Jairam Ramesh

“Industrialisation is necessary. But acquisition is by no means the only avenue through which it can be achieved. The Cochin Airport is a prime example of this. Instead of choosing to acquire the land, the State asked the private parties to negotiate with the landowners directly. The State merely acted as an arbitrator.”

“If there is a Nobel prize for dirt and filth, India will win it, no doubt.”

“Don't get married in a house where there is no toilet.”

“There never is a good time for tough decisions. There will always be an election or something else. You have to pick courage and do it. Governance is about taking tough, even unpopular, decisions.”

“I think environmentalists do no service to their cause by taking fundamentalist stances. I am not defending corporate India's track record, but for many environmental problems, there are technological solutions.”

“A country that cannot feed itself cannot have self-pride, and in the mid-'60s 20 percent of all the wheat produced in America came into India. We were agriculturally a basket case. And 15 years later, 20 years later, we have become an agricultural power. This is the famous Green Revolution.”

“I think toilets are more important than temples. No matter how many temples we go to, we are not going to get salvation. We need to give priority to toilets and cleanliness.”

“It was good to launch the economy in the '50s. Japan did this; China did this; even South Korea did this. All the East Asians did this - import substitution. I think all countries followed import substitution in the '50s and in the '60s, but I think by the '70s, countries were getting out of that first phase of the strategy.”

“The rate of growth of the management skills of any country is inversely proportional to the number of MBAs. Germany produces no MBAs, but America used to produce MBAs by the millions, and you saw the German economy, until at least the '90s, was certainly more efficient than the American economy.”

“Governments can't keep looking over the shoulder or at the constellation of stars. You have got to do what you have got to do.”

“India needs to be liberated both from the 'high GDP growth hedgehogs' and the 'conservation at all costs hedgehogs.'”

“Elections in India are not contests between personalities. They are ultimately battles involving political parties; promises and pledges that political parties make; the vision and programmes that political parties bring to the table. So although, Modi's style is 'I, me, myself,' I don't think 2014 elections as a Modi versus Rahul contest.”

“WTO is not the forum for labour standards. Next, the U.S. will argue the time zone difference is an unfair competitive advantage enjoyed by India that enables our software engineers to work while the Americans sleep.”

“The Indian diaspora is not a capital-accumulating diaspora. The Indian diaspora is doctors, lawyers, professors. Or newspaper sellers. They are basically trade- or profession-oriented, and so they're not major investors in their home country.”