Profile of Pm Manamohansingh and P.Chidambaram.
Prime Minister of India
Incumbent: Dr. Manmohan Singh
Date of Birth: Sept. 26, 1932
Term: May 2009 to date. This is his second straight five-year stint as prime minister. Unlikely to run for office in future.
Key facts:
-- Singh's reputation was forged in his time as finance minister in the 1990s, when he pushed through a series of economic reforms which set the stage for India's subsequent boom and entry onto the world stage as a rising economic power.
-- He seemed an unlikely choice for prime minister, thrust into the limelight only because Congress president Sonia Gandhi turned down the top job after winning elections in 2004. Time and again, Singh seemed dwarfed by Gandhi and too weak to discipline a cabinet of often-squabbling ministers and senior party leaders.
-- Under fire since late 2010 for a series of corruption scandals that have blocked the progress of laws through parliament, Singh appeared on television in February to say he was not a "lame duck" leader.
-- A career technocrat, the grey-bearded, bespectacled economist acquired his global orientation working at various international organisations, including the United Nations, making him a less insular prime minister than many of his predecessors.
-- A former RBI governor, Singh supports making the rupee more convertible. He has also raised the bar on economic expansion and wants India to grow 10 percent a year, firmly believing that this is the only weapon to fight poverty in a country with 450 million poor.
-- He is the first Indian prime minister to hold a doctorate. Born into a poor Sikh family in a western province now in Pakistan, Singh won scholarships to Cambridge and Oxford, earning a doctorate with a thesis on the critical role of exports and free trade in India's economy. But he has never won an election and sits in Rajya Sabha.
-- People who have known and worked with Singh for more than a decade describe him as an anti-politician, a quiet, hard-working man and a deep thinker
Incumbent: Dr. Manmohan Singh
Date of Birth: Sept. 26, 1932
Term: May 2009 to date. This is his second straight five-year stint as prime minister. Unlikely to run for office in future.
Key facts:
-- Singh's reputation was forged in his time as finance minister in the 1990s, when he pushed through a series of economic reforms which set the stage for India's subsequent boom and entry onto the world stage as a rising economic power.
-- He seemed an unlikely choice for prime minister, thrust into the limelight only because Congress president Sonia Gandhi turned down the top job after winning elections in 2004. Time and again, Singh seemed dwarfed by Gandhi and too weak to discipline a cabinet of often-squabbling ministers and senior party leaders.
-- Under fire since late 2010 for a series of corruption scandals that have blocked the progress of laws through parliament, Singh appeared on television in February to say he was not a "lame duck" leader.
-- A career technocrat, the grey-bearded, bespectacled economist acquired his global orientation working at various international organisations, including the United Nations, making him a less insular prime minister than many of his predecessors.
-- A former RBI governor, Singh supports making the rupee more convertible. He has also raised the bar on economic expansion and wants India to grow 10 percent a year, firmly believing that this is the only weapon to fight poverty in a country with 450 million poor.
-- He is the first Indian prime minister to hold a doctorate. Born into a poor Sikh family in a western province now in Pakistan, Singh won scholarships to Cambridge and Oxford, earning a doctorate with a thesis on the critical role of exports and free trade in India's economy. But he has never won an election and sits in Rajya Sabha.
-- People who have known and worked with Singh for more than a decade describe him as an anti-politician, a quiet, hard-working man and a deep thinker