New Delhi:

The ashes of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were immersed at the Yamuna Ghat near the Gurdwara Majnu Ka Tila Sahib in Delhi, a day after he was cremated with full state honours at Nigambodh Ghat. His ashes were brought to the Gurdwara Majnu Ka Tila Sahib earlier today.

The family of the late Dr Manmohan Singh will perform rituals at the Gurudwara including Shabad Kirtan (musical recitation of the Guru Granth Sahib), Paath (recitation of Gurbani) and Ardas.

Rajya Sabha MP Vikramjit Singh Sahney said that the ashes of the former PM will be immersed in Yamuna and after that, the family members will come to Gurudwara for Ardas (prayers).

“Today, the ashes of former PM Manmohan Singh will be immersed in Yamuna. Prior to that, his ashes will be kept here (Gurdwara Majnu Ka Tilla) – Shabad Kirtan, Paath and Ardas will be performed… After the immersion of his ashes in the Yamuna, his family members will come to Gurdwara for Ardas,” Sahney told ANI.

Meanwhile, Gursharan Kaur, wife of former PM Manmohan Singh, also arrived at the Gurdwara Majnu Ka Tilla for Kirtan and Guru Path.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday was cremated with full state honours at Nigambodh Ghat in Delhi’s Kashmere Gate in the presence of his family, friends, colleagues and government dignitaries.

President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh paid their last respects to the former PM by placing a wreath near his body earlier today.

The last rites were carried out at the VIP Ghat as per the Sikh rituals. Dr Singh’s body were placed on a pyre of sandalwood sticks.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge along with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were also present for the cremation ceremony after they paid tribute to the former Prime Minister.

The body of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were brought to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in Delhi from his residence on early Saturday morning for party workers to pay their respects. Several people also gathered outside the residence of the former Prime Minister in Delhi to pay their tributes.

Earlier after the Cabinet meeting on Friday, Home Minister Amit Shah communicated to Congress President Kharge and the family of late Manmohan Singh that the Government will allocate space for the memorial. In the meanwhile, cremation and other formalities can happen because a trust has to be formed and space has to be allocated to it.

Dr Singh’s political career spanned several decades, with notable positions including Finance Minister from 1991 to 1996, during which he spearheaded economic reforms that transformed India’s economy. He served as the 13th Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014, succeeding Atal Bihari Vajpayee. His tenure is particularly remembered for his steady leadership during economic crises and his contributions to modernising India’s economy.

After his second term, Dr Singh retired from public life, having led India through a period of unprecedented growth and international recognition. He was succeeded by Narendra Modi in 2014 after the Congress-led UPA lost the general elections.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs David Lammy has hailed the bold economic reforms of Dr Manmohan Singh as a legacy which continues to shape modern India.

In a social media tribute to the former prime minister who was cremated in New Delhi on Saturday, David Lammy also credited Singh for laying the foundations of the “thriving” bilateral partnership between India and the UK.

“Dr Manmohan Singh’s bold economic reforms transformed India’s economy,” Mr Lammy said in a post on X on Friday evening.

“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 said.

Manmohan Singh, who was prime minister between 2004 and 2014 and finance minister before that, has been widely hailed the world over as the architect of India’s economic liberalisation.

He died aged 92 and was laid to rest with full state honours in a ceremony attended by leading political dignitaries and included a 21-gun salute.

Following his death on Thursday night, the government declared seven days of national mourning.

Earlier, British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron took to social media to pay tribute to “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.

Dr Singh’s tenure overlapped with Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and Conservative David Cameron, who later wrote in his memoir that he “got on well” with this “saintly man” who was robust on the threats India faced.

“On a later visit he told me that another terrorist attack like that in Mumbai in July 2011, and India would have to take military action against Pakistan,” notes the former UK PM in ‘For the Record’, published in 2019.

The Guardian’ newspaper referenced Dr Singh’s “trademark sky-blue turbans and home-spun white kurta pyjamas” in its obituary.

“Singh, called India’s ‘reluctant prime minister’ due to his shyness and preference for being behind the scenes, was considered an unlikely choice to lead the world’s biggest democracy. But when Congress leader Sonia Gandhi led her party to a surprise victory in 2004, she turned to Singh to be prime minister,” the newspaper notes.

The BBC, in its obituary, hailed Dr Singh as one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers who was considered the “architect of key liberalising economic reforms, as premier from 2004-2014 and before that as finance minister”.

“In his maiden speech as finance minister he famously quoted Victor Hugo, saying that ‘no power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come’. That served as a launchpad for an ambitious and unprecedented economic reform programme: he cut taxes, devalued the rupee, privatised state-run companies and encouraged foreign investment,” reads the report.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Mumbai:

Once or twice a month, the then Governor of the Reserve Bank of India would walk to Mumbai’s famous Strand Book Stall in the Fort area to check out the latest arrivals. Little did the bookstore’s staff know that this soft-spoken book-lover would become the country’s prime minister.

A former staff member of Strand, which shut down a few years ago, recalled warm memories of Dr Manmohan Singh who died in Delhi on Thursday night at age 92.

Singh was the RBI governor between 1982 and 1985. Occasionally, he would visit the bookshop, a walking distance away, dressed in a ‘Band Gala’ suit or Kurta-Pyjama.

“Many of us have seen him at the store at lunchtime in those days,” said T Jagath, who worked at Strand for over two decades.

Jagath, now Chief Operating Officer of Kitab Khana bookstore, remembers Singh’s unassuming manners.

“I used to handle the management and literature section. He would ask for books on management, finance, and economy,” Jagath said.

“Sometimes I would find a book for him from the shelf,” he said, adding that Singh would call him by his name.

Sometimes, T N Shanbhag, the owner of Strand, would personally help him with books and show new arrivals.

“We used to wait for him in the afternoons as we knew he might drop in any day,” said Jagath.

India has lost a great economist and a good human being, he added.

“During my stint at Strand, I have seen seven to eight RBI governors. But Manmohan Singh was a very different personality amongst them,” said Jagath.

“Such a great man, very soft-spoken and down-to-earth; he used to treat all of us politely,” he said.

“No other political personality can match Dr Singh’s stature,” Jagath added. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Dr Manmohan Singh’s last rites will be performed today around 11:45 am on Saturday. The Centre has declared a seven-day state mourning throughout the country as a mark of respect to Dr Singh. During this period, the national flag will be flown half-mast across India.

The Congress has also declared that all official programs of the party, including the Foundation Day celebration will be cancelled for the next seven days and will resume on January 3.

A row has erupted between the Centre and Congress over the allotment of space for Dr Singh’s memorial. The Congress condemned the allocation of the Nigambodh Ghat for the final rituals instead of a location where a memorial could be built in his honour.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about exploring the possibility of building a memorial for Dr Singh at the same site where the last rites would be held. “Apropos our telephonic conversation this morning, wherein I made a request to hold Dr Manmohan Singh’s last rites, which will take place tomorrow i.e. 28th December 2024, at his final resting place that would be a sacrosanct venue for a memorial of the great son of India. This is in keeping with such tradition of having memorials of statesmen and former prime ministers at the very place of their funerals,” Mr Kharge wrote in a letter on Friday.

However, BJP spokesperson CR Kesavan hit back at Congress, calling the party’s behaviour “ironic”. “It is indeed ironic that a Congress President is writing to PM Narendra Modi ji about traditions and the funeral place becoming the sacrosanct venue for a memorial. One should remind Kharge ji how the Congress-led UPA government never built a memorial in Delhi for former PM Narasimha Rao ji, who passed away in 2004,” he said.

The Centre also clarified that it will allocate a space for Dr Singh’s memorial – which was also conveyed to Mr Kharge and Dr Singh’s family. However, it said that in the meantime, cremation and other formalities can take place because a “trust has to be formed and space has to be allocated”.

Sharmistha Mukherjee, the daughter of former President late Pranab Mukherjee, criticised Mr Kharge over the party’s demand for a separate memorial for the former Prime Minister. In a statement on X, she claimed that when her father and the former Indian President died in August 2020, the Congress leadership did not even bother to convene a condolence meeting by the Congress Working Committee (CWC). According to her, a senior leader of the Congress told her that memorials are not held for Indian Presidents. 

Manmohan Singh died of age-related medical complications at the age of 92 on Thursday night. He had been in poor health for the last few months. Known as the ‘architect of India’s economic reforms’, Dr Singh was the PM for two terms in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government from 2004 to 2014.

Born in 1932, Dr Singh studied at the University of Cambridge in the UK where he earned a First Class Honours degree in Economics in 1957. He also had a degree in Economics from Nuffield College at Oxford University. Dr Singh became a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1991 and was the Leader of the Opposition between 1998 and 2004. He was awarded India’s second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1987.

Many world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Canada’s former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim, have expressed condolences over the death of Dr Singh.

New Delhi:

Hours before former prime minister Manmohan Singh will be laid to rest on Saturday, a row has ensued over a memorial for him, prompting the BJP to ask Congress to not play dirty politics in his name.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge had on Friday spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about exploring the possibility of building a memorial to Manmohan Singh at the same site where the last rites would be held.

“This is in keeping with such tradition of having memorials of statesmen and former prime ministers at the very place of their funerals,” the Congress chief said.

In a press release issued later, the Centre said that Union Home minister Amit Shah had said that a place for Dr Singh’s memorial will be allocated, while adding that the cremation and other formalities can go ahead in the mean time.

Quick to hit out at the BJP was also senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, who said people are unable to understand why the Centre could not find a location for the memorial, calling it an insult of India’s first Sikh prime minister.

Also Read | In UK, Manmohan Singh Sometimes Had To Live On Chocolate Bar: Daughter

The BJP said the Congress should stop playing dirty politics on the death of Dr Singh. “Congress should recall how they treated former PM Narasimha Rao Ji after his death. The daughter of Shri Pranab Mukherjee also has tweeted how shabbily her father, a former President, was treated by the Congress,” a party statement read.

Dr Singh was the prime minister from 2004 till 2014. He also headed the Reserve Bank Of India and served as the finance minister under prime minister PV Narasimha Rao. He died at AIIMS Delhi on Thursday at the age of 92.

The mortals remains of Dr Singh will be kept at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters for an hour from 8.30 am for the people and Congress workers to pay their obeisance. Singh’s final journey will commence from the headquarters to the cremation ground at 9.30 am on Saturday, party general secretary K C Venugopal said. His last rites will be held at New Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat at 11.45 am on Saturday with full state honours.

New Delhi:

Delhi Traffic Police has issued an advisory ahead of the funeral of former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, scheduled for Saturday.

The traffic advisory outlines restrictions and diversions on major routes in New Delhi, urging the public to avoid certain roads and use public transport to help ease congestion.

“The dignitaries of many of foreign country and other VIPs/VVIPS and the general public will visit Nigham Bodh Ghat on the occasion of state funeral of late Dr. Sh. Man Mohan Singh, Former PM of India on 28.12.2024,” Delhi Traffic Police said in its advisory on Friday.

According to the advisory, diversion points include Raja Ram Kohli Marg, Rajghat Red Light, Signature Bridge, and Yudhister Setu.

Traffic restrictions, regulations, and diversion may be imposed on Ring Road (Mahatma Gandhi Marg), Nishad Raj Marg, Boulevard Road, SPM Marg, Lothian Road, and Netaji Subhash Marg from 7.00 am onwards, likely till 3.00 pm.

The advisory advises people to avoid the mentioned roads and stretches, as well as the area where the procession will take place.

Commuters going to Old Delhi Railway Station, ISBT, Red Fort, Chandni Chowk, and Tis Hazari Court are advised to leave with sufficient time to accommodate possible delays on the route.

It is also recommended to use public transport to reduce road congestion. Vehicles should only be parked in designated parking lots; roadside parking should be avoided as it obstructs the normal flow of traffic.

In case any unusual or unidentified object or person is noticed in suspicious circumstances, the public is urged to report it to the Police, they added.

The last rites of Dr Manmohan Singh are to be performed at Nigambodh Ghat in New Delhi on Saturday afternoon.

“Dr Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister passed away at 9.51 PM on December 26, 2024 at AllMS Hospital, New Delhi. It has been decided by the Government that State funeral will be accorded to Dr Manmohan Singh. The funeral will take place at 11:45 AM on December 28, 2024 at Nigambodh Ghat, New Delhi. The Ministry of Defence is requested to make arrangements for State funeral will full military honours,” the MHA stated.

Dr Manmohan Singh passed away at AIIMS, Delhi, on Thursday at the age of 92 due to age-related medical conditions. He had a sudden loss of consciousness at home after which he was rushed to the hospital.

Dr Singh’s political career spanned several decades, with notable positions including Finance Minister from 1991 to 1996, during which he spearheaded economic reforms that transformed India’s economy. He served as the 13th Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014, succeeding Atal Bihari Vajpayee. His tenure is particularly remembered for his steady leadership during economic crises and his contributions to modernizing India’s economy.

After his second term, Dr Singh retired from public life, having led India through a period of unprecedented growth and international recognition. He was succeeded by Narendra Modi in 2014 after the Congress-led UPA lost the general elections.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

In the corridors of the Delhi School of Economics (DSE), where ideas often find shape and future leaders are quietly moulded, the memories of former prime minister Manmohan Singh remain deeply etched.

Long before he became the architect of India’s economic liberalisation and later, its prime minister, Mr Singh was a professor at the DSE, nurturing minds with the clarity and grace that would go on to define his public life.

The DSE community is in mourning following the death of Mr Singh, who died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi on Thursday at the age of 92.

The institution remembers him not just as a celebrated economist and statesman but as one of its own — a mentor, a colleague and an honorary professor.

“The DSE fraternity is saddened at the passing away of former prime minister and a highly distinguished DSE fraternity member, Dr Manmohan Singh. He served as a professor at the Delhi School of Economics from 1969 to 1971.

“In 1971, he left the DSE only to work as an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the chief economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance and in various other senior positions, such as the finance minister and later, as the prime minister. He was the chief architect of the 1991 reforms that set our economy on a fast growth path. As the prime minister, he positioned India as an important player in the emerging geopolitical order,” Ram Singh, director of the DSE, told PTI.

Reflecting on his memories of the former prime minister, his former colleague and a member of the Centre for Development Economics, Om Prakash, said, “I had the proud privilege of being a colleague of Professor Manmohan Singh at the DSE in the early 1970s. I found him to be an extremely helpful and kind man, always willing to help his younger colleagues.” 

“Even after he left the department, he was always available to help you in whichever way he could. I will always remember him as a gentleman and an extraordinarily kind person,” he added.

Mr Singh’s connection with the DSE endured for long after he left the institute. He served as an honorary professor at the Centre for Development Economics and frequently engaged with the school, whether as a guest speaker or as a source of quiet encouragement.

In 2006, two years after becoming the prime minister, he visited the DSE and awarded the toppers of the MA Economics stream with the Manmohan Singh scholarship, reflecting his pivotal role in its intellectual foundation.

Earlier this year, Mr Singh, whose health conditions were deteriorating, penned a heartfelt message to the director of the DSE, declining an invitation to deliver the valedictory address for the institution’s diamond-jubilee celebrations.

“Much as I would have been happy to accept your kind invitation, I regret that because of the indifferent state of my health, I will not be able to accept your kind request,” he wrote, signing off with his best wishes for the event.

The last rites of the former prime minister will be performed at 11:45 am on Saturday at the Nigambodh Ghat crematorium in Delhi with full State Honours, the Union home ministry has said.

His death was announced by the AIIMS, where he was admitted in a critical condition at around 8:30 pm on Thursday. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

He held an overseas bank account that had his earnings from working abroad. The value of his savings, in rupee terms, went up following the July 1991 decision of the government to devalue the Indian currency.

Instead of pocketing the gains, Manmohan Singh, who was the finance minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government at that time, just wrote a cheque for the incremental gains and had it deposited in the Prime Minister National Relief Fund.

Recounting the incident, Ramu Damodaran, who was Private Secretary to the then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, said shortly after the devaluation decision, Manmohan Singh visited the PM’s office.

He walked straight into the PM’s room from his car, but on the way out, he detoured to come to Mr Damodaran’s room.

“Maybe a couple of days after the devaluation. He came for a meeting (with PM), and on the way out, he handed over a small envelope to me and asked me to deposit it in the PM’s National Relief Fund,” Mr Damodaran told PTI from New York, where he is currently posted as Permanent Observer for the University for Peace to the United Nations.

The envelope contained a cheque for “a huge amount”.

“I don’t recall the sum mentioned, but it was a significant amount,” he said.

Dr Singh did that on his own volition.

He went on to explain that Dr Singh had an overseas bank account when he worked abroad.

The former prime minister, who died on Thursday at the age of 92, served as Secretary General of the South Commission, an independent economic policy think tank headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, between 1987 and 1990.

The government of the day, in which Dr Singh was the finance minister, devalued the rupee by 9 per cent on July 1, 1991, and by an additional 11 per cent on July 3, 1991. This was to avert a financial crisis – India had very limited foreign exchange reserves to carry out international trade like buying oil and fertiliser, while exports had reduced.

The devaluation meant that every US dollar or any other foreign currency and overseas assets when converted into Indian rupees would get more value.

Mr Damodaran, an IFS officer who served in the PMO from 1991 to 1994, said Dr Singh thought it was prudent to deposit the gains.

“He (Singh) did not publicise it, just quietly deposited what he thought was the difference in rupee value of his assets abroad consequent upon devaluation,” he said. “I am sure he would have told Prime Minister Rao later, but he just did not make a big deal about it ever.” Dr Singh, according to Mr Damodaran, carried “quite an authority about silent persona”.

The Oxford-educated economist was not a politician by profession, but he commanded respect from veterans of the trade.

“None showed any resentment towards him. He would not get into any kind of arguments, just present facts, and they were accepted (by the senior politicians in the government),” he added.

Dr Singh opened up the economy as finance minister in the Rao government and then went on to serve as prime minister of India for two consecutive terms — from 2004 to 2014.

Soft-spoken Dr Singh studied at Cambridge University before heading to Oxford, where he earned a doctorate with a thesis on the role of exports and free trade in India’s economy. He served as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor (1982-85) and an economic advisor to the government before being made the finance minister in 1991.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Lahore:

Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri recalled fond memories of his association with the late Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who died in Delhi on Thursday night.

In an interview with PTI in Lahore on Friday, Mr Kasuri said that Dr Singh will be remembered in history as a man who devoted himself to the improvement of bilateral relations between the two countries.

Mr Kasuri, 83, who served as Pakistan’s foreign minister from November 2002 to November 2007, credited Singh for the creation of a congenial atmosphere in the entire SAARC region.

He said it was best exemplified by Mr Singh’s statement that “he looked forward to the day when it would be possible to have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul”.

Mr Kasuri said he was lucky to be a part of a process in which unprecedented progress was made during the peace negotiations between the two countries.

He said people-to-people contacts were enhanced tremendously during Mr Singh’s tenure as prime minister resulting in the creation of mutual trust between the two governments.

Mr Kasuri said it even enabled them to produce a blueprint of a possible framework for the solution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.

He said that although the process had begun during the period when Pakistan’s then president Pervez Musharraf and India’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee led the two respective governments, there is absolutely no doubt that Dr Manmohan Singh put his heart and soul into carrying the process forward.

Mr Kasuri recollected that Mr Singh expressed his strong desire to visit his birthplace Gah, in the Chakwal district of Punjab, Pakistan.

He said that he assured Mr Singh that he would be accorded a warm welcome in Pakistan.

Mr Kasuri hoped that one day it would be possible for the late prime minister’s wife Gursharan Kaur and other members of his family to visit Mr Singh’s birthplace.

Mr Kasuri also offered heartfelt condolences to his wife and other family members as well as the people of India.

Mr Singh, the architect of India’s economic reforms, died in Delhi on Thursday night. He was 92. He is survived by his wife and three daughters.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

While studying in Cambridge University on a scholarship in the mid 1950s, money was the only real problem for Manmohan Singh and there were times when he had to skip meals or live on a sixpence bar of Cadbury’s chocolate, according to his daughter Daman Singh.

Manmohan Singh earned a First Class Honours (Tripos) degree in Economics in 1957 from University of Cambridge.

Daughter Daman Singh came out with a book “Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan”, published by HarperCollins in 2014, to tell the “story of her parents”.

She also mentioned that her father often spoke about his early years, of the hard life in the village as well as the charm of a simpler existence. Singh was born in Gah in Punjab province’s western region, which now falls in Pakistan.

Daman Singh recalled that when once her sister Kiki asked Singh if he wishes to go back to Gah, he replied mildly, “No, not really. That is where my grandfather was killed.” Writing about her father’s days at Cambridge, Daman said money was the only real problem that bothered him as his tuition and living expenses came to about 600 pounds a year while the Punjab University scholarship gave him about 160 pounds.

“For the rest he had to depend on his father. Manmohan was careful to live very stingily. Subsidized meals in the dining hall were relatively cheap at two shillings sixpence. He never ate out, and seldom indulged in beer or wine,” she wrote.

Yet he would be in crisis if money from home fell short or did not arrive in time. “When this happened, he skipped meals or got by on a sixpence bar of Cadbury’s chocolate. He would never borrow money his entire life, but this was when he came closest to doing so. The only person he could think of turning to was Madan (close friend Madan Lal Sudan),” the book said.

After the results of the first-year Tripos examination were declared and Singh came first, he wrote to Madan Lal asking not to send him any money from then on.

“I think I will get some prize worth about 20 pounds and if I press I might get an Exhibition (an allowance or scholarship), but I am not so greedy. I prefer to wait till next year,” Daman Singh wrote.

Daman also mentioned how her father used to sing at family get-togethers and picnics. “Whenever we went on a picnic, people used to sing. He knew a couple of songs. He sang ‘Lagta nahin hai ji mera’ and Amrita Pritam’s poem ‘Aakhan Waris Shah noon, kitey kabran vichon bol’,” she wrote.

“Aakhan Waris Shah noon…” is about Partition and Amrita Pritam invokes Waris Shah to come and write about what happened to Punjab.

“Lagta nahin” is the poem penned by last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar when he was in exile in Rangoon, where he later died.

According to Daman Singh, her father had a good sense of humour.

“This was evident when he was with friends, even if they were economists. It was comforting to know that he could laugh and crack jokes as well. With us, he rarely did either.” He also liked to give nicknames to people.

“Unknown to them, one of our uncles was ‘John Babu’, another was ‘Jewel Babu’, and a third – to commemorate his pointed turban – was ‘Chunj Waley’. My mother was ‘Gurudev’, and the three of us were ‘Kick’, ‘Little Noan’ and ‘Little Ram’. Some of the other names he coined were less charitable,” Daman Singh wrote.

Daman Singh gave their pet dog Penu a string of affectionate names such as ‘Nut Babu’, ‘Nutter’ and ‘Douse Fellow’ and even composed little jingles around them.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)