They said it in January

"The major constraint encountered in implementing the special packages for farmers’ suicide prone districts is the near impossibility of bringing convergence and synergy among the numerous programmes operated by different government departments." -- M.S. Swaminathan, globally renowned agriculture scientist, in The Hindu (January 1)

"I am merely a student. I do things that students do, like make mistakes, eat junk food, and watch Buffy but most important of all… learn. My time to lead will come but for now I am the one asking questions, not answering them." -- Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, student at Oxford University, on whether he will lead his late mother Benazir Bhutto’s political party in Pakistan (January 4)

"Education is a long-term investment. We have neglected it, in my view quite criminally, for an enormously long period of time." -- Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission in The New York Times (January 18)

"Children’s introduction to reading should enable them to expand the scope of their innate linguistic competence, in an atmosphere of joy and encouragement." -- NCERT director Krishna Kumar in The Hindu (January 22)

"The choice in this election is not about regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it’s not about black versus white. It’s about the past versus the future." -- Barack Obama, US presidential candidate at an election rally in South Carolina (January 28)

"A university dedicated entirely to the multi-disciplinary field of environment is a welcome step." -- Sam Pitroda, chairman, National Knowledge Commission, in Outlook (January 28)

"About All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and medical colleges, the less said the better. They (AICTE) go straight away and demand money. It is quite unfortunate." Supreme Court bench expressing concern over corruption in grant of deemed university status to education institutions (January 28)