Singh, Manmohan (1932– )

Indian politician and economist, prime minister from 2004. A member of the Sikh faith, Singh became India's first non-Hindu prime minister – heading a Congress party-led coalition government – after the Congress leader Sonia Gandhi refused to take up the post after victory in the 2004 general election. The market-centred and deregulatory economic reforms he introduced as finance minister 1991–96, and continued during his premiership, rescued India from a balance-of-payments crisis by opening up the country to foreign investment. The reforms ushered in a period of rapid and sustained economic growth. Singh's government has focused on solid economic management and using some of the fruits of economic growth to extend social programmes and provide debt relief to poor farmers.

Born in Gah, in what is now Pakistan, Singh studied economics at Cambridge and Oxford universities in England and taught economics at Punjab University in Chandigarh, India, and the Delhi School of Economics 1957–71. He went on to become a successful senior administrator at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Indian Ministry of Finance, and governor of the Reserve Bank of India (1982–85). He has been a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, since 1995, but has never won a direct election – when he contested a seat for India's lower house, the Lok Sabha, in 1999, he was defeated.