Today, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh turned 85 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi wished him, in a Tweet, on his birthday and hoped he has a long life.
The tweet read, “Warm birthday wishes to our former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. May he lead a long life filled with good health.”
Manmohan Singh held the post as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014 during the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) regime.
In honor of the most educated Prime Minister India has had, here are a few interesting facts about Manmohan Singh.
1. In 1991, Mr. Singh joined politics and played the role of the country’s Finance Minister under Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao.
2. Manmohan Singh was the man that helped usher in liberalization and privatization of the Indian economy.
3. Singh was the first Sikh to be voted as Prime Minister and also the first Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re elected after the first term of five years.
4. Manmohan Singh was not born into wealth and lived his young years in a village that did not have a school. As education was important young Manmohan walked miles every day just to study at school.
5. The village he lived in had no electricity and he would study for hours under a kerosene lamp.
6. Manmohan Singh studied at Cambridge and has also been extremely shy. His entire course at the college he spent bathing with cold water. He explained that he was the only Sikh in the boy’s hospital and was conscious of his long hair. While all the boys bathed when hot water was available Singh would wait till no one was bathing and only cold water was available to bathe.
7. Manmohan Singh worked at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development from 1966 to 1969 under well known economist Raul Prebisch. It was then he was offered a job as a professor at Delhi School of Economics and decided to quit his job and return to India
8. While Singh was teaching in Amritsar he was offered to join then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s government. But he has principles and declined the job as he made a commitment to teaching at the college.
9. Manmohan Singh is a brilliant economics student and played the role of director of the Reserve Bank of India from 1976 to 1980. He was also the governor of RBI from 1982 to 1985.
10. Singh can not read Hindi and all his Hindi speeches were written in Urdu. He has also admitted that his first T.V., speech took him three days to practice.
11. 26th September is most likely not Manmohan Singh’s birth date as his grandmother gave the first date that popped in her head while entering him into school.
