Manmohan Singh Birthday: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s birthday is tomorrow i.e. Thursday (26 September). He was born on 26 September 1932 in the Punjab province of undivided India, which is now a part of Pakistan. Tomorrow he will turn 92 years old. Dr. Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister of the country from 2004 to 2014. Before that he has also been the Finance Minister in Narasimha Rao’s government.
The former PM’s family includes his wife Gursharan Kaur and three daughters. Dr. Singh is also known for playing an important role in the economic reforms in the country while he was the Finance Minister in 1991. For this, his supporters and opponents alike consider him their hero. Let us know about his political and social life.
The story of the economic reforms of 1991
This was the time when America had attacked Iraq and Soviet communism was on its last legs. Oil prices suddenly shot up. There was a shortage of foreign exchange in India and when oil prices rose, the economy started collapsing. Due to the shortage of dollars, it was possible that the next installment of the loan would not have been deposited. At this time, the matter of pledging gold from India’s side came to the fore.
Then after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the Congress government was formed and PV Narasimha Rao became the Prime Minister. Vinay Sitapati, who wrote his biography, says that looking at Narasimha Rao’s political career, it did not seem that he could take any step like reform. Manmohan Singh was the Finance Minister in Rao’s government. He entrusted his Finance Minister with the responsibility of dealing with the problem of the country’s economic condition.
After this, concrete steps for economic reforms started being taken from the month of July. Under the economic reforms, the Indian currency was to be devalued. The value of rupee was reduced against the dollar. After this, Manmohan Singh presented the budget on 24 July. In his budget speech, he had said that if the right time comes for an idea, then no power can stop it.
Import duty was reduced from 300 percent to 50 percent. Customs duty was reduced from 220 percent to 150 percent. The license process for import was simplified. This budget is considered the most revolutionary budget in Indian history. The Prime Minister himself was not confident about these reforms. The opposition had created a lot of ruckus over the budget.
… when Chandrashekhar said that he was doing heart surgery with a vegetable cutting knife
Former PM Chandrashekhar had told PM Narasimha that due to these reasons the East India Company came to India and ruled for so many years. On this Rao asked him that we have made your man the Finance Minister, then why are you criticizing it, in response to this Chandrashekhar said that you are doing heart surgery with the knife that was brought to cut vegetables.
However, the reactions that came later on regarding the budget were later proved to be wrong. The policy of liberalization for the economy was successful and by the end of the year the gold that was mortgaged was returned and separate gold was also purchased.