“Gurugram may have been OK a few decades ago, but wouldn’t Gurukilo have been more appropriate, now?”
B. Jay Panda, BJD spokesperson, on the renaming of Gurgaon as Gurugram by the Haryana state government (April 12)
“Many families that have bet their shirts on education will be disappointed to find that this education has only rendered their child unemployable. There’s a great deal of frustration building up.”
Anirudh Krishna, professor at Duke University, USA, sharing his research findings on social mobility in India (Times of India, April 17)
“I cannot get euphoric if India is the fastest growing large economy. Our current growth certainly reflects the hard work of the government and the people of the country, but we have to repeat this performance for the next 20 years before we can give every Indian a decent livelihood.”
Dr. Raghuram Rajan, RBI governor delivering a lecture at NIBM, Pune (April 21)
“Inequities have to be settled in some way, but not by claiming back royal jewels which have little to give us civilisationally except some publicity.”
Naman Ahuja, professor of art at JNU, Delhi, on the demand of the Central government to Britain to return the Kohinoor diamond (The Hindu, April 22)
“Aspiration and wealth creation are not dirty words.”
David Cameron, British prime minister, releasing his tax returns following revelations in the so-called Panama Papers that he once held an interest in his late father’s offshore accounts (Time, April 25)
“The nation state often commands uniformity, while the university triggers plurality, thus making the politics of knowledge a creative and difficult balance between the two. By treating the protests as anti-national, JNU seems to consider itself as a continuation of the civil service.”
Shiv Vishvanathan, social scientist, criticising a JNU report suspending two students for alleged anti-national activities (Deccan Chronicle, April 29)