Basically, there are two kinds of stereotypes out there in the world about America. There's America the Goliath - the big, powerful, bullying country that pushes its way around the world and gets its ways, pursues its own interests nakedly, irrespective of what others want. And the other stereotype is America, the land of opportunity, where everyone can go and do anything, be anything, make any dreams come true.

A philosopher is a lover of wisdom, not of knowledge, which for all its great uses ultimately suffers from the crippling effect of ephemerality. All knowledge is transient, linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes, whereas wisdom, true wisdom is eternal, immutable. To be philosophical one must love wisdom for its own sake, accept its permanent validity and yet its perpetual irrelevance. It is the fate of the wise to understand the process of history and yet never to shape it.

Western dictionaries define secularism as absence of religion but Indian secularism does not mean irreligiousness.It means profusion of religions.

India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. ... India matters to me and I would like to matter to India.

I make no bones about the fact that India matters to me, and I would like to matter to India.

There’s no longer a superpower standoff. But there are real problems that divide countries around the world. And the UN is still the place where we can get together and try and discuss them.

What economic libralisation needs, if it is to succeed , is a general acceptance that reforms are for the general good, that they might seem to help some more than others, but that in the long run everyone will benefit from them. Such attitude is far from being realized