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Cover illustration by Tushar Agarwal.

Print copies of the issue will be delivered to print subscribers and rolled out to newsstands over the next two weeks, depending on location. Copies will also be available for purchase on Amazon from July 10th.

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[10/10] Read Praveen Donthi's report from December 2011 on Praful Patel and the fall of Air India: caravanmagazine.in/reportage/ta...

[9/10] “The original order was 10 Airbus aircraft for AI and 18 Boeing for AI Express,” a former senior airline official told me. “The 10 [for Air India] was increased to 50, but it was all given to Boeing.”

[8/10] The other parties to the making of the airplane deal have declined to speak publicly about the decision to revise the size of the order—or the subsequent and equally controversial decision to give the entire purchase order to Boeing.

[7/10] Sunil Arora, chairman and managing director of Indian Airlines from 2002 to 2005, who opposed many of Patel’s moves with Air India.
caravanmagazine.in/reportage/ta...

[6/10]...the order and awarding the contract to Boeing, citing the shift in seat configuration and the expected delay in delivery of the 787s. “That haunted Arora for a long time,” the senior official said. “The government put serious pressure on him, which may be why he now refuses to talk.”

[5/10] Objections raised by Airbus were apparently echoed inside the airline: according to the former official, an Air India board member, Sunil Arora, dispatched a “damning” letter in May 2005 to the Cabinet secretary, alleging multiple irregularities in the process of revising...

[4/10] After the Air India board decided to place its order with Boeing on 26 April 2005, Airbus executives demanded an investigation, pointing to the revised seat configuration and the fact that the purchase order included 27 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, which had not yet entered production.

[3/10] According to a former senior airline official, the specifications for seats and configuration were changed “at the last minute” to favour Boeing, which led to an outraged response from Airbus.

[2/10] Praful Patel with Boeing’s Alan Mulally (left) and Air India CMD V Thulasidas in Mumbai after signing the deal to purchase 68 Boeing aircraft on 11 January 2006.
caravanmagazine.in/reportage/ta...

Mallya and Trump were both bequeathed a massive inheritance, and have proceeded to splurge it on expensive cars, yachts, gadgets and apartments across the world.

Read Kaushal Shroff's essay from March 2016 on Vijay Mallya: The poor bank’s Donald Trump:
caravanmagazine.in/vantage/vija...

Time and again, a number of ventures under their name have applied for debt-restructuring and despite the frequent liquidity crunch in their companies, both have amassed massive wealth for themselves.