The higher education has always appealed to the South Asian social leaders across all the countries in South Asia. But primary education has been neglected. The oddity, by the way, is if you look at the contrast in India, there are some areas like Kerala where there's a long history of educational development.

One of the things that any kind of studies bring out is that the mere act of schooling - getting together, the organization involved, going to classes on time, and there're things being taught, sitting down with others with different backgrounds, chatting with them, and, sometimes when there are big barriers, eating together when there are school meals, which are big things together with a big social impact - they themselves have a major effect.

It is also very engaging - and a delight - to go back to Bangladesh as often as I can, which is not only my old home, but also where some of my closest friends and collaborators live and work.

Human life consists of doing certain things ... to take part in the life of the community; to be able to talk about subjects that interest me and there freedom of speech comes into it.

You have to be interested in inequality. The issue of inequality and that of poverty are not separable.

I think just as armament had a major impact of a negative kind in the world, education is something which has a major impact of a positive kind in the world. And I think the American population, with its humanity and with its concern about the future of the world, has a real reason to think about what it can do to help the world in expanding education.

It’s very easy to capture pictures of jubilant people in the street after the nuclear bomb. But there were no pictures of morose people sitting in their kitchens and living rooms.