Dr. Manmohan Singh

Dr. Manmohan Singh

Manmohan Singh was born to Gurmukh Singh and Amrit Kaur on 26 September 1932, in Gah, Village in Distt. Chakwal into a Sikh family. He lost his mother when he was very young and was raised by his paternal grandmother, to whom he was very close. After the Partition of India, his family migrated to Amritsar, India, where he studied at Hindu College. He attended Panjab University, Chandigarh, studying Economics and got his bachelor's and master's degrees in 1952 and 1954, respectively, standing first throughout his academic career. He went on to read for the Economics Tripos at Cambridge as a member of St John's College (In the Oxbridge tradition, holders of the B.A degree with honors are entitled in due course to an M.A degree). He won the Wright's Prize for distinguished performance in 1955 and 1957. He was also one of the few recipients of the Wrenbury scholarship. In 1962, Singh completed his D.Phil from the University of Oxford where he was a member of Nuffield College. The title of his doctoral thesis was "India’s export performance, 1951–1960, export prospects and policy implications" and his thesis supervisor was Dr. I.M.D. Little. This thesis later outgrew into the book "India’s Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth".

In 1997, the University of Alberta awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Law degree. The University of Oxford awarded him an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in June 2006, and in October 2006, the University of Cambridge followed with the same honour. St. John's College further honoured him by naming a Ph.D Scholarship after him, the Dr. Manmohan Singh Scholarship.