The governments and the hard-headed military establishment and the general conservative part of America have never taken much interest in democracy, anyway.

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.

Imparting education not only enlightens the receiver, but also broadens the giver - the teachers, the parents, the friends.

Poverty is the deprivation of opportunity.

You can’t prevent undernourishment so easily, but famines you can stop with half an effort. Then the question was why don’t the governments stop them?

Any classification according to a singular identity polarizes people in a particular way, but if we take note of the fact that we have many different identities - related not just to religion but also to language, occupation and business, politics, class and poverty, and many others - we can see that the polarization of one can be resisted by a fuller picture. So knowledge and understanding are extremely important to fight against singular polarization.

Gender inequality is not one problem, it's a collection of problems.