Manmohan Singh uncaged the Indian tiger

Manmohan Singh was asleep when he got a call in June 1991 from Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s principal secretary telling him he was going to be India’s next finance minister. Singh was surprised. As an economist, government advisor, and former central banker, he certainly understood the intricacies of the economy, but his role until then had mainly been to carry out decisions that politicians had made—he’d never been one himself. And this was no easy time to do so.