When I was growing up reading history books as a young student, it seemed all wars had a winner. Yet in today's wars, it is increasingly clear that no one wins. Everyone loses.

Gender equality has a transformative effect that is essential to fully functioning communities, societies, and economies.

India is a country that has no direct interests in some areas of global conflict. It has very good relations with countries in conflict or countries facing difficult security situations, and I believe Indian diplomacy is very well received. India is a bridge-builder, an honest broker, and a messenger of peace.

Nowhere in the world has the use of force alone resolved a conflict.

Christians can bring peace to multi-religious Europe because we are able to understand the role of faith in the lives of other believers better than atheists.

War is a racket. It always has been... A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

Le Carre's voice - patrician, cold, brilliant and amused - was perfect for the wilderness-of-mirrors undertow of the Cold War, and George Smiley is the all-time harassed bureaucrat of spy fiction.

If we are surrounded by the trivial and the vicious, it is all too easy to make our peace with it.