Quotes from Rohini Nilekani

When 9/11 happened, it changed things overnight, giving the biggest shock treatment to individual agency. People in the U.S., the absolute stronghold of individualism and libertarianism, had to give up many cherished freedoms and privacies in exchange for the promise of public safety.

If the privileged in society can use that privilege to privilege others, then the consequences can be tremendous.

We need more imagination, more innovation and more public financing for projects and programmes that harness the positive energy of young men.

The young men of India need us to do more for them. And we need to do it for men in their own right, and we need to do it even more urgently if we really want women to be empowered too.

No single institution or effort can effectively create solutions for societal problems.

Once you are wealthy, you are in a nice comfort zone and want to stay there. So I always look in the mirror and ask, is my philanthropy making the world a more just and fair place?

Depending on which of the many hydrogeological zones of India you tap into, the water can either be easy to reach or incredibly difficult to suck out.

I was always clear that I didn't want to just do pure charity. My thinking was definitely about looking at the levers in society that will change the system of inequity, not one person's misfortune.

One size doesn't fit all, and I don't have a monopoly over good ideas.

Having our own children in good schools does not inure us from the ill-effect of others having theirs in poor schools. Having great roads within our gated homes and offices does not help when our fancy cars spill out on to poor public roads.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming moral force exerted by leaders like Gandhi comes by too rarely in the life of a nation.

No doubt there are dangers involved in letting children go online unsupervised.

The uncontrolled and rapacious exploitation of oil has led to unintended consequences, and if we continue on a similar trajectory with water, the oil crisis will seem like the trailer of some horrible disaster movie.

India's waste problem is gigantic, and with its economy growing steadily, it will be compounded manifold.

Most disciplines invite us to more mindfulness, and more contentment. Not by consuming more externally, but by harvesting more from within, and by sharing more without. Neurosciences and behavioural sciences increasingly corroborate this ancient wisdom - joy can come from giving, and unlimited happiness from bonhomie.

In India, while there are some initiatives working with and for adolescent girls, there are too few state sponsored programmes for adolescent boys, be it rural or urban.

Work from home will relieve the pressure on urban infrastructure and land, which can be released for mass housing or public transport, and critical lung space.

Putting a climate change lens on policy making offers a huge opportunity to make smart decisions about India's future.

Is water the next oil? Motives behind the question vary, depending on who asks the question. Those who see water as a future core commodity - therefore as profitable a prospect as oil - pose the question to create the right market conditions for water trade.

We all need good laws, and an independent, impartial, and efficient judiciary to verify the constitutionality of those laws.

When you keep un-bundling various aspects of a social problem, you can arrive at a very basic, common space.

Societies have debated the severity of punishment for vile acts over millennia, with complex moral arguments on both sides of the question. But citizens and society should pay more attention to the trend of over-criminalisation of common human failings and frailties.