Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

I've written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence, human emotions.

We hunger to understand, so we invent myths about how we imagine the world is constructed - and they're, of course, based upon what we know, which is ourselves and other animals. So we make up stories about how the world was hatched from a cosmic egg or created after the mating of cosmic deities or by some fiat of a powerful being.

Nevertheless, the number of farmers, small as well as large, who are adopting the new seeds and new technology is increasing very rapidly, and the increase in numbers during the past three years has been phenomenal.

Because SBI is so large, serving customers in India's big cities and small rural villages alike, it has a pressing need for better tools and technology to monitor lending risks.

In any technology, one has to be very careful to ensure that it is good and has enough safeguards.

The Internet has made some phenomenal breakthroughs that are still only poorly understood in terms of changing people's ideas of us and them. If mass media, social isolation in the suburbs, alienating workplaces and long car commutes create a bunker mentality, the Internet does the opposite.