The demise of India's former prime minister Manmohan Singh is being mourned by the entire country, and the sports fraternity is no different. The 92-year-old's economic reforms in 1991 also heralded the nation's sporting revival, even though with limited success. (More Sports News)
Singh's famed 1991 budget as the finance minister opened the doors for liberalisation in the country, and global sports started arrivi🧔ng in our living rooms as a result, via broadcasters like Star and Doordarshan. As the PM, he actively promoted sports, case in point being the now defunct National Football League, which was the biggest league in the country at the time.
Duriꦦng his second tenure as PM (from 2009 to 2014), the Commonwealth Games were hosted in Delhi. The Games brought a lot of much-needed sports infrastructure to the national capital, but were eventually tainted with grave corruption charges, particularly against then IOA president and Games chairman Suresh Kalmadi. Singh, howev൩er, received a clean chit from the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, absolving him of wrongdoing.
A number of sports stars paid tribute to the economist-turned-politician, including wrestler Vinesh Phogat and cricketers Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh.
Singh was admitted to New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences late Thursday after his health deteriorated due to a “sudden loss of consciousness at home,” th🥂e hospital said in a statement. He was being treated for “age-related medical conditions”.
