"More money has come in for education and healthcare, not as much as I would like, but it has come in. There is more radicalism needed."
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in Outlook (August 17)
"It is clear that there need be no hesitation or reluctance on the part of the judges either to disclose their assets or to make available the information to the public at large."
D.Y. Shylendra Kumar, Karnataka high court judge, in Indian Express (August 22)
"We have as many as 41 examination boards, and I am given to understand that one state has four boards. Why can’t we have four regional boards — north, south, east and west?"
Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal at a two-day conference on education reform in Delhi (August 25)
"India has been able to make important strides in poverty reduction, education, some health indices and water. But we know that there are still big problems on reducing maternal mortality, hunger, child nutrition, sanitation, the quality of education, environment, etc."
Salil Shetty, director of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG), in Deccan Herald (August 26)
"The time has now come to put in place a comprehensive right-to-food legislation that can tackle the colossal deprivation and food insecurity that continues to haunt the country."
Professor Zoya Hasan in The Hindu (August 27)
"The structure and functioning of the vastly expanded apex body, the National Commission for Higher Education and Research, has been left vague by the Yash Pal Committee. It needs an extensive public debate."
Former UGC chairman Satish Chandra (The Hindu, August 29)
"The tragedy is that agriculture has been treated so poorly by our crackerjack economic policy makers that even after 60 years of planning, the country is still vulnerable to the vagaries of nature and the livelihood of more than half of its population depends on rain-bearing clouds."
Shreekant Sambrani in Business Standard (August 29)