Local markets for literary fiction remain underdeveloped; the metropolis often holds out the only real possibility of a professional writing career.

I think subsuming political and economic conflicts into some grand 'clash of civilisations' theory or 'the West versus the rest' binary is a particularly insidious form of ideological deception.

As the 19th century progressed, Europe's innovations, norms and categories came to achieve a truly universal hegemony.

Gandhi, brought out of his semirural setting and given a Western-style education, initially attempted to become more English than the English.

While I did not get any formal training in acting, every summer vacation, from the age of five, my father would take me to Ooty with him, and I would do films as a child star. I did over 10 films like that, and it was understood that post finishing my education, I would become an actor.

I was told to challenge every spiritual teacher, every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion, no political party, and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: 'Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.

If bringing up the next generation is important, why aren't they the best qualified, the best paid? Why aren't we as concerned about their career progression as we are about those who work in the education or health services?

Positive rights are the right to shelter, the right to education, the right to health care, the right to a living wage. These things are - these are, I would call them, more properly, political rights rather than positive rights. And they are extremely tricky, because now we are dealing with things that are zero sum.