Former Indian PM Manmohan Singh dies, aged 92

Guardian Nigeria

The 92-year-old was praised for his "immense wisdom and integrity," having turned India into an economic powerhouse. But his tenure was stained by corruption allegations and high inflation.

Transcript

00:00He spent more than four decades in public service.

00:05Born into a poor family in 1932, he only landed in politics by accident.

00:13Manmohan Singh won scholarships to study economics at Cambridge and later at Oxford.

00:21By the time he returned to India in the late 60s, he was a renowned economist.

00:28He became India's central bank governor and started working with the government.

00:34He had no apparent plans to enter the world of politics,

00:38but was suddenly tapped to become finance minister in 1991 for the Indian National Congress Party.

00:46At the time, India was facing its worst economic crisis and was on the brink of default.

00:54He promised reforms that would break with India's Soviet-style, state-directed economy.

01:12Those reforms paved the way for unprecedented growth,

01:16brought millions of people out of poverty and raised the living standards for average Indians.

01:22Singh stuck to those policies during his first term as prime minister

01:27and even clinched a landmark deal that allowed for peaceful trade in nuclear energy with the United States,

01:35which helped build strong relations between Delhi and Washington.

01:40But his second term was shadowed by political wrangling within his own party and several corruption scandals.

01:48After ten years in the leading role, his party crashed into its worst ever result.

01:54The Hindu Nationalist Party, led by Narendra Modi, won a landslide in 2014.

02:01Singh then went on to become a vocal critic of Modi's economic policies.

02:08The Indian government has announced seven days of mourning along with a state funeral for him.

02:14All of us are in mourning. He was a great prime minister who served the nation as prime minister, finance minister.

02:21He was somebody who was a visionary, who did a great deal for the country.

02:25Singh is survived by his wife and three daughters.

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