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How IndiGo Managed To Hold A Country Of 1.4 Billion People Hostage, Forced Govt To Bend Rules | Analysis
At a time when most Indian airlines are posting losses, IndiGo stands out as the only profitable carrier. Yet, while loss-making airlines managed to comply with DGCA directives within the allotted 18-month period, the one airline turning a profit failed to do so. The DGCA had provided ample time for compliance and workforce planning. But while others focused on meeting regulatory requirements, IndiGo appeared to pursue a different strategy—creating disruption to pressure the government. Incredibly, this approach worked: instead of imposing penalties, the government chose to relax the norms.
Aviation expert Harsh Vardhan squarely called this entire crisis a failure of IndiGo’s management. He said this is an extremely unprecedented situation. Passengers have been suffering for three days, and this is the peak tourist, wedding, and business season. IndiGo’s claim that the new FDTL policy suddenly created problems is nothing but a management failure. The policy wasn’t introduced overnight—it was formulated over years of deliberation and was finalised a year ago.
Harsh Vardhan reminded that the soft launch of the FDTL took place on July 1, 2025, and it was fully implemented from November 1, 2025. Other operators like Air India and SpiceJet made timely adjustments, which is why no major crisis emerged there. What surprises him most is the timing—if the policy was effective from November 1, why did this sudden “rampage” begin only a month later, at the start of December?
“The Government of India has decided to institute a high-level inquiry into this disruption. The inquiry will examine what went wrong at Indigo, determine accountability wherever required for appropriate actions, and recommend measures to prevent similar disruptions in the future, ensuring that passengers do not face such hardships again,” said the Ministry of Civil Aviation in a statement.
No one knows what will come out of the inquiry but, interestingly, IndiGo got rewarded for its blackmailing, instead of getting punished as the government relaxed norms.
Due to the IndiGo induced turbulence, the airfare on key routes touched Rs 80,000 to Rs 90,000. IndiGo didn’t merely cancel flights—it brought the system to a standstill, grounding aircraft, showcasing its clout, and effectively challenging the government to respond. Instead of asserting its authority, the NDA government backed down and rolled back its own directive. Through deliberate mismanagement, the airline pushed the system toward chaos. The suspension of over a thousand IndiGo flights severely disrupted the economy, sending hotel prices and ticket fares on other airlines soaring.
“The central government has ordered a probe and refunds—but the question is: when the monopoly of private companies and the government’s silence come together, who will protect the common people? Who are you working for? The public or the interests of big corporate houses?” Former Delhi Dy CM Manish Sisodia rightly questioned the government.
Shockingly, a country of 1.4 billion people relies primarily on just two major domestic carriers—IndiGo and Air India. IndiGo’s dominance is so significant that even Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi publicly criticised the government for its oversight failures. “IndiGo fiasco is the cost of this Govt’s monopoly model. Once again, it’s ordinary Indians who pay the price – in delays, cancellations and helplessness. India deserves fair competition in every sector, not match-fixing monopolies,” said Gandhi.
For two decades, successive governments have allowed major airlines to collapse instead of restructuring them under new ownership. Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines are prime examples: both could have been revived by removing problematic promoters, yet no institutional mechanism was activated. The pattern repeated itself with Go First. When three airlines vanish in a decade, it signals not merely corporate failures but a systemic unwillingness to safeguard competition and consumer interest, wrote Prashant Tewari, public policy expert, mentioned in a recent report in The Pioneer.
Today, IndiGo controls over half of India’s domestic aviation market, with the Air India group holding most of the remainder. Smaller airlines operate on the margins, too weak to influence pricing or service standards.
Tewari wrote that disappearance of three airlines within years show government’s failure of protecting competition and consumer interest.
This duopoly-like environment has suffocated passengers: airfares on busy domestic routes routinely exceed those for comparable distances in Europe, Southeast Asia, or even the United States. A two-hour flight within India can cost more than a four-hour international journey elsewhere.
“IndiGo airline fiasco shows that Modi govt is either incompetent or in collusion. In either case, India deserves better. People have never suffered so much,” said Former Delhi CM and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal.
For years, India’s aviation sector has needed at least eight to ten robust operators to foster true competition, stabilise fares, and minimise disruptions. Instead, new entrants face steep barriers, licensing moves painfully slowly, and foreign carriers seeking expansion are hindered by outdated protectionist policies disguised as national security concerns. This refusal to liberalise the skies has turned India into one of the world’s most expensive domestic aviation markets.
According to Tewari, the duoploy ecosystem suits certain entrenched interests. With opaque decision-making, India’s aviation sector functions with minimal accountability, he opined.
Though the government’s UDAN scheme was launched to make air travel accessible to the common citizen, soaring fares have made flying increasingly unaffordable.
Besides opening new airports, the government must urgently liberalise the sector, encourage new domestic players, revive grounded airlines under competent management, and allow credible foreign carriers to compete under regulated conditions. Until then, Indian travellers will continue to pay excessively, learning the same harsh lessons again and again.
The former One Direction member-turned-solo artist appears on the Sunday Times list for the first time.
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Budget 2026: FM Nirmala Sitharaman gives a strong push to manufacturing, infrastructure and job creation, while proposing a simpler tax and customs system.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the Union Budget 2026-27.
Budget 2026 Takeaways: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday presented the Union Budget 2026-27, giving a strong push to manufacturing, infrastructure and job creation, proposing a simpler tax and customs regime, and hailing the government’s modernisation drive as a “reforms express”.
The Budget 2026 is anchored around three ‘kartavyas’ — driving growth by enhancing productivity and competitiveness, building people’s capacity, and ensuring inclusive development under the vision of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas.
In her ninth consecutive Budget in Parliament, Sitharaman laid out a multi-pronged strategy to sustain growth amid global uncertainty, including expanding domestic electronics and semiconductor capabilities, de-risking infrastructure projects, skilling India’s youth for emerging technologies, and easing compliance for taxpayers and importers.
Here are the key takeaways from Budget 2026 across manufacturing, infrastructure, skills, AI, taxation and customs duty.
Manufacturing Gets A Boost
Budget 2026 put a special emphasis on the manufacturing landscape in India. The outlay for electronics components manufacturing was raised sharply to Rs 40,000 crore, while new schemes for rare earth magnets, chemical parks, container manufacturing and capital goods seek to reduce import dependency, and strengthen domestic supply chains. Textiles got an integrated, employment-oriented package covering fibres, clusters, skilling and sustainability.
Infrastructure-Led Growth
Infrastructure got a boost with a higher capex allocation and initiatives like a risk guarantee fund to de-risk projects for private developers, new dedicated freight corridors and national waterways, dedicated REITs (real estate investment trusts) for recycling of significant real estate assets of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), and a seaplane VGF (viability gap funding) scheme.
The Centre’s capital expenditure (capex) target has been increased to Rs 12.2 lakh crore for FY27, up from Rs 11.2 lakh crore earmarked for the current financial year. Moreover, maintaining the fiscal discipline, Sitharaman said the government expects the fiscal deficit to be at 4.3 per cent of the GDP in 2026-27, lower than 4.4 per cent projected for the current financial year.
Tier-II and Tier-III cities were placed at the centre of urban growth via City Economic Regions, backed by reform-linked funding.
“We shall continue to focus on developing infrastructure in cities with over 5 lakh population (Tier II and Tier III), which have expanded to become growth centres,” Sitharaman said in her Budget Speech.
Greater Emphasis On Skilling
The Budget placed renewed emphasis on the services economy as a jobs engine. A high-powered Education-to-Employment and Enterprise Committee will realign skilling with market needs, including the impact of emerging technologies.
Content creation and creative industries get a boost through AVGC labs in schools and colleges, support for animation, gaming and comics, and new institutional capacity for design and hospitality. Tourism-linked skilling, from guides to digital heritage documentation, signals a clear intent to convert culture and content into employment and exports.
“I propose to support the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies, Mumbai in setting up AVGC Content Creator Labs in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges,” FM Sitharaman said. AVGC stands for animation, visual effects, gaming and comics.
AI & Semiconductors Push
Artificial intelligence (AI) was positioned as a cross-sector force multiplier rather than a standalone theme. The Budget provided a push to artificial intelligence (AI) by promoting adoption with governance, agriculture, education and skilling, including proposals for AI-enabled advisory tools for farmers and AI integration in education curricula.
On hardware, the semiconductor strategy expanded decisively under ISM 2.0 (India Semiconductor Mission 2.0), with focus on domestic equipment manufacturing, materials, research centres and workforce development, signalling a long-term commitment to building a resilient chip ecosystem in India.
Taxation, ITR, TDS, TCS
A major structural reform comes with the Income Tax Act, 2025, effective April 1, 2026, containing simpler rules and redesigned forms.
Budget 2026 provided compliance relief for individuals, including extended timelines for revising returns to March 31 from December 31 earlier, staggered ITR due dates, and easier filing of Form 15G/15H through depositories.
Individuals with ITR-1 and ITR-2 returns will continue to file till July 31, and non-audit business cases or trusts are proposed to be allowed time till August 31, according to the Budget Speech 2026-27.
“I propose to extend time available for revising returns from 31st December to up to 31st March with the payment of a nominal fee. I also propose to stagger the timeline for filing of tax returns. Individuals with ITR 1 and ITR 2 returns will continue to file till 31st July and non-audit business cases or trusts are proposed to be allowed time till 31st August,” Sitharaman said.
TDS (Tax deducted at source) rules were clarified for manpower services, while a rule-based system for lower or nil TDS certificates is proposed. TCS rates were cut to 2% for overseas tour packages, education and medical expenses under liberalised remittance scheme (LRS). Litigation is targeted through integrated assessment and penalty orders, lower pre-deposit requirements, and wider immunity provisions.
TDS on the sale of immovable property by a non-resident will be deducted and deposited through resident buyer’s PAN (Permanent Account Number)-based challan instead of requiring TAN (Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number), Sitharaman said.
Customs Duty Tweaks
Customs duty rationalisation continued with a clear focus on domestic manufacturing, energy transition and ease of living. Exemptions have been extended or introduced for capital goods used in lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals processing, nuclear power projects and aircraft manufacturing.
Personal imports will become cheaper with a reduction in duty on goods for personal use from 20% to 10%. Seventeen cancer drugs and additional rare-disease treatments were exempted from customs duty. Process reforms aimed at trust-based, tech-driven clearances, faster cargo movement and lower compliance costs, especially for exporters and MSMEs (micro, small, medium and enterprises).
STT On F&O Hiked
The Budget increased securities transaction tax (STT) on futures trading from 0.02% to 0.05% and on options trading from 0.10% to 0.15%, a move that upset the capital markets with the BSE Sensex crashing more than 2,300 points from the day’s high and the NSE Nifty dropping to 24,571.75.
Securities Transaction Tax (STT) is a direct tax imposed on the buying and selling of securities in India.
Commenting on the Budget, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The Union Budget reflects the aspirations of 140 crore Indians. It strengthens the reform journey and charts a clear roadmap for Viksit Bharat.”
February 01, 2026, 14:43 IST
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Shanghai (China): The Consulate General of India in Shanghai welcomed the resumption of Air India’s direct flight services between Shanghai and New Delhi, marking a major step forward in restoring people-to-people, business and institutional connectivity between India and China.
According to an official release, the inaugural Shanghai-New Delhi flight departed today from Shanghai Pudong International Airport, carrying over 230 passengers on board the Boeing 787 aircraft. The relaunch comes after a gap of nearly six years and represents a significant milestone in normalising bilateral air connectivity following the suspension of services in early 2020.
Speaking on the occasion, Consul General Pratik Mathur said, “The resumption of direct flights between Shanghai and New Delhi is a tangible expression of the renewed momentum in India-China engagement. Enhanced air connectivity is essential for facilitating trade, tourism, academic exchanges and people-to-people contacts, particularly between India and East China. We are pleased to see Air India restoring this important link.”
As per a release, Air India will operate the route four times a week using its Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, featuring modernised cabins and enhanced onboard services. The restored service reflects the growing demand for travel between the two countries and the steady recovery of cross-border mobility. It will also support commercial, educational and cultural exchanges between India and the Yangtze River Delta region, one of China’s most economically dynamic clusters.
The Consulate General of India in Shanghai remains committed to supporting initiatives that strengthen connectivity and deepen cooperation across trade, investment, tourism, education and cultural exchange, the release stated.
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