people-from-haryana

"The aim has always been to play for the country and bring laurels. It remains the same."

"My mom and dad are the two strong pillars of my life."

"I am friendly with all the players of badminton but on court our attitude change as we prefer not to lose because of these relations."

"The one moment that stands out, and I rate it bigger than World No 1 rank, is the medal I won at the London Olympics, 2012 and the Indian national anthem being played in the background. I can’t express the feeling I was going through at that point of time."

"I hope there will be many more Saina Nehwals and Sania Mirzas."

"Actually, I am a very strong player. Mentally very tough. I just don't give up very easily. I make my opponent work very hard."

"I don't know but from my childhood I had the habit to win whatever I am participating in...in any event. It is not just badminton. I was actually a very aggressive kind of person. I used to play all the sports. So whatever sport I used to play and I used to see someone else getting more points than me ... I just couldn't stand it. .. Even I have to do that."

"I am a professional athlete and pressure is a part of every professional sport. It will be a dream come true for me if I could defeat the Chinese on my way to a medal, so if there’s pressure, there’s also incentive."

"I believe at the international level, it is fitness that counts the most. That’s because when you are competing at that level, everyone already has the skills; the player who wins is the player whose mental and physical fitness is better than his/her opponent. So yes, at the international level, fitness is absolutely paramount."

"My job is to produce results that match their expectations, and that has been a strong motivating factor for me."

"I am set to give my best. Yes, to win a medal for India in the Olympics is my dream. But I will go step by step; I will give my hundred percent and leave the rest to God."

"When I see myself moving on the court, I can see that there is a little bit of a struggle and when things will open up automatically, the results will come."

"I have put in so much of hard work all these years, and to see those years of hard work finally bearing fruit now as me being No. 1, is very special. But with this the responsibilities are many fold as expectations keep on rising. However, I have never shied away from giving my best and I will continue to do so in the coming years."

"The greatest irony about (the Quid's August 11 Speech) is that it is generally believed to have addressed only the minorities' rights. This is only partly true. The Quaid's words were directed at all citizens of Pakistan; the progress of the entire population depended on burying the past (communal politics). What he clearly meant was that discrimination against the minorities would impede Pakistan's progress. Thus, in Jinnah's Pakistan, the rights and interests of the minorties will be protected by the constitution and the law, not only as something due to them, but also as an insurance of the state's integrity."

"It should be interesting to find out why the Pakistani film industry has shown little interest in celebrating 100 years of filmmaking – 2013 marks the centenary of film production in Subcontinent and not of film exhibition that had started earlier. And this despite being invited by Indian filmmakers to partake of shared glory. One reason could be the muddled thinking about the Pakistani people's cultural heritage. If they reject the arts and literature produced in the Subcontinent before it was partitioned, they repudiate not only the legacy of the great Indo-Islamic culture, that grew over centuries, but also the poetry of Mir, Ghalib and Iqbal (who spent all his life as a citizen of India). If the cultural history of our people is supposed to have begun in 1947, then we have no cultural heritage worth the name."

"I am an actor. Give me any part…Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for an Oscar for Tropic Thunder. He played an African-American. Acting has no limits."

"I didn’t use Fair and Lovely. I was very proud of my skin colour. How does it matter? I am an actor, I am not here to sell my fairness. I used to laugh, actually. I found those people so ignorant. So regressive. They are still stuck in that era - hero matlab gora chitta, 6 foot."