People in India think about the contribution former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made to the country since then He died on Thursday evening.

Singh, who held the top job for two consecutive terms between 2004 and 2014, was seen as the architect of India’s economic liberalization that changed the country’s growth trajectory.

Singh was the first Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power, and was also the first Sikh to hold the top office.

Known as a soft-spoken technocrat, he had previously headed India’s central bank, served as finance minister and cabinet minister, and led the opposition in the upper house of parliament.

Here are five milestones in Singh’s life that shaped his career and had a lasting impact on more than a billion Indians.

Singh was appointed Finance Minister in 1991 by the Congress-led government under Prime Minister PV Narsimha Rao.

India’s economy at that time was facing a serious financial crisis, with the country’s foreign exchange reserves at a dangerously low level, barely enough to cover the costs of imports for two weeks.

Singh led the initiative to liberalize the economy to avert its collapse, which he said was imminent. Despite strong opposition from members of his government and party, Singh prevailed.

He took bold measures that included devaluing the currency, reducing import tariffs, and privatizing state-owned companies.

He was quoted as saying in Parliament during his first budget speech in 1991 that “no force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.”

Later, as Prime Minister, Singh continued to build on economic reform measures, lifting millions of Indians out of poverty and contributing to India’s rise as one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies.

The Congress party made a comeback in the 2004 elections, inflicting a shock defeat on the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi was widely expected to take over as prime minister, but many members of the outgoing ruling party have raised questions about the fact that she was born in Italy. She declined to take the position and instead suggested the name of Singh, who was seen as an uncontroversial consensus candidate with great personal integrity.

In the following parliamentary elections, he helped his party win a larger mandate, but critics often described him as a “remote-controlled” prime minister run by the Gandhi family.

Singh has often declined to comment on such allegations and has kept his focus on the job.

He may have begun his first stint as prime minister with some hesitation, but he quickly asserted his authority over the top job.

Singh’s tenure, especially between 2004 and 2009, saw the country’s GDP grow at a healthy average rate of about 8%, the second fastest among major economies.

He made bold decisions on reforms and bringing more foreign investment into the country. Experts credit him with protecting India from the 2008 global financial crisis.

But his second term, in coalition with a disparate array of parties, was marked by corruption allegations against some of his cabinet ministers, even though his personal integrity was never in doubt.

In response to these allegations, he told reporters in 2014 at his last press conference as prime minister that he hoped history would judge him differently.

He said: “I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or the opposition parties in Parliament.”

“I believe that, taking into account the circumstances and the constraints of the coalition political system, I did the best I could under the circumstances.”

As Prime Minister, Singh made many far-reaching decisions that continue to affect the health of Indian democracy to this day.

He introduced new laws that strengthened and guaranteed the right to request information from the government, giving citizens exceptional power to hold officials accountable.

He also introduced a rural employment plan that guaranteed livelihoods for at least 100 days, a measure that economists said had a profound impact on rural incomes and poverty reduction.

He also passed a law guaranteeing the right to free and compulsory education for children between the ages of 6 and 14, which significantly reduced school dropout rates.

His government also introduced a unique identity project called Aadhar to improve financial inclusion and provide welfare benefits to the poor. The current federal government, run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has continued to maintain Aadhar as the cornerstone of many of its policies.

In 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for military action she ordered against separatists hiding in Sikhism’s holiest temple in Amritsar, northern India.

Her death sparked widespread violence that resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 Sikhs and the widespread destruction of their property.

Singh formally apologized to the nation in 2005 in Parliament, saying the violence was a “denial of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our Constitution.”

“I have no hesitation in apologizing to the Sikh community. I apologize not only to the Sikh community, but to the entire Indian nation,” he said.

No other prime minister, especially from the Congress party, has gone to such lengths to apologize in Parliament for the riots.

Singh signed a historic agreement with the United States in 2008 to end India’s nuclear isolation after it tested the weapons system in 1998.

His government said the deal would help meet India’s growing energy needs and maintain its healthy growth rate.

The agreement, seen as a watershed moment in India-US relations, promised to give India an exemption to begin civilian nuclear trade with the US and the rest of the world.

But it faced massive opposition, with critics of the agreement claiming that it would jeopardize India’s sovereignty and independence in foreign policy. In protest, the Left Front withdrew its support from the ruling alliance.

But Singh managed itI fulfill both his government and the agreement.