The great liberaliser: Manmohan Singh dies at 92
Hindustan TimesManmohan Singh, a soft-spoken scholar of economics, who defeated poverty with education to rise to the highest echelon of politics, and transformed the Indian economy by unshackling growth as finance minister before becoming the country’s first Sikh prime minister, died in New Delhi on Thursday night. Singh served with distinction as the deputy chief of the erstwhile Planning Commission and governor of the Reserve Bank of India before completing a landmark tenure as a Union finance minister who unveiled watershed reforms in 1991 that inaugurated India’s journey as a major world economy. “With profound grief, we inform the demise of former prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, aged 92,” said a press statement by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where the ailing leader was admitted earlier in the day with complications. “Undoubtedly, history shall judge you kindly, Dr. Manmohan Singh ji!” Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said in a post on X.