My siblings and I grew up studying from both the Bhagavad-Gita and the Bible, going to Mass, and then coming home to a yoga kirtan.

Growing up here in Hawaii, I loved swimming, surfing, and having fun in this paradise we are lucky to call home. But I gradually realized that I was actually happiest when I was doing things for other people, doing things to protect our water, oceans, and beaches.

We need to stop judging individuals based on their race, profession, gender, religion, or anything other than their own individual behavior and character.

The divisiveness that threatens the fabric of our nation - whether due to race, religion, political ideology, gender, sexual orientation, or other - must end.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

You watch television and see what's going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress.

The tradition that I come from has a great influence on Karnataka. Not just politically - it's also my social and moral responsibility to draw citizens facing bad governance and lawlessness to a leadership that is capable of delivering good governance and development.

I've always been about the power of a woman - accentuating the positive, deleting the negative, whether you're talking her body, her voice or her leadership.