A Great one

Today I am going to write about one of the world's best prime ministers in the history. I am going to write about MR. Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao, former Prime Minister of India. Popularly known as P.V. Narasimha Rao he has been one of the most visionary prime ministers of India and the one who did everything to augment and bolster the economic growth of the country. He was a prime minister who was even ready to give up his life for the welfare of his country. He was a real leader, he was a real politician.

P.V. Narasimha Rao was born on 28 June 1921 at Laknepally village -Near Narsampet in Warangal District to a Niyogi Telugu Brahmin family. He was an indian politician and a great leader who served as the ninth Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996. His father's name was P. Ranga Rao and his mother's name was Rukminiamma. They both hailed from agrarian families.

He studied Bachelor's in Arts College at Osmania University and later went on to Fergusson college of University of Pune. From the beginning he has been a very good scholar. In addition to eight Indian languages (Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, Oriya, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil), he spoke English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Greek, Latin and Persian.

He was an active Indian Independence activist and joined full time politics after independence and joined the Indian National Congress (INC). He first served brief stints in Andhra Pradesh state cabinet and then became the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. Even today he is commemorated as a very great and elegant leader for his land reforms and many other reforms pushed through by him in Andhra Pradesh.

Mr. Rao was a staunch supporter of Former Indian prime minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and during the split he was with Indira Gandhi. He also gave huge support to Mrs. Gandhi during the emergency period. He held many portfolios in the government of Indira Gandhi as well as Rajiv Gandhi like Home, Defence and Foreign Affairs. He almost retired from politics in 1991, but it was Rajiv Gandhi's assassination that gave him a comeback in the politics. He was voted as the head of the government. He was the first person out of the Nehru-Gandhi family to hold the post of a Prime Minister. In his cabinet Mr. Sharad Pawar was chosen as the defence minister and Dr. Manmohan Singh (present Prime Minister of India) was opted as the Finance minister.

He is the only person behind the growth of Indian economy. During his reign he pushed through many reforms. He proposed to open the Indian markets for foreign investment and increased investment in infrastructure.

Major reforms in India's capital markets led to an influx of foreign portfolio investment. The major economic policies adopted by Rao include:

·    Abolishing in 1992 the Controller of Capital Issues which decided the prices and number of shares that firms could issue.

·    Introducing the SEBI Act of 1992 and the Security Laws (Amendment) which gave SEBI the legal authority to register and regulate all security market intermediaries.

·    Opening up in 1992 of India's equity markets to investment by foreign institutional investors and permitting Indian firms to raise capital on international markets by issuing Global Depository Receipts (GDRs).

·    Starting in 1994 of the National Stock Exchange as a computer-based trading system which served as an instrument to leverage reforms of India's other stock exchanges. The NSE emerged as India's largest exchange by 1996.

·    Reducing tariffs from an average of 85 percent to 25 percent, and rolling back quantitative controls.(The rupee was made convertible on trade account.)

·    Encouraging foreign direct investment by increasing the maximum limit on share of foreign capital in joint ventures from 40 to 51% with 100% foreign equity permitted in priority sectors.

·    Streamlining procedures for FDI approvals, and in at least 35 industries, automatically approving projects within the limits for foreign participation.

Not only in Economy, he also made us overcome in the field of national security. He tried to make good relations with China, United States of America. He launched the Look East Policy which is benefitting the country a lot. Rao energised the national nuclear security and ballistic missiles program, which ultimately resulted in the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests. It is speculated that the tests were actually planned in 1995, during Rao's term in office, and that they were dropped under American pressure when the US intelligence got the whiff of it.

Rao also had great interest in literature. He was also an acclaimed poet and used to do many poetries. He was applauded by many for his poems.

But in the last time of his life  he faced many problems. According to a vernacular source, despite holding many lucrative posts he faced many financial troubles. One of his sons was educated with the assistance of his son-in-law. He also faced trouble in paying fees for a daughter of his who was then studying medicine. According to PVRK Prasad, an IAS officer who was Narasimha Rao's media advisor when the latter was Prime Minister, Rao asked his friends to sell away his house at Banajara hills to clear the dues of advocates.  Rao was afraid of dying before clearing his dues to the lawyers.

 

On 9 December 2004, he left us all to go to heaven and died due to a heart attack. He was even operated in AIIMS, but the doctors couldn’t save this great soul and he left us all.