Manmohan Singh’s bold economic reforms transformed India: UK Foreign Secretary
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that India’s former Prime Minister was pivotal.
In laying the foundations of the “thriving” India-UK relationship, lauding his “bold economic reforms” that transformed India’s economy post 1991 and calling him a “visionary leader.”
Highlighting the former Prime Minister’s role in bolstering India’s ties with UK, Lammy, tweeted on Friday, “Dr Manmohan Singh’s bold economic reforms transformed India’s economy.”
“His legacy continues to shape modern India, and his vision laid the foundations for today’s thriving UK-India partnership. My deepest condolences to his family and the Indian people,” he further added.
The veteran Congress leader, who is credited with opening up India’s economy to the world when he was the finance minister in 1991, was the prime minister between 2004 and 2014. The stalwart leader, aged 92, died on Thursday night following which, the Centre announced a seven-day national mourning.
Taking to X, British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron, earlier, called Manmohan Singh “a great Prime Minister, Finance Minister and global statesman who advanced India’s interests through bold economic reforms and played a key role in putting India in its rightful place on the world stage and stabilising the global economy after the financial crisis”.
“The UK will always be proud of his invaluable partnership with three UK Prime Ministers, and proud of him as an alumnus of two of our great universities. My thoughts and wishes are with his family and the people of India,” she said.
Several dignitaries and leaders from UK, including former prime ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, remembered Manmohan Singh as a “saintly man” who “got on well” with his UK counterparts when he was India’s Prime Minister.
The former Prime Minister was cremated with full state honours on Saturday. His funeral pyre was lit by his eldest daughter, Upinder Singh at the Nigambodh Ghat.