Zürcher Nachrichten - India announces state funeral for ex-PM Manmohan Singh

Singh, who held office from 2004 to 2014, died at the age of 92 late Thursday evening at a hospital in New Delhi. He will also be accorded a state funeral.

"As a mark of respect for the departed dignitary, it has been decided that seven days of state mourning will be observed throughout India," the Indian government said in a statement Friday, with mourning running until January 1.

"It has also been decided that the state funeral will be accorded to late Dr. Manmohan Singh," it said, adding that the national flag will also be flown at half-mast.

India's cricket team battling hosts Australia in the fourth Test took to the ground Friday with black arm bands to show respect for Singh.

The official date for the state funeral was not immediately announced, but a senior member of the Congress party suggested it would be held on Saturday.

- Understated technocrat -

The former premier was an understated technocrat who was hailed for overseeing economic boom in Asia's fourth-largest economy in his first term but his second stint ended with a series of major corruption scandals, slowing growth, and high inflation.

The unpopularity of Singh in his second term, and a lacklustre leadership by Nehru-Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi, the current leader of opposition in the lower house, led to the first landslide victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.

Born in 1932 in the mud-house village of Gah, in what is now Pakistan, Singh studied economics to find a way to eradicate poverty in the vast nation and never held elected office before taking the nation's highest office.

He won scholarships to attend both Cambridge, where he obtained a first in economics, and Oxford, where he completed his doctorate.

Singh worked in a string of senior civil service posts, served as a central bank governor and also held various jobs with global agencies such as the United Nations.

He was tapped in 1991 by then Congress prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao to reel India back from the worst financial crisis in its modern history

In his first term Singh steered the economy through a period of nine-percent growth, lending the country the international clout it had long sought.

He also sealed a landmark nuclear deal with the US that he said would help India meet its growing energy needs.

W.Vogt--NZN