PM Modi’s principal secretary remembers his teacher Dr Manmohan Singh

PK Mishra, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday paid rich tributes to his teacher Dr Manmohan Singh, who was a faculty at the Delhi School of Economics where he was a student.

In a message on Dr Singh’s demise today, Mishra said “We have lost a very distinguished leader, an eminent economist and a great human being, with the passing away of Dr Manmohan Singh. My memories of Dr Manmohan Singh date back to the time when he was teaching at the Delhi School of Economics.”

Mishra recalled he was in his first year in Master of Arts those days.

“Seeing Dr Singh among the stalwart professors in that era was reassuring for a student like me, having come from Sambalpur district in Western Odisha. Those were the days when very eminent professors, such as Amartya Sen, Mrinal Datta Chaudhuri, AM Khusro, KN Raj, Sukhamoy Chakraborty and Dharma Kumar, were teaching there. Dr Manmohan Singh had a remarkable ability to explain complex topics in international trade in a way every student could understand, making learning easier for students. He was extremely unassuming and low profile,” Mishra said.

The Principal Secretary added he later had the privilege of interacting with Dr Singh while working as Secretary to the National Disaster Management Authority and Secretary to Government of India in the Ministry of Agriculture during the latter’s tenure as Prime Minister. “Whenever I met him, I found the same simplicity, sincerity and humility in his demeanour,” the top bureaucrat said.