India Announces State Funeral for Ex-PM Manmohan Singh

New Delhi: India Declares Seven Days of State Mourning Following Former PM Manmohan Singh’s Death
India has declared seven days of state mourning following the death of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who passed away at the age of 92 late Thursday evening in a New Delhi hospital. A state funeral will also be held in his honor, with the national flag flown at half-mast across the country.
Singh’s Contributions
Manmohan Singh was a modest technocrat credited with overseeing India’s economic liberalization in the early 1990s. During his first term, India’s economy grew rapidly, but his second term was marred by corruption scandals and economic slowdown.
A Distinguished Career
Born in 1932 in Gah village (now in Pakistan), Singh studied economics at Cambridge and Oxford, later serving in various high-ranking government positions, including as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. In 1991, he was appointed by then-Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao to steer India through its worst financial crisis. Under his leadership, the economy grew at a rate of 9% during his first term.