Air India is on the block, finally. With accumulated losses of over Rs 50,000 crore, a debt overhang of around Rs 55,000 crore, and an annual interest burden of Rs 4,500 crore which chews up more than a fifth of its revenues, this decision should ordinarily have been a no-brainer.

But it has taken the Modi government three long years to come to this conclusion. The decision could have been taken with fewer tears a decade ago, when the airline under Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel induced Air India to order a humongous number of aircraft from Boeing that it could ill-afford. ...

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