"Stop Vedanta in the wrong manner and for the wrong reasons and we may stop India."
B.G. Verghese on the Union forest ministry’s order stopping Vedanta from mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills of Orissa (Business Standard, September 4)
"I compliment and pay tribute to my colleague Kapil Sibal for the zeal, dedication and enthusiasm that he has brought to bear on the work of this most important ministry of Union government that is the human resource development ministry."
Prime minister Manmohan Singh on HRD minister Kapil Sibal (September 5)
"At school, our education system hammers out our individual voices and kills our natural creativity, turning us into servile, course-materials slaves. Indian kids are not encouraged to raise their voices in class."
Author Chetan Bhagat in Times of India (September 26)
"It was called a media circus, but it was the kind in which the clowns attacked the children and everyone walking the tightrope looked down and couldn’t see any net."
Well-known columnist Nancy Gibbs on an American pastor’s aborted plan to ceremonially burn copies of the Quran (Time, September 27)
"What can I say… it’s not very nice…When it comes to giving there aren’t many people who will happily give away even 1 percent? These are people who are used to big money and 1 percent is not much. But they don’t do it."
Shiv Nadar, founder-chairman of HCL Technologies, on why Indian billionaires are not warming up to the idea of philanthropy (The Economic Times, September 29)
"Teach a man in India to read and he will not teach the other illiterates to read, rather he will charge them to read their letters."
Rashmee Roshan Lall quoting an ancient Indian proverb (Times of India, September 30)
"That official who claimed that we in India have lower standards of hygiene, he should be spanked very severely."
Author Sir Salman Rushdie on the Commonwealth Games, Delhi 2010 (September 30)