Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means.

In absolutely every way, our lives are transformed by education and basic education in particular. So I would have thought that in any kind of system, to say that the priorities don't include education is a mistake, whether it's [at the] domestic level or at the global level.

Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence... they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and... a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have.

[The] USA has been immensely successful in making the determination to deal with terrorism [as] a factor in the global world and, similarly, if it took a similar interest in education, it could make a difference.

No substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country - no matter how poor.

Every time you have an opportunity of opening a school, its fee and funding is really relatively small in comparison with the big expenditure, which is basically quote unquote defense. I think if there were fees, progress could be very much faster. But for that we need not only the government in different countries to understand it but the society to put pressure on it, the parents to understand that their desire to have their children educated can actually be realized, and it could make a dramatic difference.

I was told Indian women don't think like that about equality. But I would like to argue that if they don't think like that they should be given a real opportunity to think like that.