Emirates - The national airline of India

    Most major Indian commercial airlines have been dire financial state for the last few years. Air India cannot meaningfully utilize it's relatively new Boeing 777 long range fleet. Yet, it has a large order of 787's in the pipeline.With losses topping a billion dollars every year,it is not sure if it can pay for the new jets. The picture for private airlines is not rosy either. There are questions about the financial viability of Kingfisher .Jet airways has been struggling to turn consistent profits in recent quarters.

    Amidst all this, the rise of Emirates in India has been relentless.They have a large presence in most large Indian cities with multiple daily flights.

Emirates flies 185 weekly flights to 10 destinations in India using Boeing Co. 777-300 aircraft, according to a statement from the carrier in July. The carrier has said it wants to fly Airbus SAS’ A380 superjumbos to India as well.

    One analyst describes it this way:

In India, said Strickland, Emirates has become the de facto national airline. "They are where Air India would have been if it had been better managed," he said.
Clark said he expects a healthy traffic between Seattle-area software companies and the "silicon areas" of India where software is a big export.

    For Indians who hope to have a decent national airline , this may come as a disappointment. But is it really such a bad thing? I would say no. Commercial aviation is a tough business to be in. It is capital intensive and highly vulnerable to external factors like crude oil prices. At the best of times, profit margins can range in the low single digits. India would be well served to liberalize the civil aviation further and get out of the business of running airlines altogether. This is a domain better left to the private players to fight out.

   As long as the aviation business is regulated effectively for safety and transparency, passengers couldn't care less if it is a national or foreign carrier that they fly on their next trip.

Fight against graft,is civil society to be faulted?

    As more skeletons tumble out of the closets of corrupt politicians, you have to examine the approach employed by the civil society in it's fight against corruption. Their hard-line negotiating stance during the clashes with the government has been disconcerting.

    Some have questioned the legitimacy of the whole movement in light of the democratic framework of the country. The argument from the ruling UPA-2 goes along these lines: elected representatives are best suited to make legislation, popular opinion would force the government to do the right thing anyway.

    For decades in India, there has been widespread disenchantment over corruption in public life. After 1991, the sheer sums of money involved in scandals have skyrocketed , often measured in billions of US dollars.In contrast, total alleged value of kickbacks in the Bofors scandal from the 1980's feels like petty change. Yet, until 2011's surge in investigations and imprisonments, there was hardly any accountability in the system.

   In the aftermath of the economic boom, the mighty and connected have often seemed above the law. The civil society has no way of fighting these new barons of power using regular tools of law and justice on the books. They had to come up with something disruptive. So, we have India against corruption(IAC) and myriad other organizations. Often, their demands have sounded unreasonable, their tactics have looked more like blackmail. But they have been peaceful. They have sought to reform the existing establishment, not uproot it.

  Until IAC or someone else figures out a better way to bend the will of the government, popular protests are the best available means.No country can have it's rules and constitution set in stone. They need to reform with changing times.

Articles of interest - Sept 05 2011

Here are some interesting reads:

• Debacle of disinvestment- Bloomberg. 

• The unparalleled challenge of Aadhar - nytimes/ndtv

• Understanding modern India - book review in FT

• Voice of the middle classes - economist