India’s air crash committee: too little, too late?

Good morning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet his new Canadian counterpart Mark Carney later today on the sidelines of the G7 global summit. This is an important meeting as the two countries attempt to reset ties after the fallout over the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in 2023. We will keep an eye on the developments there.

In today’s newsletter: Wimbledon looks to build a market in India. But first, the government responds to the Ahmedabad air crash by setting up a committee. 

Management by committee

Following last week’s tragedy, the government has set up a high-level committee tasked with suggesting “comprehensive guidelines” on how to respond to plane crashes and other aviation incidents. The committee will be headed by the home secretary, and includes personnel from the Indian air force and outside experts. It is expected to submit its report in three months’ time.

While the main probe into the incident continues to be conducted by India’s aircraft accident investigation bureau, it will presumably now have to share its findings with this new committee, which has also been given the job of looking into what went wrong with last Thursday’s London-bound Air India flight. The committee will similarly have access to the black box that was recovered from the crash site, and other flight data and recordings.

The efficacy of this committee, which duplicates much of what the bureau and other agencies are already supposed to be doing, seems unclear. To me it sounds more like a bureaucratic, knee-jerk response. What is it going to propose that is not already part of India’s emergency response protocol? And if such a committee could ensure tragedies like this do not happen, why was it not set up earlier? 

Touring the site of the crash, home minister Amit Shah had said that “accidents cannot be stopped”. Whether it was an accident, or could have been prevented or not, can only be determined following blockysis of the contents in the black box. But what is clear to me is that the solution is not more committees. The Ahmedabad crash recorded the highest number of casualties since 1997, but there have been three crashes since the Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision, including one as recently as 2020. What we need is a system that values human life and is continuously audited to ensure the best standards of safety and care. 

In the meantime, the painful process of identifying the deceased continues. DNA samples from the relatives of the p***engers have been collected and are now being matched with those from the site. This process is even more fraught for the ground fatalities, since unlike the flight manifest, there is no record of the number of people caught under the crashing plane. Air India owner Tata Sons had announced compensation of Rs10mn ($116,000) for the deceased p***engers. After being urged by the Indian Medical Association, it has now extended this to the kin of the ground fatalities, many of who were medical professionals at the BJ Hospital. They will also be covering the treatment costs of the injured. This is only fair; the fact that they were not paying customers should not matter to Air India, they were still victims of the same terrible tragedy. 

Do you think this committee will help minimise future aviation incidents? Hit reply or email me at indiabrief@ft.com

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Good sport

India has joined the US as a targeted main growth market for the Wimbledon tennis tournament this year. Hoping to expand its reach here, the organisers are planning a range of marketing activities, including potentially staging gr*** court matches with famous cricketers (shudder!) 

The British event joins many other global sporting franchises for which capturing the interest of India’s 600mn young people — more than the entire populations of many countries — is now an essential strategy. In April, English football’s Premier League opened its first office in Mumbai, and World Wrestling Entertainment has promised to stage a “premium event” in the country in the next two years. In the past couple of decades, both football and Formula 1 have am***ed large fan followings.

Wimbledon’s first interest in this market is JioHotstar’s 280mn subscribers, who will be able to watch the event on the streaming platform, but there is also a rapidly growing outbound sports tourism industry in India. Companies such as fantasy sport unicorn Dream11 are starting to diversify, and are arranging holidays around large sporting events around the world. While still rather niche, business has been booming in the post-Covid years, according to one operator I spoke to, fuelled by Indian demand for everything from more cricket tournaments to the Olympics. 

India itself is unable to host big sporting tournaments other than cricket, despite fan interest. Past attempts have not proven sustainable. From 2011 to 2013, the Indian Grand Prix was organised in Gautam Buddha Nagar, but a tax dispute with the Uttar Pradesh government ended that exercise. Now New Delhi is abuzz over India’s bid to host the Summer Olympics in 2036, an endeavour that will involve a m***ive outlay of public funding. It would be better if we learnt to walk before we tried to run. 

Go figure

Crude oil prices rose sharply as tensions between Israel and Iran escalated. Here’s a quick look.

My mantra

“I’ve been blessed to have a great team, but ultimately when it comes to driving performance, as well as growth, it’s about leading from the front. I always say performance trumps all, and when you drive the best performance everything else follows.”

Rajeev Menon, president Asia Pacific (excluding China), Marriott International

Each week, we invite a successful business leader to tell us their mantra for work and life. Want to know what your boss is thinking? Nominate them by replying to indiabrief@ft.com 

Quick question

What’s your prediction for oil prices if the Israel-Iran tensions continue for a few weeks? Tell us here.

Buzzer round

On Friday, we asked: What has photo-sharing company Snap spent $3bn to build, after a failed first launch in 2016?

The answer is . . . smart gl***es. The company is launching “Specs”, to take on Meta and Apple in the wearables segment.

Ram Teja is our winner this week, followed by Agasthya Vivek and Rudrajit Dawn. Congratulations!

Thank you for reading. India Business Briefing is edited by Tee Zhuo. Please send feedback, suggestions (and gossip) to indiabrief@ft.com.