Prime Minister Manmohan Singh turns 80 today

mangaloretoday.com/ DHNS

New Delhi, Sept 25: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a reluctant birthday boy, turns 80 Wednesday but will spend the day working as he has done in the past, officials said.

A workaholic, the prime minister has shied away from celebrations on his birthday but there have been occasions when he has cut a cake on board his special aircraft during foreign trips.

 

 

 

The prime minister will Wednesday give away the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awards and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) awards on the organisation’s 70th Foundation Day function. The prime minister is the president of CSIR, whose foundation day coincides with his birthday.

The prime minister last week embarked on a series of bold economic measures, including allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and a cap on the number of cooking gas cylinders.

The decisions, including a hike in diesel prices, cost the government support of the Trinamool Congress. However, the prime minister reached out to people in a nationally televised address last Friday and told them that the economic policy decisions had been taken in the country’s long term interests.

 

 

He compared the vehement opposition to FDI in retail to the situation in 1991 when the government opened the country to foreign investment in manufacturing and said the opposition tactics had failed then and will fail now.

Manmohan Singh, who has been prime minister since 2004, had also weathered the political storm when the Left parties withdrew support to the government over the India-US nuclear deal during the UPA-I government.

 

Born in 1932 in Gah Begal village in what is now Punjab province of present-day Pakistan, Manmohan Singh’s birthday falls on Sep 26 because his parents had given it as his date of birth to get him admitted in school.
His family shifted to India during partition.

"Sep 26 is shown in the school records as my date of birth," Manmohan Singh had said when asked about it.

The prime minister has celebrated his birthday mid-air on four occasions.

He had cut a cake on his 77th birthday while on board Air India One enroute to Pittsburgh from Geneva and had also done so last year on his flight back from Frankfurt.



Early life and career:

Manmohan Singh was born to Gurmukh Singh and Amrit Kaur on 26 September 1932, in Gah, Punjab (presently, part of Pakistan).

His family moved over to India after the partition of India. He got master’s degree in Economics from Hindu College, Amritsar. He got his doctorate from Oxford in Economics. He began his bureaucratic career when Lalit Narayan Mishra, the then Union Minister, hired him as an advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Trade .

He went on to hold several key posts in the Government of India, such as Chief Economic Advisor (1972–76), Reserve Bank Governor (1982–85) and Planning Commission head (1985–87).

 

 

His political journey began in 1991 when the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao inducted him in his cabinet as Finance Minsiter.

It was the time when India was facing severe economic crisis. Manmohan introduced the much needed economic reforms in India. He is remembered as the pioneer of economic liberalization in India.

 

 

In 2004, Sonia Gandhi handed over to him the reins of power after the congress party led UPA emerged victorius. Manmohan became the 13th prime Minister of India. He ran the government successfully for full five years.
UPA got people’s mandate for the second time in succession in 2009 under Manmohan’s leadership. Manmohan became the first Prime Minister after Jawahar Lal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term.