By Devjyot Ghoshal and Matthias Williams NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Described as a "reluctant king" in his first stint as prime minister, the soft-spoken Manmohan Singh, who died on Thursday at the age of 92,

Manmohan Singh, who has died aged 92, was the technocrat behind the economic reforms that led to India’s emergence as a world power, first as finance minister and latterly as prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014.

Nanda Kumar vividly recalled his first one-on-one meeting with Singh in 2006 when India was grappling with a food shortage. The decision to import food had drawn widespread criticism, and Kumar approached the prime minister to discuss the issue.