Empowering women is key to building a future we want

There are some people who say that they’re concerned only with poverty but not inequality. But I don’t think that is a sustainable thought. A lot of poverty is, in fact, inequality because of the connection between income and capability—having adequate resources to take part in the life of the community.

Being able to read, write, do your sums really transforms a human being.

China had managed to reduce their fertility to a large extent because of basic expansion of women's education, not because of the one-child family.

Thailand's economic development was driven by educational expansion. That has been a very dramatic factor, and South Asia had been pretty miserable in not learning from that experience.

I don’t think that India is much celebrated for its democracy. Democracy has been a very neglected commodity at home and abroad.

There is considerable evidence that women's education and literacy tend to reduce the mortality rates of children