During his term as Treasury Secretary in the 1990s, Singh succeeded in lifting millions of people out of poverty, writes Obama.

“For the duration of his term as prime minister, I would find Singh to be wise, considerate and extremely honest.”

Of Singh’s role in India’s transition to a market-based Indian economy, Obama writes: “The transition to a more market-based economy in the 1990s had unleashed the extraordinary entrepreneurial talents of the Indian people – resulting in rapid growth rates and a thriving market.” High-tech sector and an ever-growing middle class.”

As one of the chief architects of India’s economic transformation, Obama writes, Singh “seemed a fitting symbol of that progress: a member of the small, often persecuted Sikh minority who had risen to the highest office in the land, and a confident man. “He destroyed technocrats who had won the trust of the people not by appealing to their passions but by bringing about higher standards of living and maintaining a well-deserved reputation for being non-corrupt.”

Of his personal relationship with the former prime minister, Obama writes: “Singh and I had developed a warm and productive relationship. Although he could be cautious in foreign policy and unwilling to get too far ahead of an Indian bureaucracy that has historically been suspicious of U.S. intentions, our time together confirmed my first impression of him as a man of unusual wisdom and decency; and during my visit to the capital, New Delhi, we reached agreements to strengthen U.S. cooperation on counterterrorism, global health, nuclear security and trade.”

Angela Merkel: Freedom

Merkel, who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021, wrote in Freedom: Memoirs (1954-2021) that she first met Singh in April 2006 when they officially opened the Hannover Messe, an international trade fair, together.

She wrote that Singh’s “primary goal was to improve the living standards of the two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion people who lived in rural areas.”

“That was 800 million people, ten times the total population of Germany.” “In my conversations with him, I better understood the concerns of the emerging countries towards us, the wealthy countries,” she writes and adds: “From his point of view, we expected that they would show great interest in our problems, but we did not.” willing to extend the same courtesy to them. I was able to understand his point of view and began to examine more closely the challenges facing emerging markets.”

She adds that Singh told her “about the cultural diversity of his country, a subcontinent with more than five thousand years of history.”

Merkel also writes about Singh’s successor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Modi’s focus was also on improving the living standards of Indians, especially the rural population. It stimulated economic growth, particularly by eliminating the countless bureaucratic hurdles that lurked everywhere. He appointed an employee in his office to be the point of contact for companies having difficulties with their projects. This created a so-called fast track for investments. “India’s economy grew at 6 to 7 percent over several years,” she wrote.