♦ Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh passed away in New Delhi on 26 December 2024. He was 92. Singh was India’s 13th Prime Minister and the first Sikh to hold the coveted post.

♦ He headed the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre from May 2004 to May 2014.

♦ He was born on 26 September 1932, in a village in the Punjab province of undivided India.

♦ Singh was a member of the Rajya Sabha since 1991, where he was Leader of the Opposition between 1998 and 2004. He retired from the Rajya Sabha in April 2024.

♦ He led Indian Delegations to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Cyprus (1993) and to the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993.

♦ Singh spent five years between 1991 and 1996 as India's finance minister under the Narasimha Rao government.

♦ One of the key decisions Manmohan Singh took as PM included the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) (2005), a flagship program that guaranteed 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households.

♦ His government also launched the Right to Information Act in 2005 to strengthen transparency and accountability in governance by granting citizens the right to access information held by public authorities.

♦ In 2013, his government launched the National Food Security Act to ensure subsidized food grains to approximately two-thirds of India’s population.

♦ He conferred India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan in 1987.