ChinmayC Blog

Aberrations do occur, in any field of activity or operation or management, the airport operations mid-air or at ground level being no exceptions. But unfortunately, such aberrations seem to be the rule at the Guwahati LGBI Airport, even after a complete revamp of the busiest airport of North East India that was done by one of the top-rated industrialists of the     country. As fairly regular passengers over the years in the domestic air routes to Guwahati we’d experienced or had witnessed such aberrations, the horrors, regularly too at this airport, occurring mostly at the Security zone. No doubt, security is the topmost priority in our insurgency-infested country; but there are justifiable ways of doing it and not going berserk and nearly attacking/harassing/shaming normal passengers. The security forces should possess some level of intelligence to be able to detect suspicious passengers instead of intimidating every Tom, Dick and Harry. There have been some news reports...

If you fly Air India out of the long-standing loyalty for the national airline or out of compulsion being employed by the Government of India you must be acutely aware of the ‘Regrets’ service. The deadliest manifestation of this ‘service’ comes usually in the dead of the night when you are desperate to get at least 2/3 hours’ sleep for your early morning flight and suddenly all sleep is robbed away most inhumanely making you wonder if you are going to reach your destination the next day at all. Once you are booked into one of the flights of Air India you cannot escape from this persistent service. For the period from one day before to minutes before the departure of the flight you will definitely get flooded with text messages on your mobile or emails announcing that ‘Air India Regrets Rescheduling of You Flight AI__ on ___   to ____ hours…’. The ‘Regrets’ content is very unpredictable with ‘regretted’ delays ranging from 20 minutes to over 5 hours. Short-term-delay ‘regrets’ get...

The pilots of Air India have only problems and more problems. They don't get their salaries for months or not quite regularly, they don't get their promotions in time, they suffer from career regression and they don't get the benefits they are right royally entitled to. Domestic Indian Airlines and international Air India got merged indeed in 2007, but the communal divide between the two erstwhile sets of pilots only accentuated over time. The two communities compete still for the perks and opportunities like for example flying the forthcoming Dreamliner Boeing 787 which figured in the list of strike demands too and baby-cry on missing any. The pilots have been suffering so badly that they are forced to put personal issues first and company or national interests later. How sad! So they did not approach the Air India management for representing or deliberating on their problems, because they hold the management as the culprit for all their ills. They felt they were the bes...

Article first published as Politics of the Beg Word on Technorati. Politics has  myriad shades and colors. Just now in India it has achieved another unique dimension—the politics of begging! Rahul Gandhi, the youthful general secretary of the Congress party who has commanded tremendous youth following all over the country of late, was in Uttar Pradesh to kickstart the party’s campaign for the forthcoming assembly elections of the state. He lambasted the ruling party there for total lack of economic development and for resembling almost a mafia rule. He went on with his diatribe by saying that had there been some developmental progress the people there would not have been forced to migrate to other states and beg for work. There was an inherent truth in what he said about the state and it had to be analyzed in the context of an opposition party leader addressing an election rally. But all hell broke loose because of just one word ‘beg’! Rahul Gandhi must have said it wit...

Most of the people in salaried class do get leave travel concession ( LTC ) annually or every two years. Depending on the employers the package benefits vary. If, by misfortune, you belong to the Government of India you do get LTC, but with repressively dictatorial conditions: You have to travel by Air India come what may as if it’s you people that makes the bankrupt airlines viable and competitive. You have to go over their special LTC counters and book your tickets physically with their options for your travel. Even if their pilots are on never ending strike you are not spared. And you have to ignore all cheaper air ticket offers available online. If your compulsory airline fails you at the last moment you can book only at the government appointed travel agencies most of which may not have online booking facilities. You can send in an application for booking and it hardly matters if your tickets arrive after your leave period is over. I h...

We were scheduled to leave for our hometown Guwahati on 4 th May, 2011. It was my homecoming after more than year and of course some events and programs of Ragini fixed earlier. As I had very limited leave and events were fixed we could not afford to either cancel of postpone our trip. We booked or rather had to book with Air India (AI) long back because I , curse my decision, took the leave travel concession (LTC) offered by the Government of India every two years. With 8 days left for the journey the AI strike of greedy pilots began, but I never thought it would go on till then. When the strike seemed to be endless I got a little tense because if it continued and our flight got cancelled in the last minute I would not be able to book due to LTC compulsions and exorbitant private airlines prices. So I started taking advice from knowing people, sought permission to no avail and finally on 2 nd May decided to book refundable tickets on private airlines for safety. Meantime I kept on i...

Today, the 2nd of May 2011, is a historic day in the global war against terrorism. And the war hero is President Obama . There are celebrations all around USA singing the praise of Prez Obama who said justice done to the 9/11 victims. Justifiably and significantly so. Osama Bin Laden , the greatest terrorist evil of the millennium had been found in Pakistan and killed by Navy Seals in brutal precision keeping the Pak government spectators..or not even that. Because nobody could even witness what happened. If the greatest terrorist could hide in Pakistan what about scores of others about whose whereabouts the Pak government always acted ignorant. There are too many questions, too many suspicions involving both Pak and American authorities. And for India, this is both good news and frightening. Because many of the terrorists targeting India including the 26/11 Mumbai attack perpetrators are now proved to be in Pak's safe custody and till Prez Obama exterminates them all the threats...