10 contributions of Manmohan Singh
Answers
Answer:
Manmohan Singh, (born September 26, 1932, Gah, West Punjab, India [now in Pakistan]), Indian economist and politician, who served as prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. A Sikh, he was the first non-Hindu to occupy the office.
Singh attended Panjab University in Chandigarh and the University of Cambridge in Great Britain. He later earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Oxford. In the 1970s he was named to a series of economic advisory posts with the Indian government and became a frequent consultant to prime ministers. Singh also worked at the Reserve Bank of India, serving as director (1976–80) and governor (1982–85). When he was named finance minister in 1991, the country was on the verge of an economic collapse. Singh devalued the rupee, lowered taxes, privatized state-run industries, and encouraged foreign investment, reforms that helped transform the country’s economy and spark an economic boom. A member of the Indian National Congress, he joined the Rajya Sabha (upper chamber of Parliament) in 1991. Singh, who served as finance minister until 1996, ran for the Lok Sabha (lower chamber) in 1999 but was defeated.
Chandigarh. Statuettes at the Rock Garden of Chandigarh a sculpture park in Chandigarh, India, also known as Nek Chand's Rock Garden. Created by Nek Chand Saini an Indian self taught artist. visionary artist, folk artist, environmental art
BRITANNICA QUIZ
Explore India Quiz
Delhi lies on which river? How many countries border India? In what state is Bengaluru? Explore India’s vibrant geography and history with this quiz.
Congress won the May 2004 parliamentary elections, defeating the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Congress’s leader, Sonia Gandhi (widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi), declined the prime ministership, instead recommending Singh for the post. Singh subsequently formed a government and took office. His stated goals included helping improve conditions for India’s poor (who generally had not benefited from the country’s economic growth), securing peace with neighbouring Pakistan, and improving relations between India’s various religious groups.
Singh presided over a rapidly expanding economy, but rising fuel costs precipitated a marked increase in inflation that threatened the government’s ability to provide subsidies for the country’s poor. In an effort to meet India’s growing energy demands, Singh in 2005 entered into negotiations with U.S. President George W. Bush for a nuclear cooperation pact. The deal called for India to receive fuel technology for nuclear plants and be given the ability to purchase nuclear fuel on the world market. Abroad, the prospective cooperation agreement was resisted by those who were upset over India’s refusal to sign the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; in India, Singh was criticized for fostering too close a relationship with the United States, which, his critics believed, would use the deal to leverage power in the Indian government. By 2008 progress on the deal prompted members of the government’s Parliamentary majority—communist parties in particular—to denounce Singh’s government and ultimately push for a confidence vote in Parliament in late July 2008. Singh’s government narrowly survived the vote, but the process was marred by allegations—on both sides—of corruption and the purchasing of votes.
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh, 2007.
Ricardo Stuckert/Agência Brasil
In the parliamentary elections of May 2009, Congress increased its number of seats in the legislature, and Singh took office as prime minister for a second time. A slowing of India’s economic growth and further allegations of corruption against Congress Party officials hampered governance during Singh’s second term, however, and led to a deterioration of the party’s popularity with the voting population. In early 2014 Singh announced that he would not seek a third term as prime minister in the elections to the Lok Sabha that spring. He left office on May 26, the same day that Narendra Modi of the BJP was sworn in as prime minister.
Singh, Manmohan
Singh, Manmohan
Manmohan Singh.
U.S. Department of Defense
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
Answer:
Manmohan Singh is an economist and politician, who served as India’s Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014. He is the country’s first Sikh Prime Minister, and the only one since Jawaharlal Nehru to be elected for a consecutive term after serving a full term of five years.
Manmohan Singh was born in Gah (Punjab, Pakistan) on 26th September 1932, but migrated to Amritsar, India with his parents post-partition. He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Hindu College in 1952, and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the Punjab University which was located in Hoshiarpur.
The act was enacted as a drive to the nation’s economic growth with a view of attracting investments into the country, and through the generation of foreign exchange through the export of goods and services.
The objectives of the act were; to provide a legal framework for establishing Special Economic Zones and its units, to generate additional economic activity by promoting goods and services and generating foreign and domestic investments, and to provide ‘backward and forward’ linkages of the economy by the satisfying the requirements of all the stakeholders in an SEZ.
II. Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005
The Right to Information Act of 2005, or RTI Act, is an act that aims to promote transparency in government institutions in India. The act was conceived in 2005, after persistent efforts of anti-corruption activists.
RTI Act was made through legislation of the Parliament on 15th June 2005. It came into effect on 12th October 2005, and has been implemented since to provide information to all the citizens of India. Since all constitutional authorities fall under this act, it becomes one of the most powerful laws in the country.
III. National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) Act 2005
The government of India, under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s leadership introduced the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005, which is a social security scheme that aims at providing livelihood, sustenance and employment to rural communities and labourers in India. NREGA ensures income security to rural families by providing a minimum of 100 days of definite wage employment in one year.
This scheme of wage employment is available for adults who’ve volunteered for unskilled manual labour.
NREGA was passed as an Indian Labour Law being implemented in 200 districts across India on 2nd February 2006. More districts were covered, later in April 2008, when the scheme was renamed to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
IV. Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, or JNNURM for short, was a large-scale city-modernisation drive launched by the government of India, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh under the Ministry of Urban Development.
The scheme accounted for a total of $20 billion over seven years.
The scheme was inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 3rd December 2005. This scheme was set up as a program to improve the quality of life and infrastructure in cities. The scheme was initially launched in 2005 for a seven-year period to initiate steps for bringing phased improvements in civic service level.
The aims of JNNURM were to create ‘economically productive, efficient, equitable and responsive cities’ by a strategy of upgrading the social and economic infrastructure of in cities, thereby also providing Basic Service to Urban Poor (BSUP).
V. Improvements to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
In 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reviewed two flagship programs; the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the mid-day meals scheme. The meeting was also attended by then Human Resource Development Minister, Arjun Singh, and then Minister of State, Prithviraj Chavan; along with senior officials of the PMO, HRD and Planning Commission.
VI. Mobile Number Portability (MNP) 2011
In 2011, the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh launched the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service, after making a call to the then Union Minister of Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal, from a ported number.
VII. Indo-US Nuclear Deal
Perhaps, one of the biggest achievements of India under the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was the signing of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal or the India Civil Nuclear Agreement. The framework for this agreement between India and the US was made in a joint statement by Manmohan Singh and the then President of United States of America, George W. Bush.
VIII. Elimination of Polio Endemic
Health authorities in India had recorded 741 patients paralysed by the polio virus in 2009, and the number dropped to 42 in 2010. However, they reported that they detected no new patients since January 2011.
IX. GDP clocked at 10.08%
According to the back series data on GDP prepared by the Committee on Real Sector Statistics, constituted by the National Statistics Commission, India clocked at a 10.08% growth rate in 2006-2007 under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government.