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, was arguably one of India's most successful leaders.

Singh, the first Sikh to lead his nation, was prime minister from 2004 to 2014, serving a rare two terms. He had been undergoing care for age-related medical conditions, Reuters reported.

Singh is credited with steering India to unprecedented economic growth and lifting hundreds of millions out of dire poverty.

"India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Born into a poor family in a part of British-ruled India now in Pakistan, Manmohan Singh studied by candlelight to win a place at Cambridge University before heading to Oxford, earning a doctorate with a thesis on the role of exports and free trade in India's economy.

He became a respected economist, then India's central bank governor and a government adviser, but had no apparent plans for a political career when he was suddenly tapped to become finance minister in 1991.

During that tenure to 1996, Singh was the architect of reforms that saved India's economy from a severe balance of payments crisis and promoted deregulation, as well as other measures that opened an insular country to the world.

Famously quoting Victor Hugo in his first budget speech, he said: "No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come," before adding: "The emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea."

Singh's ascension to prime minister in 2004 was even more unexpected.

He was asked to take on the job by Sonia Gandhi, who had led the centre-left Congress Party to a surprise victory. Italian by birth, she feared her ancestry would be used by Hindu-nationalist opponents to attack the government if she were to lead the country.

Riding an unprecedented period of economic growth, Singh's government shared the spoils of India's newfound wealth, introducing welfare schemes such as a jobs programme for the rural poor.

In 2008, his government also clinched a landmark deal that permitted peaceful trade in nuclear energy with the United States for the first time in three decades, paving the way for strong relations between New Delhi and Washington.

But his efforts to further open up the Indian economy were frequently frustrated by political wrangling within his own party and demands made by coalition partners.

'HISTORY WILL BE KINDER TO ME'

While he was widely respected by other world leaders, at home Singh always had to fend off the perception that Sonia Gandhi was the real power in the government.

The widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose family has dominated Indian politics since independence from Britain in 1947, she remained Congress Party leader and often made key decisions.

Known for his simple lifestyle and with a reputation for honesty, Singh was not personally seen as corrupt. But he came under attack for failing to crack down on members of his government as a series of scandals erupted in his second term, triggering mass protests.

The latter years of his premiership saw the Indian growth story that he had helped engineer wobble as global economic turbulence and slow government decision-making battered investment sentiment.

In 2012, his government was tipped into a minority after the Congress Party's biggest ally quit their coalition in protest at the entry of foreign supermarkets.

Two years later Congress was decisively swept aside by the Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi, a strongman who promised to end the economic standstill, clean up graft and bring inclusive growth to the hinterlands.

At a press conference not long before he left office, Singh insisted he had done the best he could.

"I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media or, for that matter, the opposition parties in parliament," he said.

Singh is survived by his wife and three daughters.

An Embraer passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday with 62 passengers and five crew on board, Kazakh authorities announced, saying that 27 people had survived, Reuters reported.

Unverified video of the crash showed the plane, which was operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, bursting into flames as it hit the ground and thick black smoke then rising. Bloodied and bruised passengers could be seen stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that had remained intact.

The Central Asian country's emergencies ministry said in a statement that fire services had put out the blaze and that the survivors, including three children, were being treated at a nearby hospital.

Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190 aircraft, with flight number J2-8243, had been flying from Baku to Grozny, the capital of Russia's Chechnya, but had been forced to make an emergency landing approximately 3 km (1.8 miles) from the Kazakh city of Aktau, read the report.

Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny.

Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

Russia's aviation watchdog said in a statement that preliminary information suggested the pilot had decided to make an emergency landing after a bird strike.

Following the crash, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, was returning home from Russia where he had been due to attend a summit on Wednesday, Russia's RIA news agency reported.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, expressed his condolences in a statement and said those being treated in hospital were in an extremely serious condition and that he and others would pray for their rapid recovery.

The Biden administration is concerned that a weakened Iran could build a nuclear weapon, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, adding that he was briefing President-elect Donald Trump's team on the risk, Reuters reported.

Iran has suffered setbacks to its regional influence after Israel's assaults on its allies, Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, followed by the fall of Iran-aligned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, have reduced Tehran's conventional military capabilities, Sullivan told CNN.

"It's no wonder there are voices (in Iran) saying, 'Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now ... Maybe we have to revisit our nuclear doctrine'," Sullivan said.

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has expanded uranium enrichment since Trump, in his 2017-2021 presidential term, pulled out of a deal between Tehran and world powers that put restrictions on Iran's nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief, read the report.

Sullivan said that there was a risk that Iran might abandon its promise not to build nuclear weapons.

"It's a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It's a risk that I'm personally briefing the incoming team on," Sullivan said, adding that he had also consulted with U.S. ally Israel.

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, could return to his hardline Iran policy by stepping up sanctions on Iran's oil industry.

Sullivan said Trump would have an opportunity to pursue diplomacy with Tehran, given Iran's "weakened state."

"Maybe he can come around this time, with the situation Iran finds itself in, and actually deliver a nuclear deal that curbs Iran's nuclear ambitions for the long term," he said.