Manmohan 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. He was 92.
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. The country's 14th prime minister is survived by his wife, Gursharan Kaur, and three daughters Upinder Singh, Daman Singh, and Amrit Singh.
"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.
The statement said he was being treated for age-related illnesses when he fell unconscious at home on Thursday. He was admitted to the hospital at 8.06 pm and was declared dead at 9.51 pm.
Counted among India's most erudite political thinkers, Singh was revered around the world for his academic acumen and won myriad accolades. As PM between 2004 and 2014, he instituted a string of social protection schemes that boosted rural wages and bolstered marginalized communities, stood his ground to forge the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal in 2008 that presaged a close relationship between the world's two great democracies, and won global praise for his handling of the 2008 global financial crisis.
But the second half of his tenure was bruised by a blizzard of corruption allegations, policy paralysis, and deep dissension inside his government that tarnished his legacy and led him to famously pronounce that history will be kinder to him.
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