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All Quotes by author - Shashi Tharoor
" Above all, Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' is the work of an artist at the peak of his powers. India is his palette, and Mumbai - that teeming 'maximum city', with 19 million strivers on the make, jostling, scheming, struggling and killing for success - is his brush. "
Artist
City
Work
" Among the many international consequences of Barack Obama's stunning victory in the United States is worldwide introspection about whether such a breakthrough could happen elsewhere. Could a person of color win power in other white-majority countries? "
Power
Win
Victory
" As an Indian, and now as a politician and a government minister, I've become rather concerned about the hype we're hearing about our own country, all this talk about India becoming a world leader, even the next superpower. "
Country
Leader
Talk
" A weak, insecure nation needs sporting heroes, players larger than life on the cricketing field, who can transcend the limitations of their country and team. "
Life
Team
Country
" A witticism in an airport security line is like a Swiss tap - turn it on, and you instantly find yourself in hot water. "
Water
Hot
Yourself
" Because so many voters happen to be illiterate, India invented the party symbol, so that voters who could not read the name of their candidate could vote for him or her anyway by recognizing the symbol under which they campaigned. "
Him
Her
Vote
" 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. "
Sea
Excellence
Education
" Elections are an enduring spectacle of free India, and have provided foreign journalists with the opportunity to remind the world that India remains the world's largest democracy. "
Free
World
Opportunity
" 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?' "
World
Question
Nation
" Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America. "
Government
Love
Music
" Global challenges also require global solutions, and few indeed are the situations in which the United States or any other country can act completely alone. "
Solutions
Challenges
Alone
" Going abroad to study as a teenager, and joining the United Nations at 22, confirmed my ease with the world of the frequent flyer. I saw the average airport terminal as a familiar haven, like a friend's sitting room. But 9/11 changed all that. "
Friend
Sitting
Study
" I am proud to represent the capital of Kerala, a state that in so many ways is a trailblazer for India's progress, though in other respects it seems to have been left behind in the race for 21st century development. "
I Am
Proud
Progress
" 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. "
Hope
Freedom
Diversity
" I don't go by my caste, creed or religion. My works speak for me. "
Caste
Speak
Religion
" If China wants to build a new six-lane expressway, it can bulldoze its way past any number of villages in its path; in India, if you want to widen a two-lane road, you could be tied up in court for a dozen years over compensation entitlements. "
Path
Build
India
" 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. "
Home
School
Parents
" I'm not a techno-determinist. I believe we need to improve our existing human resources, and technology can only be a complement. "
Need
Technology
I Believe
" In China, national priorities are established by the Government and then funded by the state; in India, priorities emerge from seemingly endless discussions and arguments amongst myriad interests, and funds have to be found where they might. "
India
China
Priorities
" Indian democracy has often been likened to the stately progress of the elephant - ponderous in its gait and reluctant to change course, but not easily swayed from its new path when it does. "
Change
New
Path
" India's national elections are really an aggregate of thirty different state elections, each influenced by its own local considerations, regional political currents, and different patterns of political incumbency. "
India
Thirty
Political
" I returned to India after long years of international service, because I had always cherished the desire to make a difference in my own country. "
Long
Make A Difference
Service
" I returned to India because I believe in an India of honesty and hard work, not of corruption and crookedness. I believe in an India of openness and straightforwardness, not of hypocrisy and double-dealing. I believe in an India where opportunities are available to all, and not just to a chosen few. "
Work
Opportunities
Honesty
" Malaysians talk with Mauritians, Arabs with Australians, South Africans with Sri Lankans, and Iranians with Indonesians. The Indian Ocean serves as both a sea separating them and a bridge linking them together. "
Them
Talk
Bridge
" Many of the people who are most considered anti-American would love to partake of the American dream: the unspoken slogan of many protesters outside U.S. embassies abroad is really: 'Yankee go home, but take me with you.' "
Me
American Dream
Home
" Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people. "
Land
Power
Speak
" The abrupt and sudden death of my wife has taken a severe emotional and psychic toll on me. On top of that, some people have stooped so low that they have tried to use my personal tragedy for their personal benefit. "
Me
Death
People
" The Beijing Olympics were an exercise in Chinese soft power. Americans have the 'Voice of America' and the Fulbright scholarships. But, the fact is, in fact, that probably Hollywood and MTV and McDonalds have done more for American soft power around the world than any specifically government activity. "
America
Power
World
" The casting of 'Slumdog Millionaire' is a dream. Anil Kapoor, as the sleazy TV host, diamonds winking in his earlobes, has never been better; the quietly understated Irrfan Khan turns in another bravura performance as the police inspector whose questioning brings out Jamal's story. "
Police
Diamonds
Story
" The Chinese, as befits a Communist autocracy, approached the task of dominating the Olympics with top-down military discipline. "
Task
Communist
Discipline
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