When Manmohan Singh put his stamp on Bengaluru's infra projects

Bengaluru: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh had put his stamp on some of the most important public infrastructure projects in Bengaluru.

During his decade-long tenure as prime minister, Singh inaugurated the Bangalore International Airport (Kempegowda International Airport) on May 24, 2008. 

Three years later, on November 20, 2011, Singh launched another milestone project in Bengaluru — Namma Metro — flagging off the city's first metro train from Baiyappanahalli to MG Road. 

Singh went on to inaugurate the academic sessions of Dr BR Ambedkar School of Economics University, Bengaluru, on October 4, 2017. 

However, Singh’s Bengaluru connection goes back much earlier. 

In 1991, when he was the financial advisor to then prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao, Singh shared his economic vision for India at the 16th convocation of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. 

Having left India in 1987 to work at the South Commission in Geneva, when the national mood was one of great self-confidence and optimism, in his words, Singh saw that there was a growing feeling of scepticism, self-doubt, even despondency, when he came back to India in 1990. 

"Obviously, the recent political instability at the Centre and the deepening emotional divide between regions, religious groups and castes had a great deal to do in changing the national mood. But the laxity in the recent years in dealing with India's fiscal and balance of payment problems and failure to press ahead with long overdue structural reforms have also been important contributory factors,” he stated in his convocation address.