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Dr. Manmohan Singh (Gurmukhi:
ਮਨਮੋਹਨ
ਸਿੰਘ, Devanagari:
मनमोहन
सिंह) is the fourteenth,
and current, Prime Minister of India|Prime
Minister of India. He was born on 26 September,
1932, Gah, West Punjab (now in Pakistan) and is
member of the left-of-centre Indian National
Congress party. A Sikh by faith, Singh was sworn
in on May 22, 2004.

A rather low-key politician, Manmohan Singh enjoys
a "squeaky clean" image and was advisor to
opposition chief Sonia Gandhi throughout the
election campaign in 2004 and their time in the
opposition. He was awarded the Outstanding
Parliamentarian Award in 2002. Singh's elevation
to the most important national office came when
Sonia Gandhi herself refused to take the top job,
in view of the massive opposition she could have
faced on account of her Italian antecedents.
Although many critics and opposition leaders
routinely criticize Gandhi as being the real
power, or indeed a de-facto ruler, Singh is held
in high esteem, and regard, all over the country
and the world. 

Singh has been married since 1958; he and his wife
have three daughters.  

==Economic Reforms==
Singh is  regarded as the architect of India's
original economic reform programme. His policies
of economic liberalization, serving in his
capacity as Finance Minister under the government
of Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s, brought the
country back from a looming economic bankruptcy.
Now the country is enjoying record economic growth
on the foundations laid by him. Singh is an
economist by training, and has formerly served in
the International Monetary Fund. He was educated
at Nuffield College, Oxford, St John's College,
Cambridge and Punjab University; he holds a
doctorate in economics from Oxford.

Although his economic policies - which included 
the reduction of several redundant socialist
policies - were widely popular, especially among
the middle class, Singh lost his seat to the Lok
Sabha from South Delhi in 1999. He was also a
member of the Rajya Sabha from Assam since 1991
and the upper house leader of the opposition from
1998 - 2004 when India was governed by the
right-of-center Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP.

Although an economic modernization plan presented
by Singh was rejected by the Congress Party, which
avowed itself to socialism, the reforms he
introduced are regarded as primarily responsible
for the present economic boom the country enjoys,
and considered irreversible in face of the real
progress achieved. 

==Ascent to Power==

Dr. Manmohan Singh, an economic bureaucrat, was
the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India in the
late 1980s. In 1991, he was asked to head the
Finance Ministry by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao,
who was aware of an acute economic crisis due to
decades of stagnant socialist policies and a
government riddled by fractious alliances,
corruption and imcompetence. The crisis was so bad
that the Government was about to mortgage its gold
reserves to the Bank of England to obtain the cash
reserves to run the country. All this while more
than 400 million people starved and struggled in
poverty and miserable living conditions. 

Achieving an economic turn-around in two years,
Dr. Singh was hailed as a hero, although the Rao
administration was unpopular thanks to scandals,
its parliamentary status as a minority government,
and religious violence all over the country.
Although its dissolution in 1996 marked the end of
Rao's political career, Dr. Singh exited without
bruises. 

Dr. 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-Gandhi dynasty and a
foreigner for political leadership had no future
or potential to look forward to. But Singh
continued as a prominent leader, rising in
confidence and 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 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 but
in a surprise move, declined to accept the post
and instead nominated Dr. Manmohan Singh as Prime
Minister. There were protests within the Congress
about her refusal but eventually people accepted
her decision and the allies too accepted her
choice. Singh secured the nomination for prime
minister on May 19, 2004 when President of
India|President Abdul Kalam|A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
officially asked him to form a government.
Although most expected him to head the Finance
Ministry himself, he did not do so. His political
mentor Sonia Gandhi retains absolute control over
the MPs and organization of the Congress Party. 

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.

==Tenure as Prime Minister==



Singh has been Prime Minister for little over a
year, and his remains a fairly popular government.
His image is of an intellectual, a political
leader of integrity (a common public perception
denounces virtually every other as corrupt and
tainted), compassionate and attentive to common
people. 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 its major economic
expansion course since 2002. Being a Sikh from a
secular-socialist party, Singh has been the image
of the Congress campaign to defuse religious
tensions and conflicts and bolster political
support from minorities like Muslims, Christians,
and of course, Sikhs.

The Prime Minister's foreign policy has been to
continue the new peace process with Pakistan
initiated by his predecessor, Atal Behari
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. Plans to expand the
Council and reform the U.N. did not empower the
nation's role as an Asian leader, although foreign
leaders and its own hail it as the next Asian
economic and strategic giant. 

===Cabinet===

{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4"
style="margin:3px; border:3px solid #000000;"
align="left"
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|MINISTRY||align="left"|NAME
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|Prime Minister of India|Prime Minister ||
Manmohan Singh  
|-
|Finance Minister || P. Chidambaram 
|-
|Defence || Pranab Mukherjee 
|-
|External Affairs || K. Natwar Singh 
|-
|Home Affairs || Shivraj Patil
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|Petroleum and Natural Gas || Mani Shankar Aiyar  
|-
|Civil Aviation || Praful Patel  
|-
|Commerce and Industry || Kamal Nath  
|-
|Human Resource Development || Arjun Singh  
|-
|Agriculture, Consumer Affairs || Sharad Pawar 
|-
|Science and Technology || Kapil Sibal 
|-
|Communications and IT || Dayanidhi Maran 
|-
|Law and Justice || H. R. Bhardwaj 
|-
|Parliamentary Affairs || Ghulam Nabi Azad 
|-
|I&B, Culture || S. Jaipal Reddy 
|-
|Comapany Affairs || Prem Chand Gupta 
|-
|Tourism || Renuka Chowdhury
|-
|Statistics & Program Implementation || Oscar
Fernandes
|-
|Urban Employment || Kumari Selja
|-
|Health and Family Welfare || Anbumani Ramadoss
|}

{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4"
style="margin:3px; border:3px solid #000000;"
align="right"
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|Continued
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|Shipping, Highways || T. R. Baalu
|-
|Food Processing Industries || S. K. Sahay
|-
|Overseas Indian Affairs || Jagdish Tytler
|-
|Rural Development || Raghuvansh P. Singh
|-
|Water Resources || P. R. Dasmunshi
|-
|Power || P. M. Sayeed
|-
|Textiles || Shankersinh Vaghela
|-
|Social Justice & Empowerment || Meira Kumar
|-
|Non-Conventional Energy || Vilas Muttemwar
|-
|Heavy Industries & PSEs || Santosh Mohan Dev
|-
|Chemicals, Fertilizers, Steel || Ram Vilas Paswan
|-
|Small Scale Industries || Mahavir Prasad
|-
|Railways || Lalu Prasad Yadav
|-
|Mines || Sish Ram Ola
|-
|Labour and Employment || K. C. Rao
|-
|Tribal Affairs, Doner || P. R. Kyndiah
|-
|Environment and Forests || A. Raja   
|}



==Career==

* First Class Honours degree in Economics,
University of Cambridge, (1957)
* Punjab University, Chandigarh, India
** Senior Lecturer, Economics (1957-1959)
** Reader (1959-1963)
** Professor (1963-1965)
* D.Phil in Economics, Nuffield College,
Oxford|Nuffield College at Oxford University,
(1962)
* Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
** Professor of International Trade (1969-1971)
** Honorary Professor (1996)
* 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)

start box
succession box|
  before=Dr. I G Patel|
  title=List of RBI governors|Governor of the
Reserve Bank of India|
  years=1982–1985|
  after=A Ghosh

succession box|
  before=Atal Behari Vajpayee|
  title=Prime Minister of India|
  years=2004–|
  after=Current Incumbent

end box

==External links==
* http://pmindia.nic.in/ Prime Minister's Office -
Official page includes
http://pmindia.nic.in/meet.htm profile, etc
*
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/372535
7.stm India's architect of reforms - BBC NEWS
*
http://www.nilacharal.com/enter/celeb/manmohansing
h.html Profile of Manmohan Singh from Nilacharal

Prime Ministers of India