ANNOUNCEMENTS

Condolences on the Passing of Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh 

The Hellenic Indian Society for Culture and Development offers our sincere condolences to the people of India for the passing of former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.   

Joint Press Conference by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis of Greece in New Delhi, January 11, 2008

Dr Manmohan Singh died due to “age-related medical conditions” on December 26, 2024, aged 92.

Born in 1932 in Gah, a village in present-day Pakistan, Singh’s early life was shaped by hardship. His family was uprooted and migrated to the Sikh holy city of Amritsar in India after the partition of the Indian Subcontinent.

Singh was pitchforked into politics in 1991 when the then prime minister, PV Narasimha Rao, drafted Singh to be his finance minister. He became the country’s first Sikh prime minister when Congress leader Sonia Gandhi led her party to victory in 2004 and turned to Singh to be prime minister. Singh was one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers, in the post for 10 years. He broke away from India’s Soviet-style economic planning model and introduced free-market reforms that turned India into a global economic powerhouse. He quoted Victor Hugo – “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come” adding that “the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea”.

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, paid tribute to him, saying: “India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders.”

Photo (@Wikimedia Commons): The Prime Minister of Greece, Mr. George A. Papandreou, calling on the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, in New Delhi on February 04, 2010