Education is not a tool for development - individual, community and the nation. It is the foundation for our future. It is empowerment to make choices and emboldens the youth to chase their dreams.

Preventing female infanticide is equally important in protection of women's rights.

Indian classical dance is sustained by a profound philosophy. Form seeks to merge with the formless, motions seek to become a part of the motionless, and the dancing individual seeks to become one with the eternal dance of the cosmos.

Motherhood is the most challenging as well as the utmost satisfying vocation in this world.

The spiritual ambiguity growing up made me really latch onto a faith - Protestantism - that was somewhat conventional. Everyone else was rebelling against traditions and institutions, whereas I was rebelling against the upheaval and uncertainty in my family.

My mother had aspirations to become a concert singer. Her Methodist Minister father didn't approve of young girls leaving home until they married, so she had to pass it up.

I think that the best way to celebrate the other people in my family is to go on.

When I was younger, most people thought my lips looked like Tweety Bird's - there were always comments like that from family and neighbors.