INDIA: Economist Dr Manmohan Singh, the architect of India's market reforms in the early 1990s, is to be the country's new prime minister.
"I feel humble," the softly spoken, Oxbridge-educated Dr Singh said last night, minutes after President A P J Abdul Kalam invited him to form the Congress Party-led coalition government.
In a widely corrupt and discredited polity, the punctiliously honest Dr Singh, 71, is likely to be sworn into office along with his cabinet over the next few days, possibly at the weekend.
His 19-member United Progressive Alliance will replace Prime Minister Atal Behari's outgoing Hindu nationalist-led coalition that suffered a humiliating defeat in the recently concluded elections.
Dr Singh, who will be India's first Sikh and first non-Hindu prime minister, said his main priority would be to make the country a model of economic reforms that make "opportunities available to the poor".
"The message for the markets is that our government recognises the importance of a healthy capital market. There is no reason for anybody to panic.
"We will bring in policies that will not hamper the progress of India," Dr Singh added.
India's financial markets had plunged dramatically on Monday after the Congress-led alliance, which includes the Communists, scored a surprise electoral victory over the Hindu nationalists last week. But the markets rallied yesterday following reports that Dr Singh would be PM.
Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi, to whom Dr Singh owes his job and who accompanied him to the presidential palace, said the incoming government would be "safe" in his hands.
Looking uncharacteristically relaxed after a tense campaign that lasted several weeks and one in which she clocked over 60,000 kilometres criss-crossing the country, the 57-year old Italian-born widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi said her troubles were now behind her.
"Being under such pressure, takes you down a bit," Ms Gandhi said. "But I am happy that everything is over," she added.
The presidential invitation to Dr Singh ended weeks of spectacular drama and insecurity in the world's largest democracy that included record stock market turbulence and hectic politicking. This eventually culminated with Ms Gandhi turning down appeals from her Congress party to take up India's premiership.
"I am not going anywhere. I am still very much in politics. I will continue as Congress president and chairperson [of the] Congress party in parliament for as long as you want me to," Ms Gandhi said in a statement earlier to party workers agitating for her not to turn down the prime minister's post.
Ms Gandhi faced a virulent and sustained campaign by Hindu hard-liners against her foreign origins - she became an Indian in 1986 after her husband was elected prime minister - and family pressure about her security. Besides her husband, killed by a suicide bomber, her prime minister mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her Sikh security guards.
A former International Monetary Fund official, Dr Singh had opened up India's closed and state-controlled economy as finance minister under the last Congress Party government, between 1991 and 1996.
Born in the holy Sikh city of Amritsar in northern Punjab state, the unassuming Dr Singh graduated locally before winning scholarships to both Oxford and Cambridge where he studied economics.
He headed India's central bank besides holding several senior jobs in government and with several global financial organizations. He lives frugally in a modest government house in Delhi.
"I did not plan a political career. Accidents happen" he said, long before he was a contender for the prime minister's job.