Until the day she died, my mother continued to fight for the rights of women. She joined all the women's movements of the time; she stirred up a lot of revolts. She was a great woman, a great figure. Women today would like her immensely.

When you govern a country, and especially a country so vast and complex as India, you never arrive at anything.

I have certain objectives. They're the same objectives my father had to give people a higher standard of living, to do away with the cancer of poverty, to eliminate the consequences of economic backwardness.

A nation' s strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own, and not in what it can borrow from others.

If I'm happy, I look happy; if I'm angry, I show it. Without worrying about how others may react.

As a nation, I believe we've acquired faith in ourselves.

We were to equally strong types [with my husband], equally pigheaded - neither of us wanted to give in. And...I like to think those quarrels made us better, that they enlivened our life, because without them we would have had a normal life, yes, but banal and boring.