The Top Five Articles of Sep 12-16

Tehelka has a story on the Air India saga. This is easily the best article I have read this week. Here's an excerpt from the story:

The financial ill-health of Air India is attributed by a civil aviation expert to a “systematic failure of the political and bureaucratic masters who have run the airline like their own principalities for years now. And the merger of Air India and erstwhile Indian Airlines in March 2007 under Patel’s directives has led to an unmitigated disaster”.

Ironically, adds the expert, global consulting firm Accenture, which was hired to draw a road map for the airlines’ merger, was paid Rs. 90 crore for services provided. There are also whispers about why, while other airlines in India hire pilots at a salary of $8,000 per month, Air India hires from a particular placement agency at $10,000. The agency, it is learnt, is run by the son of a former Air India official.

Last year, the Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) termed the merger as a “marriage of two incompatible individuals” and slammed the government for the “ill-conceived and whimsical” decision.

Read the complete article on Tehelka.

One of the largest ten economies in the world, Italy now is neck deep in shit. It has asked China to help it stave off from what can be a potential debt trap.The Economic Times has more on this. 

The U.S. and the European nations have rejoiced at the flight of Muammar Gaddafi. One major power that is visibly uncomfortable at the turn of events in Libya is China. The Economist has an interesting article on the Middle Kingdom's growing unease with the Libyan developments. 

For the tech-minded, Tech Crunch ran a story on the declining usage of Google+ users. If you are a Google+ fan, that's not so cool news.

Another story for the tech geeks, Mashable has an interesting piece on how once-tech-gadgets-from-the-realm-of-fantasy from the Star Trek sci-fi drama have come become real life technologies.

Happy reading!