Education in India has made monumental progress since Independence but continues to face daunting challenges at multiple levels, particularly in terms of quality, infrastructure and dropout rates. We have islands of excellence floating in a sea of mediocrity.

- Shashi Tharoor

I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.

- Shashi Tharoor

Education in India has made monumental progress since Independence but continues to face daunting challenges at multiple levels, particularly in terms of quality, infrastructure and dropout rates. We have islands of excellence floating in a sea of mediocrity.

- Shashi Tharoor

The notion of 'world leadership' is a curiously archaic one. The very phrase is redolent of Kipling ballads and James Bondian adventures. What makes a country a world leader? Is it population, in which case India is on course to top the charts, overtaking China as the world's most populous country by 2034?

- Shashi Tharoor

I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.

- Shashi Tharoor

I have been a frequent air traveler since I was a few months shy of my sixth birthday, when my parents packed me off to boarding school two plane rides away from home. Those days of being willingly handed from air hostess to air hostess as an 'unaccompanied minor' made me blase about the rigors of air travel.

- Shashi Tharoor

I don't go by my caste, creed or religion. My works speak for me.

- Shashi Tharoor

The U.N. guards the vital principles entrenched in its charter, notably the sovereign equality of states and the inadmissibility of interference in their internal affairs. It is precisely because the U.N. is the chief guardian of both these sacrosanct principles that it alone is allowed to approve derogations from them.

- Shashi Tharoor

Five decades ago, as India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, began visibly ailing, the nation and the world were consumed by the question: 'After Nehru, who?' The inexpressible fear lay in the subtext to the question: 'After Nehru, what?'

- Shashi Tharoor

I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.

- Shashi Tharoor