Veteran Congress chief and former Exterior Affairs Minister Ok. Natwar Singh handed away on Saturday on the age of 93 after being hospitalised for 2 weeks.
He died at a hospital in Gurgaon on Saturday night time. His members of the family, together with his son Jagat Singh, had been current throughout his passing.
Singh, a diplomat earlier than becoming a member of politics, had served because the Exterior Affairs Minister in 2004-05 within the Cupboard of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He additionally served because the Union Minister of State for Metal, Mines and Coal and Agriculture from 1985-86 within the Rajiv Gandhi authorities. He then served Minister of State within the Ministry of Exterior Affairs throughout 1986-89 once more underneath the management of Raji Gandhi. This was throughout his first time period as MP – getting elected from Bharatpur (Rajasthan) in 1984 after making the swap from the Indian International Providers.
After becoming a member of the IFS at 22 in 1953, Singh served as India’s Deputy Excessive Commissioner to the UK (1973-77) after which turned the India’s Excessive Commissioner to Zambia (1977). He additionally served as India’s Ambassador to Pakistan throughout 1980-82.
Singh studied at historical past at St. Stephen’s Faculty in Delhi, and in addition at Cambridge, U.Ok. and Peking College in China.
He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan – the very best civilian award in India — after he served as the pinnacle of the preparatory committee of the Non-Alignment Summit in New Delhi in 1983.
Not having a superb relationship with former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, Singh was away from politics when Rao turned the Prime Minister in 1991. He then went on to turned one of many founders of the All India Indira Congress.
After being elected to the Rajya Sabha in in 2002, Singh once more discovered himself within the corridors of energy turning into the Exterior Affairs Minister in Dr Manmohan Singh’s Cupboard. Nevertheless, in 2006, he needed to resign from the submit after the oil-for-food rip-off turned public. Throughout investigations, it was discovered that individuals near him, together with his son, had made positive factors from funds. Singh at all times maintained that he had not personally not made any positive factors from the funds. The UN’s Volcker committee had named Singh and the Congress get together as beneficiaries of unlawful funds within the oil rip-off. In February 2008, he resigned from the Congress get together ending his almost 25-year lengthy affiliation with the get together.
Singh additionally spoke towards now Congress Parliamentary Occasion Chairperson Sonia Gandhi former PM Dr Manmohan Singh on a number of events, and was additionally accused of impropriety for revealing private dialog with Sonia and Dr Singh in his ebook One Life Is Not Sufficient, which was his autobiography printed in 2014. In an interview to The Indian Express on the time, Singh had defended himself saying Sonia is a “historic public determine” and that “a public determine doesn’t have a non-public life”.
“…I’ve not written this ebook with any vengeance, malice or bitterness; in any other case I might go down in my very own esteem. Within the final evaluation, I’m answerable to myself,” he had mentioned. In his ebook, Singh had additionally claimed that 10 Janpath (Sonia’s residence) was the place the actual energy centre of the UPA authorities was.
The creator of a number of different books, Singh was a prolific author. He’s survived by his son Jagat Singh and spouse Heminder Kumari Singh.
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