Air India: Murder or suicide?

New Delhi: What happened to Air India? How could an airline that once dominated the Indian skies now come so close to bankruptcy, repeatedly, that the minister of civil aviation was insisting it be privatised?
These questions and more were addressed at the launch of a book The Descent of Air India by former executive director Jitender Bhargava. The book is a collaboration between Bloomsbury India and Business Standard Books.
Speaking at a panel discussion at the launch, Bhargava said Air India had been an institution - one that benefited from a great emotional connection to many Indians. He said telling the story of how Air India went wrong would upset several lobbies, but he had taken the decision to risk legal challenges and go ahead. "What went wrong, who were the people responsible, and whether there was a conspiracy," he said, were the questions he intended to answer.
Each grandiose plan to save the airline, he said, had only harmed it further, a very unusual case. Thus, he said, the book was a "documentation of misdeeds and misdemeanours," not even been looked into by probe agencies.
Read news in full 12/10/13 Business Standard