Manmohan Singh administration

Manmohan Singh (26 September 1932 – 26 December 2024) was an Indian politician, economist, academic, and bureaucrat, who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He was the fourth longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi. A member of the Indian National Congress, Singh was the first Sikh prime minister of India. He was also the first prime minister since Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term.

The 2012 Delhi gang rape case involved a rape and fatal assault that occurred on 16 December 2012 in Munirka, a neighbourhood in South Delhi. The incident took place when a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern, Jyoti Singh was beaten, gang raped, and tortured in a private bus in which she was travelling with her boyfriend, Awindra Pratap Pandey. There were six others in the bus, including the driver, all of whom raped the woman and beat her friend. Thirteen days after the assault, she was transferred to a hospital in Singapore for emergency treatment, but died from her injuries two days later. The incident generated widespread national and international coverage and was widely condemned, both in India and abroad. Subsequently, public protests against the state and central governments for failing to provide adequate security for women took place in New Delhi, where thousands of protesters clashed with security forces. Similar protests took place in major cities throughout the country. Because India does not allow the press to publicize a rape victim's name, the victim has become widely known as Nirbhaya, meaning "fearless", and her life and death have come to symbolize women's struggle to end rape and the long-held practice of blaming the victim rather than the perpetrator.

Shivshankar Menon (born 5 July 1949) is an Indian diplomat, who served as National Security Adviser of India under Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh. He had previously served as the Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. Prior to that he was Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and ambassador to China and Israel. He is currently Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.

The 2G spectrum case was a political controversy in which politicians and private officials of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government India were allegedly involved in selling or allotting 122 2G spectrum licenses on conditions that provided an advantage to specific telecom operators. A. Raja, then Telecom Minister, was accused of selling 2G spectrum licenses at a very low cost which resulted in the loss of ₹1,760 billion (US$25 billion) in government revenue. Raja was also accused of not following rules and regulations as well as not recognizing any advice from the Ministries of Finance and Law and Justice of India while allotting 2G spectrum licenses to telecom operators. Series of allegations were made on allotting 2G spectrum licenses including allegations from Central Bureau of Investigation after investigating the case alleging Raja for intentionally advancing the cut-off date (from 01/10/2007 to 25/09/2007) to favour some specific firms (Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom), which were allegedly ineligible for applying for telecom licenses, in return for bribes.

The 2011 census of India or the 15th Indian census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information for National Population Register (NPR) was also collected in the first phase, which will be used to issue a 12-digit unique identification number to all registered Indian residents by Unique Identification Authority of India. The second population enumeration phase was conducted between 9 and 28 February 2011. Census has been conducted in India since 1872 and 2011 marks the first time biometric information was collected. According to the provisional reports released on 31 March 2011, the Indian population increased to 1.21 billion with a decadal growth of 17.70%. Adult literacy rate increased to 74.04% with a decadal growth of 9.21%. The motto of the census was Our Census, Our Future.

The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11 attacks) were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, carried out 12 shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday 26 November and lasted until Saturday 29 November 2008. A total of 175 people died, including nine of the attackers, with more than 300 injured.

Pulok Chatterji (born 1952) is an Indian civil servant who served as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, from 2011 to 2014. and formerly served as Executive Director to the World Bank and Joint Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office from 2004 to 2009.

Thottuvelil Krishna Pillai Ayappan Nair (born in 1941) is a career civil servant who formerly served as Adviser to the Prime Minister of India with the rank of the Minister of State. He also previously served as Principal Secretary to Prime Minister of India.

Pankaj Pachauri (Hindi: पंकज पचौरी) (born 24 September 1963) is an Indian TV anchor and journalist. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Gonews, India's first app based TV News channel. Pachauri was associated with NDTV for 15 years. He was also associated with other international media houses including the BBC, India Today, The Sunday Observer and tha Patriot newspaper. He has been a member of the National Integration Council.

Sanjaya Baru is a political commentator and policy analyst. He served as Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) until his resignation in April 2018. Prior to this, he was Director for Geo-Economics and Strategy at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. He was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's media advisor and chief spokesperson (PMO) from May 2004 until August 2008. He has also served as associate editor at The Economic Times and The Times of India, and then chief editor at Business Standard. His father B. P. R. Vithal was Finance and Planning Secretary during Dr. Manmohan Singh's tenure as Secretary of Finance in the Government of India.