New Delhi:
Returning from a conference in the Netherlands, then University Grants Commission Chairman Dr. Manmohan Singh declared this the day he received the phone call that would change the economic landscape of India and the trajectory of his career. .
When PV Narasimha Rao assumed the post of Prime Minister in 1991, India faced a balance of payments crisis and political stagnation while the world was in turmoil with the collapse of the Soviet Union. At this time, Dr Singh was woken up by a “surprise” phone call from Mr Rao’s then chief secretary PC Alexander, informing him that Mr Rao had been selected as finance minister.
“He also jokingly said that if things went well he would claim credit for all of us, and if things went wrong I would be fired,” his daughter Daman wrote. In his book “Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan.” Shin. On June 21, 1991, Dr. Singh was at Rashtrapati Bhawan to take oath.
This oath was taken after Mr. Rao, who had been skeptical, was persuaded by Dr. Singh, but liberalization opened the Indian economy to the world and marked the beginning of major changes in India’s economic situation. “I had to convince him. I think he was skeptical at first, but later he realized that what we were doing was the right thing and there was no other way. But he wanted to sanctify the middle.”We should work towards liberalization, but we should also take care of the marginalized and the poor,” Dr. Singh said, according to his daughter’s book. Ta.
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Dr. Singh also freed most industries from licensing restrictions, amended the Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, introduced new tax policies, and ended public sector monopolies in many sectors.
Daman Singh’s book traces the life journey of the former prime minister and his wife Gursharan Kaur from the 1930s to 2004 and is based on conversations between Daman and her parents and time spent in libraries and archives.
The book’s anecdotes came into focus after Dr Singh passed away at the age of 92 at AIIMS Delhi on Thursday night.
