Having been a head of state gives you the possibility of getting into places others can’t go.

As a major economic force worldwide, India and Indian companies have the opportunity to set the standards in Asia in terms of women’s right to decent work.

There does not have to be trade-off between growth and social protection. A democracy does not mean much if it doesn’t respond to the needs and will of its people.

Having more women in company boards, in senior management, supervisory positions and workers in the formal sector is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do. It’s good for the bottom line.

In today’s interdependent world, a threat to one becomes a menace to all. And no state can defeat these challenges and threats alone.

Educational equality doesn’t guarantee equality on the labor market. Even the most developed countries are not gender-equal. There are still glass ceilings and ‘leaky pipelines’ that prevent women from getting ahead in the workplace.

When I’m speaking of love, when I’m speaking of reversing hate, I’m speaking not only of reconciliation – even I don’t use that word – I use another word in Spanish, that’s called ‘reencuentro’ – it’s not reconciliation.

Because I’m a doctor, I know when you have an injury it will heal if it’s clean enough to heal; if your injury is dirty, it won’t heal. And so when you are talking in societies, we are also talking in healing processes, and for a good healing process, you need to make things right.

There’s full consensus in the military that women shouldn’t be in person-to-person combat. I don’t know if we have enough experience to know whether this is the right approach. But women can be elsewhere. We have mandatory military service in Chile. I pushed for women in all areas.

As a doctor, when I was minister of health and would go somewhere, little girls would come up to me and say, ‘I want to be like you one day, I want to be a doctor.’ Now, they tell me, ‘I want to be president just like you.’ All of us can dream as big as we want.