President Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s mother dies peacefully at 99 in Singapore home
Sarvambikai Shanmugaratnam, mother of President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, died peacefully at home on 19 April 2026, aged 99, and was cremated in a private observance.
- Sarvambikai Shanmugaratnam died peacefully at home on 19 April 2026 aged 99.
- The President’s Office confirmed a private cremation shortly after her passing.
- She was born in Kuala Lumpur and is survived by three children and four grandchildren.
SINGAPORE: Sarvambikai Shanmugaratnam, mother of President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, died peacefully at home on 19 April 2026 at the age of 99.
According to the Straits Times, the President’s Office confirmed her death on 20 April, stating that she passed away on Sunday afternoon.
It added that she was “cremated soon after in a private observance”.
“We ask that the family’s privacy be respected during this time,” the office said in response to media queries.
According to an obituary published on Obits.sg, Sarvambikai Shanmugaratnam was born on 5 July 1926 in Kuala Lumpur.
She was the fourth of 11 children born to Dr A. Viswalingam and Rathnammal Ayathurai, both from Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
The obituary described her as “a quiet iconoclast” who “always kept her own counsel in holding to a different path, and stood on the side of adventure and independence in life”.
She was married to the late emeritus Professor Kanagaratnam Shanmugaratnam, widely regarded as Singapore’s “father of pathology”.
Before his death in 2018 at the age of 97, he established the Singapore Cancer Registry in 1967 to track cancer trends nationwide.
Sarvambikai Shanmugaratnam is survived by three children, four grandchildren, and two sisters.
