Manmohan Singh 13th Prime Minister of India Incumbent Assumed office 22 May 2004 President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Pratibha Patil Pranab Mukherjee Preceded by Atal Bihari Vajpayee Minister of Finance In office 26 June 2012 – 31 July 2012 Preceded by Pranab Mukherjee Succeeded by P. Chidambaram In office 30 November 2008 – 24 January2009 Preceded by P. Chidambaram Succeeded by Pranab Mukherjee In office 21 June 1991 – 16 May 1996 Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao Preceded by Yashwant Sinha Succeeded by Jaswant Singh Minister of Railways In office 19 May 2011 – 13 July 2011 Preceded by Mamata Banerjee Succeeded by Dinesh Trivedi Minister of External Affairs In office 6 November 2005 – 24 October 2006 Preceded by K. Natwar Singh Succeeded by Pranab Mukherjee Deputy Chairman of the PlanningCommission In office 15 January 1985 – 31 August 1987 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi Preceded by P. V. Narasimha Rao Succeeded by P. Shiv Shankar Governor of the Reserve Bank of India In office 15 September 1982 – 15 January1985 Preceded by I. G. Patel Succeeded by Amitav Ghosh Personal details Born 26 September 1932 (age 80) Gah , British India (now Pakistan) [ 1 ] Political party Indian National Congress (1991–present) Other political affiliations United Front (1996–2004) United Progressive Alliance (2004–present) Spouse(s) Gursharan Kaur (1958–present) Children Upinder Daman Amrit Residence Panchavati Alma mater Panjab University, Chandigarh St John's College, Cambridge Nuffield College, Oxford Religion Sikhism Signature Website Prime Minister's Office Manmohan Singh ( [mənˈmoːɦən ˈsɪ́ŋɡ] ( listen ) ; born 26 September 1932) is the 13th and current Prime Minister of India . A renowned economist, he is the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term, and the first Sikh to hold the office. Born in Gah (now in Punjab, Pakistan) in 1932, Singh's family migrated to India during its partition in 1947. After obtaininghis doctorate in economics from Oxford, Singh worked for the United Nations in 1966–69. He subsequently began his bureaucratic career when Lalit Narayan Mishra hired him as an advisor in the Ministry of ForeignTrade . Over the 70s and 80s, Singh held several key posts in the Government of India , such asChief Economic Advisor (1972–76), Reserve Bank Governor (1982–85) and PlanningCommission head (1985–87). In 1991, as India faced a severe economic crisis , newly elected Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao surprisingly inducted the apolitical Singh into his cabinet as Finance Minister . Over the next few years, despite strong opposition, Finance Minister Singh carried out several structural reforms that liberalisedIndia's economy . Although these measures proved successful in averting the crisis, and enhanced Singh's reputation globally as a leading reform-minded economist, the incumbent Congress party fared poorly in the 1996 general election . Subsequently, Singh served as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of India's Parliament ) during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government of 1998–2004. In 2004, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power, party president Sonia Gandhi surprisingly relinquished the Prime Minister-ship to Manmohan Singh. This Singh-led "UPA I" government executed several key legislations and projects, including the Rural Health Mission , the Unique Identification project, the Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, the Right to Information Act and a historic Civil Nuclear Agreement with the United States . The latternearly caused the fall of Singh's government as anti-American Left Front parties withdrew fromthe UPA. Although India's economy grew rapidly under UPAI, its security was threatened by several terrorist incidents (culminating in the 2008 Mumbai attacks ) and a growing Maoist insurgency . The 2009 general election saw the UPA return with an increasedmandate, with Manmohan Singh retaining the office of Prime Minister.