On 26th September 2012, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh celebrated his birthday as he turned 80 this year. He spent his day working as he usually does. He gave away the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awards and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) awards on the 70th Foundation Day function of CSIR, as he is the president of this organization, whose foundation day happens to be on the same day as his birthday.
Dr Manmohan Singh, the 17th and incumbent Prime Minister of India, assumed office on 22nd May, 2004. He was preceded by Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee. He is the first Sikh Prime Minister of India. He also holds the distinction of being the first Prime Minister who has never been elected to the Lok Sabha. He revitalized India's economy from near bankruptcy in 1991 by abolishing the License Raj thereby liberalizing it to attract Foreign Direct Investment and private businesses.
Dr Manmohan Singh was born on 26th September, 1932 in Gah, Punjab, in present-day Pakistan. His educational qualifications in economics comprises a master's degree from Punjab University(1954), a undergraduate degree from Cambridge University and a doctorate Degree from Oxford University.
Dr Singh, an economist by profession, served in the International Monetary Fund. He is acclaimed world wide for his work at the United Nations (UN). In the late 1980's he served as the Governor of Reserve Bank of India. In 1991 he was appointed as the Finance Minister by Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. During that period India's economy was going through a major financial crisis.
Facing a huge deficit in cash reserves needed to run the country, India was preparing to mortgage its gold reserves to the Bank of England. As the Finance Minister, he took the bold step of liberalizing India's economy.
He laid the blueprint of India's shining economy by introducing economic reforms which opened the economy to FDI. License Raj was abolished thereby promoting the growth of many private businesses both national and multinational.
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Universities in Punjab
