Manmohan Singh’s decisions that shaped a billion lives | Global News Avenue

The people of India are reflecting on former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s contribution to the country since he took office He died Thursday night.

Singh, who held the top job for two terms between 2004 and 2014, is seen as the architect of India’s economic liberalization, which changed the country’s growth trajectory.

Singh was the first prime minister to return to power since Jawaharlal Nehru and the first Sikh to hold the top job.

Known as a soft-spoken technocrat, he has previously served as governor of the Reserve Bank of India, finance minister and minister, and led the opposition in the upper house of parliament.

Here are five milestones in Singh’s life that shaped his career and had a lasting impact on more than a billion Indians.

Singh was appointed finance minister in 1991 by the Congress-led government of Prime Minister PV Narsimha Rao.

At the time, the Indian economy was facing a severe financial crisis and the country’s foreign exchange reserves were dangerously low, barely enough to cover two weeks of imports.

Singer led the initiative to deregulate the economy to avoid an economic collapse that he believed was otherwise imminent. Singh won despite strong opposition from government and party members.

He took bold steps, including currency devaluation, lowering import tariffs and privatizing state-owned enterprises.

In his first budget speech in Parliament in 1991, he famously quoted: “No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”.

Later, as prime minister, Singh continued to pursue economic reform measures that lifted millions of Indians out of poverty and contributed to India’s emergence as one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies.

The Congress made a comeback in the 2004 elections, unexpectedly defeating the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Congress president Sonia Gandhi is widely expected to lead the government, but many members of the outgoing ruling party have questioned the fact that she was born in Italy. She declined to accept the position and instead put forward the name of Singer, who was seen as a non-controversial, consensus candidate with good personal integrity.

He helped his party win a greater mandate in the following parliamentary elections, but critics often called him a “remote-control” prime minister run by the Gandhi family.

Singer has often declined to comment on such accusations, focusing on his work.

He may have begun his first term as prime minister somewhat reluctantly, but he quickly established his authority in the top job.

During Singh’s tenure, especially between 2004 and 2009, the country’s GDP grew at a healthy rate of around 8% on average, ranking second among major economies.

He made bold reform decisions and brought more foreign investment into the country. Experts credit him with insulating India from the 2008 global financial crisis.

But during his second term in alliance with a different party, some of his cabinet ministers were accused of corruption, although his personal integrity was never questioned.

Responding to the accusations, he told reporters at his final press conference as prime minister in 2014 that he hoped history would judge him differently.

“I sincerely believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the opposition in Parliament,” he said.

“I think I have done the best I can under the circumstances given the circumstances and the coercive power of the coalition government.”

As Prime Minister, Singh made several far-reaching decisions that still impact the health of Indian democracy today.

He proposed new laws that would strengthen and safeguard the right to seek information from the government, giving citizens extraordinary powers to hold officials accountable.

He also launched a rural employment program that guarantees livelihoods for at least 100 days, a measure that economists say has had a profound impact on rural incomes and poverty reduction.

He also enacted a law guaranteeing the right of children aged 6 to 14 to receive free and compulsory education, significantly reducing the dropout rate.

His government also launched a unique identity program called Aadhar to improve financial inclusion and provide benefits to the poor. The current federal government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to make Aadhar the cornerstone of many of its policies.

In 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for a military operation she ordered against separatists hiding in the Sikhs’ holiest temple in Amritsar, northern India.

Her death sparked widespread violence that resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 Sikhs and widespread destruction of property.

In 2005, Singh formally apologized to the nation in Parliament, calling the violence “a negation of the concept of nation enshrined in our constitution.”

“I have no hesitation in apologizing to the Sikh community. I apologize not only to the Sikh community but to the entire Indian nation,” he said.

No other Prime Minister, especially one from the Congress Party, has gone so far as to apologize for the riots in Parliament.

Singh signed a historic deal with the United States in 2008 to end India’s nuclear isolation after testing a weapons system in 1998.

His government believes the deal will help meet India’s growing energy needs and sustain its healthy growth rates.

The deal, seen as a watershed moment in India-US relations, promises to exempt India from civilian nuclear trade with the United States and other countries around the world.

But it has faced massive opposition, with critics saying the deal would undermine India’s sovereignty and foreign policy independence. In protest, the Left Front withdrew its support for the ruling coalition.

However, Singer succeededhis government and agreements.