Book Review - The descent of Air India

My first business chronicle of this year and what makes it interesting is that it is written by an insider who has spent almost 2 decades with the beleaguered airliner.

How Air India from being almost a monopoly with dominant market share and the preferred airlines for anyone flying out of India between the 50s to 80s became the government's biggest liability as we know of it today. What historical reasons helped it become one of the best international airlines under the leadership of JRD Tata.

What factors led to this downfall, how did the airlines cope or rather what did the airlines not do to cope with the opening up of competition post the liberalisation era.

What kind of political intervention or patronage took place at crucial junctures in the organisation, indecisiveness or lack of leadership, apathy from governments starting from the mid 90s and confused bureaucrats without any knowledge of the airline industry , incompetence from Management, frequent leadership change at the senior level, avoidable fleet expansion plans, high handedness of the employee unions, Mis-managed merger with Indian Airlines, a board of directors with hardly any powers to act on tough decisions etc etc are obviously the critical factors that led to the downfall of Air India and are written in full detail in the book.

One gets to know about the dynamics of how a Public sector unit typically works and how decision making happens. A good overview of the airline business in the 90s and early part of 2000.

Book Review - The Cult of the Amateur

A book that is almost a decade old but most of the concerns raised largely remain even to this day and I would say has increased multi fold. With the advent of Web 2.0 , Social media we have seen a unprecedented rise in the no of blogs or YouTube by amateurs on various topics ranging from sociology to Politics. The author has given the downside of this information age where unverified news by amateurs has led to a surge in fake news which eventually shape public opinions on critical topics which should ideally be handled by reputed media houses. It is unfortunate that this phenomenon has led many educated very informed internet users to fall prey to such fake news .

The likes of Wikipedia or YouTube have in one sense made information and self expression universally democratic but at the same time given rise to millions of amateur who are not trained nor are they subject matter experts take the place of trained media professionals. From media to music to news the threat of Web 2.0 with its uncontrolled growth is something the future generations will have to deal with.

A thought provoking book to understand the past and future of information age

From Average Runner to Legend of Ultra Marathons

First book of 2018 and what better than reading about Ultra Marathon legend Scott Jurek.

Strength does not done from physical capacity but comes from an indomitable will ~ Gandhi

Doesn't matter if you are a 5k runner or a want to be Ultra Marathoner this book is a must read. Scot talks about his unlikely journey from being a weekend skiing enthusiast to Ultra Marathon legend. He has included lots of tips on running form and the various plant based diets that he experimented with to help him perform and recover better after each run.

Long distance running is an extremely lonely sport and what drives professionals and amateur athletes to run such long distances ranging from 50 Kms to, 250 kms is something one should experience.

The book has lot of details of some of Scot's most famous races including the deadly Badwater ultra, the run with the Tarahumara Indians in the Copper Canyons, the Western States 100 Mile race, The Hardrock Ultra, UTMB France and the Spartathlon in Greece.

A must read book from one of the sages of long distance running.