The Sardar Manmohan Singh Charitable Trust was established in September 2012, with the objective of awarding scholarships to the deserving, providing financial aid and other incentives to students to enable them to pursue their academics and research work across the globe.

 

The Prathiba M. Singh Cambridge LL.M. Scholarship was set up in 2013 as one of the initiatives of the Trust.

 

Sardar Manmohan Singh, born in Lahore, Pakistan, in the 1930s, migrated to India during the Partition and settled in New Delhi with his family. Although, his education was formally till the Punjab Metric, his command over languages was admirable. He could speak, read and write Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and English and had an immaculate handwriting. Having spent his early days in Lahore, it had been his lifelong wish to visit his ancestral home - a dream that was never fulfilled.

 

He was a civil contractor, who undertook a large number of projects in and around Delhi. He used to conduct arbitration proceedings pertaining to his projects all by himself.

 

He married Sardarni Balbir Kaur and they were blessed with three children - Manbir Kaur, Maninder Singh and Mahinder Pal Singh. Imbibing the qualities of their father, one son became a lawyer and the other a civil contractor.

 

Sardar Manmohan Singh was known as someone who was always ready to help his family and friends in their time of need. It is with a view to continue his legacy that the Trust has been formed in his name by his family. Upon setting up of the Trust, it was felt that the first activity of the Trust ought to be the institution of a Scholarship for Indian students who had been accepted at Cambridge University.

 

The purpose of this Scholarship is not only to encourage meritorious students to study at Cambridge, but more so to enable them to study when a scholarship is the only means of completing their masters in law. As Mrs. Singh says, "If I had not received the ODAAAS Scholarship in 1991-92, I would not have made it to Cambridge. The scholarship is what changed the course of my life. I just hope scholars who get the scholarship come back to India and support such activities in future."

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The Trust also thanks the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust for its support in this initiative.