Former Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Passes Away

Former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi on Thursday. Rao, 83, was admitted to AIIMS after he complained of breathlessness on December 9.

A statesman, scholar and a polyglot, Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao will be remembered for several firsts to his credit during an eventful five years as prime minister in the last decade that saw India take a new economic path.

Born in an agrarian family in Vangara village of Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh on June 28, 1921, Rao took over the reins of the Congress after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991 and became prime minister after the staggered Lok Sabha elections in June.

PV, as he was popularly known, would be remembered for initiating far-reaching economic changes which turned Nehru's public sector penchant upside down.

Educated at Osmania, Bombay and Nagpur Universities from where he took his BSc and LLB degrees, Rao's political baptism began in 1938 during the protest against the Nizam

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