Pranab Mukherjee

As Indians, we must of course learn from the past; but we must remain focused on the future. In my view, education is the true alchemy that can bring India its next golden age.

I feel that when the reforms in UN take place and the Security Council will be expanded in the permanent membership category, India will have a place, I hope so, but first it is to be expanded.

Propelled by freedom of faith, gender equality and economic justice for all, India will become a modern nation. Minor blemishes cannot cloak the fact that India is becoming such a modern nation: no faith is in danger in our country, and the continuing commitment to gender equality is one of the great narratives of our times.

The young people of India will build a strong and powerful nation, a nation that is politically mature and economically strong, a nation whose people enjoy both a high quality of life as well as justice.

The government of India and the government of Jammu and Kashmir are determined to ensure that every Kashmiri lives with dignity having equal rights and equal opportunities.

Of course, running a coalition government in a country like India is a difficult task. More so when Congress leads the coalition, since most of the political parties were anti-Congress. To have a coalition, to run a coalition government, you require a lot of adjustments, a lot of flexibility.

I am comfortable at the height where destiny has put me.

I have seen vast, perhaps unbelievable, changes during the journey that has brought me from the flicker of a lamp in a small Bengal village to the chandeliers of Delhi.

I come from a political family. My father was a freedom fighter. He was a prominent leader of the locality and member of the Congress party. He spent 10 years in British prisons. In the evening, in our living room, the only subject we used to discuss was politics. So politics was not unfamiliar to me.

The fact remains that secularism is inherent in the Indian system, in the Indian ethos and culture. India cannot but be secular.

Let Jammu and Kashmir lead the way in the building of a new future for India. Let it set an example to the rest of India and the world by showing how the entire region can be transformed into a zone of peace, stability and prosperity.

No problems are ever resolved by violence. It only aggravates the pain and the hurt on every side.