The presidency is not an office job. If I only sit in the office in Dar es Salaam, I'm not running the country. I visit the country to inspect development programmes, to inspect activities, to see how things are going, how the government agenda is being implemented, what are the teething issues.

To me, the most critical thing in agriculture is investing in the peasant agriculture, transforming peasant agriculture.

At independence, Tanzania had 350,000 elephants... in 1987, there were only 55,000 elephants left.

We design our own programmes; we take leadership. Of course the donors come in to support us, to complement our efforts. Our responsibility to the donors is about accountability: about how we use that money. If somebody gives you his money, definitely he will be interested in knowing how you spend the money.

Yennai Arindhaal' is perhaps the quickest film in my career.

A career in showbiz is like a distance run. You have to have patience and pace yourself.

Sitcoms are usually given short shrift by the acting profession, but it's quite an amazing job.

China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.