The country’s first Sikh prime minister, he introduced free-market reforms that turned India into an economic powerhouse and sought reconciliation with Pakistan.

Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, the soft-spoken Oxford-educated economist whose financial reforms helped transform India from a struggling, poverty-stricken nation into an emerging power but whose second term was tainted by allegations of rampant corruption within his government,

Singh, the first Sikh prime minister, liberalized the economy as finance minister and saved the nation from a balance-of-payments crisis.