First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"I had always regarded language as more a question of utility than identity. Therefore, I promptly noted that all the (EU) meetings should be conducted in English and French. My older colleagues laughed. Later I understood why. On the second day of the Finnish presidency (of the EU) a German delegation refused to participate in an informal ministerial meeting because no German interpretation had been arranged."
"Call me the “stan” man. Or have you ever been to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirghizia or Kazakhstan. Give it eight weeks and I will have done them all."
"(On same-sex marriage) It’s a question of human rights, gender equality and equality."
"We’re in a mess but we should put things into perspective: The EU is constant crisis management. You move from one crisis to the other and, at the end of the day, it’s just a question of the size of the crisis and who gets hit the hardest. I have always believed the EU advances in three-phases: Phase no. 1 is crisis, phase no. 2 is chaos and phase no. 3 is sub-optimal solution, and that’s very much the nature of the beast."
""Joint statement on behalf of the Nordic states by President of the Republic of Finland Alexander Stubb at the UN Security Council session on Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 23 September 2025" President of the Republic of Finland (September 24, 2025)"
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.