New Delhi: Air India’s decision to significantly reduce the number of its international flights—just over a week after the Ahmedabad-London plane crash—could mark a new chapter for India’s “flagship carrier,” reports Anupreeta Das in The New York Times.
“Air India’s decision came a day after Indian authorities directed the airline to improve its operations. The airline has been inundated by complaints from passengers about cancelled flights, faulty cabin devices and inadequate information being given to travellers. Company officials said the closure of airspace over Iran because of its conflict with Israel, which made flying routes longer, only added to the disruption,” the report reads.
Taking stock of the aftermath of the 12 June plane crash, Karishma Mehrotra and Supriya Kumar of The Washington Post report how urban infrastructure has emerged as a dangerous obstruction in the way of air safety.
“In the western state of Gujarat, courts rebuked authorities in 2019 for failing to act against 27 builders for their height violations near Surat Airport. In New Delhi, regulators identified 365 obstructions near Indira Gandhi International Airport after a legal petition in 2017. In the central city of Nagpur, a right to information request last year revealed that 63 structures were obstructing flight paths at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, according to the Times of India,” says the report.
BBC’s Zoya Mateen zooms in on the teenager who captured the historic video of the Air India jet going down. From “darting out” each time he saw a plane, he now feels “sick” at the very thought. The incident—and what has followed since—has had a “devastating impact” on Aryan, who is traumatised by what he saw, his father says. “My son is so scared that he has stopped using his phone.”
The apparent reset of ties between the United States and Pakistan, following the “open-access” enjoyed by Asim Munir on his trip to Washington is “raising eyebrows” in India, writes Penelope MacRaie in The Guardian.
“For Indian officials, Munir’s reception has revived old memories of the US tendency to tilt towards Pakistan at critical junctures, such as in the cold war moments or post-9/11. But this time, analysts say, the reset may also involve commercial opportunity,” she writes.
Two years ago, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani had said that he would be spending the next five years training the next generation—in effect, laying out the empire’s succession plan and its distribution among his three children. But those in the know question whether “they share their father’s keen business acumen and relentless drive”, report Chris Kay, Andres Schipani and Krishn Kaushik in the Financial Times.
“I’m not sure what to make of the Ambani kids,” says one fund manager to FT. “They appear in public but they don’t say enough for us to make an independent assessment of their capabilities,” he added, describing the succession as one of corporate India’s most “vexed” issues.
Mukesh has “a phenomenal missionary zeal that is difficult to match”, an Indian executive is quoted as saying. “It will be a tough generational transition.”
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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