Senthil Thondaman pays his last respects to Manmohan Singh

Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) President Senthil Thondaman paid his last respects to late Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Saturday.

Thondaman said that he also conveyed his condolences to Mrs. Kaur and the family, leader of Indian Nation Congress Mallikarjun Kharge, Member of Parliament Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, and Opposition Leader MP Rahul Gandhi.

“Deeply saddened hearing his demise as I remembered the fruitful conversations I had with him and his support providing 50,000 houses under Indian grant to the families affected by the Sri Lankan War in North and East and also to the plantation community of Upcountry,” Senthil Thondaman said.

Singh led the country from 2004 to 2014 and was considered the architect of India?s economic liberalisation. He died on Thursday aged 92.

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

Singh changed India’s economic growth trajectory during his time as prime minister and as the country’s finance minister in 1991.

He is remembered for saying in his first budget speech: “No power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come”.

He continued to build on his economic reform measures as prime minister, lifting millions out of poverty and contributing to India’s rise as one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies.

The first Sikh to hold India’s top post, Singh formally apologised in 2005 for the 1984 riots in which around 3,000 Sikhs were killed.

He was also the first Indian leader after Jawaharlal Nehru, who led the country from 1947 until his death in 1964, to be re-elected after serving a full first term. (Colombo Gazette)

Additional inputs from the BBC