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Thulasidas blamed for ‘descent of Air India’  Saurabh Sinha, TNN
Oct 12, 2013, 08.47AM IST (Spineless management teams…)  NEW
DELHI: Spineless management teams subservient to self-serving
political masters coupled with irresponsible employee behaviour
have killed Air India. In what is positioned as a tell-all book
by an insider, AI's ex-executive director Jitendra Bhargava is
sharp on former CMD V Thulasidas — "his master's voice" — and
ex-civil aviation minister Praful Patel, who have been blamed
for "the descent of Air India" , which is also the book's name.
Training his guns on the government, Bhargava says, "AI had long
nurtured a grouse against the government for not supporting its
aircraft acquisition plans.... the board finally approved an
order for 28 aircraft — 10 longrange and 18 short range — in
November 2003.... Patel, in a meeting held in the civil aviation
ministry on August 2, 2004, asked both AI and Indian Airlines to
revisit th