I started out in nuclear physics. But after I became more sensitized to the environmental and health implications of the nuclear system - I was being trained to be the first women in the fast-breeder reactor in India (and was in it when it first went critical) - I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I went into theoretical physics.

I think the structures of exclusion are more systematically built up in American society, for example, so that young girls interested in science eventually lose their confidence over time. The structures of exclusion work against them. We have other structures of exclusion in India, but not around modern scientific knowledge.

When you don't take into account the way ecological systems work, then you do damage.

Unless the poor of the world agitate for themselves to be heard, there will be no changes in their circumstances.

That amazing power of being able to stand with total courage in the face of total power and not be afraid. That is stri shakti.

We have managed to make the celebration of diversity our mode of resistance.

Diversity creates harmony, and harmony creates beauty, balance, bounty and peace in nature and society, in agriculture and culture, in science and in politics.