On February 19, India's largest private low-fare airline IndiGo announced the resignation of one of the two founders, Rakesh Gangwal, from the airline's board and his intentions of offloading his stake in the airline over the next five years. The announcement came on a Friday, giving the stock markets the weekend to absorb the news but the markets registered a tepid response on Monday's opening. In contrast, in July 2019, when the fight between the two founders and erstwhile friends first became public, the markets reacted savagely. The IndiGo scrip at the time fell 19 per cent, wiping out millions of rupees of shareholder wealth before bouncing back. For readers who may be hazy on the details of the dispute, here is the context.
We live in hope that India and its airlines might finally grow up, notes Anuli Bhargava.
No government can 'ignore inclusiveness in a democracy', Montek Singh Ahluwalia tells Anjuli Bhargava.
The Tatas are rather overwhelmed with some facets of the airline they have discovered, but even more unnerved by what they may not have yet uncovered, reveals Anjuli Bhargava.
'There are large cohorts of students who cannot recognise the alphabet or numbers.' 'We are suggesting schools 'start early and end late'.'
Why settle for $400-500 million when you can make a billion or even more? That, in a nutshell, is why Krishna Kumar, 43, and Kashyap Dalal, 40, co-founders of Bengaluru-based edtech firm Simplilearn, one of the big players in the segment, sold a 51 per cent stake to Blackstone instead of selling 100 per cent as close competitor and rival Great Learning chose to do.
A combination of demonetisation, a poorly and hurriedly implemented GST, and more recently the "botched up" lockdown of the economy to control the spread of Covid has brought the economy to its knees.
In March 2020, soon after the cessation of airline operations globally and domestic flights within India, many in the aviation sector had written Delhi-headquartered low-fare airline SpiceJet's obituary well before that of most of its rivals. Unlike IndiGo, GoAir (now rechristened Go First), Vistara and even AirAsia India, SpiceJet did not have founders or backers with deep pockets. Although it is the only other listed carrier in India besides IndiGo, it was considered the weakest and the least likely to survive the pandemic. But chairman and managing director Ajay Singh surprised everyone by not only surviving but taking the lead on many fronts. Within a few weeks of the scheduled flight stoppage, SpiceJet was doing as many charter flights as it could get hold of.
As the pandemic enveloped various parts of the US, Kinsa's app alerted its team and wherever possible, the company made the data public. Between March 1 and November 1, 2020, the company captured close to 15 million fever readings and 1.7 million symptom inputs on its app. Several researchers and The New York Times downloaded the company's data, which showed that it was in general three weeks ahead of the surge.
'You could have an additional pool of 15,000-odd qualified and competent doctors.'
Home healthcare remains a niche segment in India even today. Nightingale provides services, starting from family physicians, short- and long-term nursing care, post-hospitalisation care and physiotherapy to stroke rehabilitation, respiratory care, bedside caregivers and attendants, intensive care at home, lab tests and speech therapy.
Two issues dog the sale of the national carrier. One is the $2 billion bank guarantee the winning bidder will need to furnish. The other is the nearly 5000 lawsuits filed against Air India, many of them overseas. Anjuli Bhargava reports.
The market buzz is that the GoAir promoters are hoping for a valuation that is at least a little more than double its closest rival SpiceJet.
'The kind of jobs the advent of artificial intelligence, data science and so on are creating simply didn't exist before'
'We are not yet out of the woods.' 'If India sees the South African or Brazilian type of mutations, our numbers will rapidly rise.'
Many argue that the airline could achieve its full potential if Nusli Wadia were to run it the way he does Britannia.
'The question is really can we prevent half a million deaths.' 'We are fast approaching that number.'
The year gone by has also forced all airlines to turn the lens sharply on their own costs, workings and internal dynamics, opening their eyes to their vulnerabilities. Fewer, leaner, nimbler players will emerge from the carnage.
For Jet's revival, Mr Jalan should be on the scene long enough for everyone to get to know him, appreciate his skills, and not vanish into thin air within a matter of months or even weeks, observes Anjuli Bhargava.
Despite the gains from Jet's closure, in 2018 and 2019, the airline continued to make losses in many quarters for a variety of reasons, including some mistakes like taking on Jet's aircraft, which were not in great shape and had business class configuration, a gamble that did not work for SpiceJet.
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