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. The market-centred economic reforms he introduced as finance minister 1991-96 rescued the country from looming economic bankruptcy and ushered in a period of rapid and sustained economic growth.

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 the Reserve Bank of India. He has been a leader of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, since 2001, but when he contested a seat for India's lower house, the Lok Sabha, in 1999 he was defeated.