"Market forces don’t create equality and equality-of-opportunity requires public education. Societies that succeeded in creating it, like Scandinavia, pushed education. Those that didn’t, like the US, have decreasing equality of access."
Nobel laureate economist Joseph E. Stilglitz addressing the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (February 3-5)
"India should take advantage of its demographic dividend like the US did two centuries ago and transform itself into a country of youth and provide leadership to the world."
Union law minister Veerappa Moily addressing the 46th annual convocation of Bangalore University (February 15)
"Social mobility is further impeded as the rich shower their children with private education and after-school help, while the poorest cannot afford even to let their children stay in school."
Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University (BusinessWorld, February 21)
"There is very definitive evidence of a combination of quackery and crookery in the premature privatisation of basic healthcare. This is the result not only of shameful exploitation, but ultimately of the sheer unavailability of public healthcare in many localities around India."
Nobel laureate Dr. Amartya Sen on India’s neglect of public healthcare facilities (The Hindu, February 14)
"It’s too simple to say that what happened in Tunisia and Egypt happened because of Facebook. But technology — satellite television, computers, mobile phones and the internet — has played a powerful role in informing, educating and connecting people in the region. Such advances empower individuals and disempower the state."
Fareed Zakaria, well-known columnist and author, on the Middle East revolutions (Time, February 28)
"No nation can move forward unless we are able to send our children to universities from school."
Kapil Sibal, Union HRD minister (Deccan Herald, February 28)