Former Prime Minister and revered economist, Late Dr. Manmohan Singh has been conferred the P V Narasimha Rao Memorial Award for Economics for his contribution to India’s economic landscape and nation-building.
The Hyderabad-based PV Narasimha Rao Memorial Foundation (PVNMF) said in a statement that the award was received by Dr. Singh’s wife, Gursharan Kaur, in New Delhi last week.
The award was conferred by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former deputy chairman of the erstwhile Planning Commission and distinguished fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress.
The P V Narasimha Rao Memorial Award for Economics was instituted by the PVNMF to recognise outstanding contributions in the field of economics. The foundation’s president, K Ramchandra Murthy, and General Secretary, Madhamchetty Anil Kumar, were also present at the ceremony.
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Known as the architect of economic reform, Dr. Manmohan Singh was one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers of India, being in the post from 2004-2014.
The first Sikh to hold the country’s top post, he was also the only other Indian leader after Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after serving a full first term.
Born on September 26, 1932, in the Punjab, he studied at the Panjab University before undertaking a Master’s Degree at the University of Cambridge and then a DPhil at Oxford.
Singh became India’s finance minister in 1991, taking over as the country was plunging into bankruptcy.
In his maiden speech as finance minister he famously quoted Victor Hugo, saying that "no power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come".
Singh’s efforts at economic revival bore fruit, with the country’s economy picking up, foreign investment pouring in, inflation reversing and growth rates rising.
In his first innings as the Prime Minister of India, he was instrumental in signing a landmark deal that secured access to American nuclear technology.
He had advised the reigning government during an interview in 2020 to provide direct cash assistance to people, make capital available for businesses, and fix the financial sector to reverse the damage inflicted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
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