"Liberal education is not some fusty notion about reading good books, but is rather an important investment in the future. India will be a fairer and more productive society if more students graduate with not only a set of specific skills but also a liberal arts-inspired capacity to acquire new ones."
Arthur Dudney, an American Fulbright scholar based at Delhi University (Outlook, May 16)
"There is hardly any worthwhile research from our IITs. The faculty in the IITs is not world-class. It is the students who are world-class. So the IITs and IIMs are excellent because of the quality of students not because of quality of research or faculty."
Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh commenting on India’s world-famous Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in Delhi (May 24)
"I want to place on record the government’s complete trust in the faculties of the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Management. Almost 25 percent of the entire IIT faculty comprises ex-students. Surely, if there are world-class students, there must be world-class faculty."
Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal reacting to Jairam Ramesh’s comment about IIT/IIM faculty not being world-class (May 27)
"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
Stephen Hawking, British physicist and author, dismissing the notion of life after death (Time, May 30)
"The country needs to provide reservation and quality education for its deprived castes and classes and support them through the entire process. The success of India’s reservation policies should be measured by equality of outcomes."
Prof. K.S. Jacob of the Christian Medical College, Vellore (The Hindu, May 30)
"Poverty is India’s greatest polluter and ecological enemy."
B.G. Verghese, author and columnist (Deccan Herald, May 31)