Let me make one thing clear. I have never considered mere survival in power as any achievement, just as I have never seen coming to power as an achievement in itself.

Our nuclear scientists and engineers have done a splendid job, and naturally, the entire nation has risen to salute their professional excellence, discipline, and patriotism. They have had the benefit of having been led in the past by great men like Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai.

Whatever understanding is reached with Pakistan has to be followed honestly, and everybody will have to rise above party politics and be actively committed to make India prosperous.

Who can forget that in critical times of war in 1962, 1965 and 1971, Naga underground organisations did not fire on the Indian Army? They showed restraint.

When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books.

There was never a good war, or a bad peace.

Around the time President Lyndon B. Johnson was declaring a War on Poverty in the 1960s, federal, state and local governments began accelerating a veritable War on the Private Sector.

Well, I think everybody is frustrated by the finances of the U.N. and the inability to solve problems of war and peace.