Time For Transparency, Air India

THE TAKE 

As Snags Mount, Air India Must Share Crash Findings At The Earliest

On Tuesday, Air India cancelled a staggering seven international long-haul flights to and from destinations like London, Paris and Vienna.

Of the flights halted, six were Dreamliner aircraft. According to The Economic Times, one of the flights was “non-operating”. This means that it would likely operate at some point, unlike the cancelled ones that had been cancelled and taken off schedule.

A spate of cancellations, attributed mostly to technical snags and safety checks, is worrying for a slightly different reason.

These cancellations come days after the crash of Air India’s Ahmedabad to London Boeing Dreamliner on June 12, which killed all on board except for one lone survivor and many on the ground as well.

Heightened Caution

Pilots I spoke to say the reason for such technical snags is not that they all happened on that day, being Tuesday, but aircraft engineers are now refusing to certify aircraft for use due to issues which they may have earlier overlooked.

This is, of course, one side of the story, but it does seem statistically unusual that so many technical snags would surface on a single day for the same or similar aircraft.

Or a spate of safety checks, which sounds fair but would also suggest they were not happening otherwise or to the degree required.

A snag can be, of course, broad. For instance, a non-functioning lavatory is a snag that engineers might let go for repair at the home base or the onward station. But now, that might not be the case.

Call For Transparency

Whatever the nature of the snags is, Air India would do well to be transparent about them and keep the travelling public informed in time.

Speaking of transparency, while reports from air crashes do take time to compile, with final reports sometimes taking months or more than a year, it is imperative to share early official findings as soon as possible.

Search For Answers

The families of passengers on the ill-fated aircraft and those who died on the ground in Ahmedabad on June 12 will want to know what caused the Boeing Dreamliner to fall out of the sky moments after it began rolling down the runway.

As would anyone who is catching a flight in the coming days, including on Air India.

Speaking of Dreamliners, there is no conclusive evidence or insight yet on what really caused the aircraft’s twin engines to fail that day as it took off from Ahmedabad airport, except to note that they inexplicably did.

This has never happened before, at least to this aircraft. There are some 1,100 Dreamliners in service across the world as we speak, undertaking daily flights.

All the pilots who fly similar wide-body aircraft who have been opining on this issue have been eliminating various probable causes, but are still unable to satisfactorily explain why the engines would stop so suddenly.

And it’s not just in India but the global aviation fraternity, from aircraft makers and airlines to crew and, of course, passengers, who are waiting for answers.

Not surprisingly, speculation is at a fevered pitch right now. And an information vacuum at any point in the operational chain will only feed the speculation, whether it be small snags or the crash itself.

The bottom line — please don’t believe the conspiracy theories doing the rounds, and do wait for some official findings to emerge and not let speculation carry the day.

BUILD ON BLOCKCHAIN

FIFA Shoots On Blockchain, Will Indian Sports Catch The Pass?

What?

In May 2025, FIFA began a new chapter by launching its own dedicated blockchain for FIFA Collect, its digital collectables platform.

As of June 2025, FIFA Collect has fully transitioned to the new Avalanche-based blockchain, enriching its tokenised offerings of big match moments and memorabilia.

This is a brilliant business plan that Indian sports entities might want to study and emulate.

Why?

India's major sports bodies — BCCI, AIFF, Hockey India — are yet to make any official moves into blockchain.

For Indian sports, getting on the blockchain platform should be less about catching up and more about finding better ways to engage with fans.

How could blockchain benefit Indian sports?

This series is brought to you in partnership with Algorand. 

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CORE NUMBER

Rs 86.24 per dollar

That’s where the rupee closed on Monday, its lowest level since April 9, after dropping 18 paise in a single session. The currency has now depreciated 0.77% this month and 0.73% in 2025, according to Bloomberg.

📊 What’s behind the slide?
Rising Israel–Iran tensions have driven up crude oil prices and sparked fears of foreign investor outflows, said LKP Securities. These factors have weakened capital markets and weighed on the rupee.

🛢️ How RBI is responding:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s central bank, is intervening above the Rs 86.20 mark, selling dollars to stabilise the currency amid surging oil demand and dollar buying by foreign portfolio investors and oil firms.

Rate Cut Hopes Still Open: Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank Of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee surprised analysts by slashing the repo rate by 50 basis points and shifting its stance from ‘accommodative’ to ‘neutral’, signalling caution and sparking concerns that the rate-cut cycle may be nearing its end.

What This Means Going Forward: RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra told Business Standard that further cuts remain on the table if inflation keeps cooling.

Context: While the central bank may use tools like the Cash Reserve Ratio to fine-tune liquidity, Malhotra clarified these will not replace interest rate actions as the main lever.

More Privatisation of Coal Plants. On Tuesday, the Coal Ministry announced that it had finished allocating 200 coal blocks; the 200th coal block went to Singhal Business Private Limited. 

Context: This move is part of the current government’s broader strategy to increase private participation in India’s energy sector. 

Background: Though India has expanded its renewable energy capacity tremendously in the recent past, it still relies on coal to generate 70% of the country’s electricity. India also imports a lot of that coal, since domestic coal has a higher ash content. The government says this move also pushes the country forward toward its goal of self-reliance.

Investor Trust At Risk. India’s market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, has flagged misleading claims by portfolio managers, ordering immediate removal of exaggerated performance ads from websites and media platforms. The June 10 directive follows observations of superlative, unverifiable statements being used to lure investors.

Why It Matters: Such promotions can distort investor expectations and erode trust in PMS providers. With assets under management at Rs 37.8 trillion (as of March 2025), tighter oversight is critical to ensure transparency and investor protection in a fast-growing segment.

Next Steps: Portfolio managers must now ensure all promotional material adheres to Sebi’s June 2024 code. Non-compliance could lead to regulatory action, even as Sebi’s Past Risk and Return Verification Agency (PaRRVA) framework adds a layer of return verification across advisory entities.

😒 UGHH

WhatsApp Breaks No-Ads Promise: Meta is doing what it said it will never do—rolling out ads on WhatsApp. Meta said it’ll only hit the Updates tab (for now), not your private chats. Think Instagram Story ads, but on the app you trusted to be ad-free.

The Twist: Meta said it’s monetising the 1.5 billion people using Updates daily. Users are fuming, citing broken promises and resurfacing old blog posts where WhatsApp’s founders swore never to show ads.

What’s Next? Ads, channel subscriptions and maybe even more data targeting. Eleven years after Meta's acquisition — welcome to the ad-ification of your favourite “no ads ever” app.

👥 THE TEAM

✍️ Zinal Dedhia, Salman SH, Kudrat Wadhwa | ✂️ Rohini Chatterji | 🎧 Joshua Thomas