Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1976)
Director, Reserve Bank of India (1976-1980)
Director, Industrial Development Bank of India (1976-1980)
Secretary, Ministry of Finance (Department of Economic Affairs), Government of India, (1977-1980)
Governor, Reserve Bank of India (1982-1985)
Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India, (1985-1987)
Advisor to Prime Minister of India on Economic Affairs (1990-1991)
Finance Minister of India, (June 21, 1991 - May 15, 1996)
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha
Prime Minister of India (May 22,2004 - Present)

External links

Government of India Links

Prime Minister's Office - Official page includes Profile, etc.
ManmohanSingh.org
Prime Minister's profile at the Government of India website
List of current Union Ministers, includes the portfolios held by the Prime Minister.

Other Sites

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