Terrorism takes us back to ages we thought were long gone if we allow it a free hand to corrupt democratic societies and destroy the basic rules of international life.

And what we're doing in Ohio is we're moving from a basic manufacturing economy to one that's diversified including energy and health care and agriculture and IT.

For most women including women who want to have children contraception is not an option it is a basic health care necessity.

The fact is if we do our job right if we keep worrying not about polls but about the jobs of the American people about their health care about their ability to educate their kids stay in their homes and own their homes send their kids to college the basic pillars of a middle-class life if we keep worrying about the future and building a stronger future for this country these things will take care of themselves.

So I can't show you how exactly health care is a basic human right. But what I can argue is that no one should have to die of a disease that is treatable.

I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.

When the Nobel award came my way it also gave me an opportunity to do something immediate and practical about my old obsessions including literacy basic health care and gender equity aimed specifically at India and Bangladesh.

I'm 58 years old and I just went through 8 back surgeries. They started cutting on me in February 2009 and I was basically bed ridden for almost two years. I got a real dose of reality that if you don't have your health you don't have anything.

My personal feeling if I can interject a political note is that I don't think it is right that basic health care is a privilege. It shouldn't be. It should be a right of all human beings. And certainly in the richest country in the world.

The dual scourge of hunger and malnutrition will be truly vanquished not only when granaries are full but also when people's basic health needs are met and women are given their rightful role in societies.