I don't think poverty provides that much of an obstacle to education as one thinks. I think the bigger obstacle to education is the fact that it's a very hard thing to do for a first-generation schoolgoer. Because not to have parents at home who can help you, motivate you, is a problem even when the parents are in the abstract very keen on children being educated.

No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.

Each human being is a citizen of the world. We have many identities, of which one of the identities is our human identity. And that's something that the schools can provide, but that requires again a vision rather than being centers of hatred. It could be an enormous opportunity to give that mission.

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

In India, [in] the great documents like [the] Upanishads in eighth century B.C., you find some of the wisest [women] making great, learned speeches and then you worship them, but actually don't do very much about girls' education generally. So I think there has been a kind of dual presence of pain, respect, and saying you are great, etc., but not providing the basic facilities that make women able to lead the kind of life that they would like to and that men easily do.

Education makes human beings more articulate. It transforms people. You can think differently about the world. It makes it possible for you to get jobs. It makes a dramatic difference. It generates a social equity that we need.

The market economy succeeds not because some people's interests are suppressed and other people are kept out of the market, but because people gain individual advantage from it.