Manmohan Singh’s Final Rites Immediately, Sonia, Rahul Gandhi Pay Tributes

Listed below are updates on Dr Manmohan Singh’s funeral:

1. Dr Manmohan Singh‘s final rites shall be carried out immediately round 11:45 am. The physique of the previous Prime Minister has been taken to the Congress headquarters within the nationwide capital.
2. The Centre has declared a seven-day state mourning all through the nation as a mark of respect to Dr Singh. Throughout this era, the nationwide flag shall be flown half-mast throughout India. The Congress has additionally declared that each one official packages of the occasion, together with the Basis Day celebration, shall be cancelled for the subsequent seven days and can resume on January 3.
3. A row has erupted between the Centre and Congress over the allotment of area for Dr Singh’s memorial. The Congress condemned the allocation of the Nigambodh Ghat for the ultimate rituals as an alternative of a location the place a memorial may very well be inbuilt his honour.
4. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about exploring the opportunity of constructing a memorial for Dr Singh on the identical website the place the final rites could be held. “Apropos our telephonic dialog this morning, whereby I made a request to carry Dr Manmohan Singh’s final rites, which is able to happen tomorrow i.e. twenty eighth December 2024, at his last resting place that may be a sacrosanct venue for a memorial of the nice son of India. That is in line with such custom of getting memorials of statesmen and former prime ministers on the very place of their funerals,” Mr Kharge wrote in a letter on Friday.
5. Nonetheless, BJP spokesperson CR Kesavan hit again at Congress, calling the occasion’s behaviour “ironic”. “It’s certainly ironic {that a} Congress President is writing to PM Narendra Modi ji about traditions and the funeral place changing into the sacrosanct venue for a memorial. One ought to remind Kharge ji how the Congress-led UPA authorities by no means constructed a memorial in Delhi for former PM Narasimha Rao ji, who handed away in 2004,” he mentioned.
6. The Centre additionally clarified that it’s going to allocate an area for Dr Singh’s memorial – which was additionally conveyed to Mr Kharge and Dr Singh’s household. Nonetheless, it mentioned that within the meantime, cremation and different formalities can happen as a result of a “belief must be shaped and area must be allotted”.
7. Sharmistha Mukherjee, the daughter of former President late Pranab Mukherjee, criticised Mr Kharge over the occasion’s demand for a separate memorial for the previous Prime Minister. In an announcement on X, she claimed that when her father and the previous Indian President died in August 2020, the Congress management didn’t even trouble to convene a condolence assembly by the Congress Working Committee (CWC). In response to her, a senior chief of the Congress instructed her that memorials aren’t held for Indian Presidents. 
8. Manmohan Singh died of age-related medical issues on the age of 92 on Thursday evening. He had been sick for the previous couple of months. Generally known as the ‘architect of India’s financial reforms’, Dr Singh was the PM for 2 phrases within the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance authorities from 2004 to 2014.
9. Born in 1932, Dr Singh studied on the College of Cambridge within the UK the place he earned a First Class Honours diploma in Economics in 1957. He additionally had a level in Economics from Nuffield School at Oxford College. Dr Singh turned a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1991 and was the Chief of the Opposition between 1998 and 2004. He was awarded India’s second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1987.
10. Many world leaders, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, Canada’s former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim, have expressed condolences over the demise of Dr Singh.