[ VOICES ]

 "Delhi is not my home. When there is no Parliament session, why should I stay in Delhi? Kolkata is my homeland" - Mamata Banerjee, Indian railway minister on criticism for her frequent absence from the capital

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"You go through the works and then you are like this perfectly prepared sausage…..no one ever sees what goes in" – Scarlett Johansson, Hollywood actress, on dressing up for red carpet appearances

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"Why did Indian players play well at IPL and not at World Cup? Can think of only one thing: cheergirls" – Chetan Bhagat, author

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"Visited Shirdi this morning …30 media cameras feeding off every private moment…. can't believe they can now enter God's shrine for TRP" – Hrithik Roshan, actor

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"I share a beautiful equation with my 20- year-old heroines" – Akshay Kumar, actor

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"I learnt a lot about captaincy by being told that I was an idiot" – Ian Chappell, former Australian captain on his captaincy skills

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"@juniorbachchan hey baby !! I made it on twitter !!! Yeeaaaaaahhhh !! ... sorry.. just got carried away... safe onward flight and love. (sic)" – Amitabh Bachchan on his first tweet, which was to son Abhishek

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"Unke baare mein information pass karoge toh marega nahin (why shouldn't Maoists kill civilians if civilians tip off police about them)?" - Lalu Prasad Yadav while justifying the killing of civilians by Maoists

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"I am a Marxist. Marxism has moral ethics, where as capitalism is only how to make profits," - Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai

Lama in New York, where he arrived with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures

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"I am lucky to have someone who unwaveringly gave me love and manly support - and is also the person that I love. So thank you, Teddy," – Padma Lakshmi, celebrity Top Chef host, author and the 39- year-old actress, who was married to author Salman Rushdie, while giving an emotional speech at The Endometriosis Foundation of America's Blossom Ball confessed her feelings for US billionaire Teddy Forstmann.

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"To all the youngsters... be charming not flirty. If you have to prove your manliness by behaving tough you are not macho enough. Tough men don't need to break bricks to show their strength. Hurting or abusing women is the single most unmanly thing to do. Unforgivable." – Shah Rukh Khan, on twitter.

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"India could probably have done some things differently even while realising this wasn't the IPL. The pressure during the IPL is very different, the continual pressure for instance, for you to perform from franchises. It's all quite intense." - Anil Kumble, a former India skipper and captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, raised a damning cricketing point about the IPL effect in his column for the HT.

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"Players need to be smart. You have to respect your body. If you are playing a late-night match and then you go to a party and then you have to travel again the next day, it's difficult." – Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India's cricket captain post World Cup debacle.

[ By Hema Fernando ]