“Cleaning up the country cannot be the sole responsibility of sweepers. Do citizens have no role in this? We have to change this mindset. If people of India can reach Mars with minimal expenditure, why can they not keep their streets and colonies clean?”
Prime minister Narendra Modi launching the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India campaign) on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi (October 2)
“To question is to be suspect. Democratic dissent is equated with disloyalty. Those in opposition are enemies... A richly endowed, complex culture has been reduced to a sterile simplification: don’t talk, vilify; don’t discuss, condemn; don’t differ, just follow.”
Pawan K. Verma, MP, on the shrinking space for dailogue in public life (Times of India, October 25)
“The UPA and the NDA are in broad consensus on the need to make students apolitical, amenable, responsible citizens... Continually, all possibilities of a democratic life within universities are curtailed, mocked, denied.”
Brinda Bose & Prasanta Chakravarty, Delhi University professors, on censoring of student dissent within the university system (Outlook, October 27)
“I have been invisible because those I work for have been invisible.”
Kailash Satyarthi, the low-profile child rights activist who was recently conferred the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign againt child labour (India Today, October 27)
“If you deserve a raise, you should just ask.”
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO retracting widely criticised comments that it’s “good karma” for women to have “faith that the system will actually give you the right raises” (Time, October 27)
“The twin maladies of losing children in government schools and minimising the idea of school in the private sector are putting our schools in grave danger. We as a society seem to be far from realising that civilisations depend on education and schools are primary sites of education.”
Rohit Dhankar, professor at Azim Premji University, on saving India’s schools (The Hindu, October 28)