I think in those countries, including my own in India, where I think primary education has been badly neglected by successive governments, I blame the opposition as much. Why have they allowed the government to get away with it?

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.

A defeated argument that refuses to be obliterated can remain very alive.

It was incredible to me that members of one community could kill members of another not for anything personal that they did but simply based on their identity.

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

I have not had any serious non-academic job.

Human ordeals thrive on ignorance. To understand a problem with clarity is already half way towards solving it.