''The Descent of Air India'' is a book by Jitender Bhargava, a former executive director of Air India. The book chronicles the financial downfall of the

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, infra ...

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

. The book was withdrawn after a defamation suit was filed by former Aviation Minister

Praful Patel Praful Manoharbhai Patel (born 17 February 1957) is an Indian Nationalist Congress Party politician, industrialist and sports administrator. He was the president of India's association football governing body the All India Football Federatio ...

. The book is now available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle Store. Hard copies are also available on Amazon India since January 2016 after the author self-published the book.

Overview

In the book, Bhargava argues that the

Air India reached a bad state, due to government interference and bad decisions. He also writes about the servile attitude of Air India towards minister Patel. He also points out other reasons of its downfall, which include bilateral agreements which were unprofitable, cancellation of flights on profitable routes or giving them to other airlines, and acquisitions of planes at high prices and selling them at very low prices. The book claims that the deals to buy 111 planes from

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and

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in 2005-2006, along with the merger of Air India with the public sector domestic airline Indian Airlines led to its downfall. The book places the responsibility on Praful Patel and V. Thulasidas, former Air India chairman. The book notes that not much thought was given to how the debt from the acquisitions will be serviced. It also says that Praful Patel was aware of Air India's shrinking marketing and yet was giving bilateral rights to foreign airlines. The book points out the frequent changes in the management of the company.

Lawsuit and withdrawal

The book was originally released on 11 October 2013. In November 2013, lawyer Satish Maneshinde filed a

criminal defamation Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

lawsuit in Mumbai metropolitan court, on behalf of Praful Patel. The publishers

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

settled in an out of court agreement in January 2014. They withdrew the book and agreed to pulp all remaining books in their stock. They also issued a public apology to Praful Patel. Maneshinde told the newspaper ''

DNA India ''Zee Media Corporation Limited'' (abbreviated as ZMCL; formerly Zee News Limited) is the news broadcasting company of the Essel Group which is controlled by Subhash Chandra. The company is engaged mainly in the business of broadcasting of news ...

'' that no pressure was put on the publishers to withdraw the book, but it was the result of the settlement. Patel also denied pressuring the publishers, but added that he was forced to seek legal recourse as the allegation against him in the book were baseless. Bhargava claimed that the book was based on existing documents. He added that the decision to withdraw was carried out unilaterally by the publishers and he was not consulted. Later, he released the book as an

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on 12 March 2014 and hard copies of the book were self-published in January 2016. Copies are available on Amazon India. The defamation case filed by Praful Patel was withdrawn in February 2017 from the Metropolitan Court.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Descent of Air India, The 2013 non-fiction books Air India Books about companies Indian non-fiction books Bloomsbury Publishing books Book censorship in India Censored books