Travel Thursday is our weekly news Digest that brings you buzzing stories about Travel & Tourism in India.
We start this Travel Thursday with some great positive News !
Udaipur is Voted as the World’s Best city for travellers – WOW !
Now thats a real biggie and unbelievable to a certain extent. However it is true –
The recent travellers poll conducted by popular Travel & Leisure Magazine has voted Udaipur, India as the World’s best city for travellers.
Udaipur, also known as the ‘Venice of the East,’ took the crown by trumping last year’s winner Bangkok. Udaipur sure has done something right to its visitors to secure the top position from ranked nowhere last year.
The Top 10 cities in the world
| Rank-09 | Rank-08 | Name | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | - | Udaipur, India | 87.94 | |
| 2 | 3 | Cape Town | 87.69 | |
| 3 | 1 | Bangkok | 86.80 | |
| 4 | 2 | Buenos Aires | 86.22 | |
| 5 | - | Chiang Mai , Thailand | 86.18 | |
| 6 | 5 | Florence | 85.61 | |
| 7 | - | Luang Prabang , Laos | 85.45 | |
| 8 | 8 | New York | 84.65 | |
| 9 | 7 | Rome | 84.63 | |
| 10 | 10 | San Francisco | 84.53 |
Babu’s given order to travel only by Air India
Looks like a depressing news for our busy autocrats so addictive of the luxuries offered by this developing nation of ours.
For our readers knowledge this is a change from the government’s travel policy of at least three years that allowed officials to travel by private carriers as well.
This is one of many measures taken by government to put some life into diseased Air India run by National Aviation Co. of India Ltd. Although experts claimed that this measure won’t do any good for the debt stricken company.
Lets have a closer look on some of the Company’s attributes. Mumbai (Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport) Delhi (Indira Gandhi International Airport)
Sr.
Name
Air India Limited
2
Ownership
State Owned
3
Main bases of operation
4
Destination in India
Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Kozhikode, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram.
Do you think with such confined network connectivity they would be able to cater to our babu’s/ didi’s (pun intended) whimsical and obviously URGENT travel plans?
Would like to support it with few facts I could gather
Say Mr. Narendra Modi wants to take up a flight to attend One Parliament session in Delhi. He’ll have to get up real early (which I doubt he would want to) and board one and only available flight at 8’ in the morning! U MUST B KIDDIN ME!
And say if some veteran actor turned MP from far south wants to attend the same session he’ll make his presence felt by spending minimum of 29 grands of Government ( or can say our money as well!) Gosh…29 grands just to see him on national T.V throwing his chappals on his peers.
Experts say the rot in Air India predates the financial crisis. Backed by powerful unions, the airline is bloated, badly managed and not held to account, they say.
Some of them are of view, "Air India is still an iconic brand, but unfortunately it has a reputation which is of an unreliable and shoddy airline."
So, the moral of the story is, Mr. Patel go and study what’s stopping your company to earn money rather then forcing people from your fraternity to direct the bailout money in bits and pieces to the ailing company. Throwing money blindly will only perpetuate the sick and loggerheaded management to loose more.
These tricks won’t garner votes neither will it do any good to those 31,500 employees living under the fear of being thrown out any minute. Shield our company from oil prices fluctuation then only may be we see any chance of flying via healthy and robust AIR- INDIA again.
Although the attempt to approach adept industrialist Mr. Ratan Tata is a thoughtful move, but bluffing is not acceptable as people are well informed now!!
AREN’T we?
(Guest post submitted by Kirti Agarwal)
Thats it for this episode of Travel Thursday. Catch up with us again next Thursday for more buzzing travel stuff !
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
@kirtee – good observation, will love to see mr modi on 8 am flight, will have cascading efffect on other babus. but i seriously feel much more is needed to raise this pheonix. lets see wht mr dumboldore(best wizard as per me n hagrid) (read as ratan tata) can do.
btw, do u think privatization will be a more smarter and cheaper option?
abhi
Hey Abhi,
Thanx for ur participation!
Privatization will undoubtedly be a better option if government can devise efficient methods to keep a chk on monoply by private players!but since CONGRESSians are the perpetrators of Public Sector in India i don see it coming in near future.Further let our eloquent babus learn some business instead and not jus bypass sick units to avid private players.
@Kirtee Interesting Insights!!! For one moment , the move would make sense serving two purposes
a) Saving the tax payers money by not allowing these babus to travel business class and kingfishers's
b) Revive Air India
But as you right pointed out, with the kinda network and pricing that they have it in the end looks like a half baked reform
IMHO, the government should have taken the cheapest and the best availabilty scenario.And if Air India flight meets the criteria then make it mandatory.
However, seems unlikely that even this is gonna happen.
So, Jai Ho to the government and 'God Save Air India'
@Kirti Nice article there. I believe I have one more idea that could help save AI.
Since Mr. Patel is very well aware of the fact that gujjus constitute a large part of people migrating abroad, why not make it compulsory for every Gujju migrating to “ameriika” or “canedaa” to take an AI flight?? It sure would get u a lot of moolah Mr. Patel as compared to harassing those Babus :P
@Ankit Shringi
Really appreciate your insight, but i don’t think in a democratic country like ours this would be feasible. Beside think of the other side if AI is going sneeze out money from gujjus who’ll serve the starving and debt stricken flamboyant lives of Mallayas.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1199799/Indias-Palace-Lake-Palace-Mud-drought-takes-toll-romantic-resort.html
This is supposedly the present condition of the Lake Palace at Udaipur… Any Indian news coverage/how old are these pics/what is the present condition?
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