270 saplings planted in Madurai to honour Air India crash victims
In a moving tribute, 270 saplings were planted in Madurai, Tamil Nadu in memory of those who lost their lives in the tragic crash of Air India Flight AI171 in Ahmedabad. The crash, which occurred shortly after take-off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, claimed the lives of 241 of the 242 passengers and crew members on board, along with 29 others on the ground, including five MBBS students.advertisementThe plantation drive was led by Cholan Gubendran, a local engineer known for his environmental efforts and for planting over one lakh saplings. Volunteers from the district joined the initiative, planting each sapling as a mark of respect for the victims of what has become one of the most devastating air disasters in India.Cholan Gubendran said the act was a way to symbolically resurrect those who died in the crash. "This is our offering. I believe their memory will live through these trees, which will provide oxygen and life to others," he said.
The ill-fated Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was bound for London's Gatwick Airport when it went down inside the Medical College campus in Meghaninagar, Ahmedabad. The crash resulted in a massive fire, reducing the aircraft to debris. Amongst those on board were 230 passengers, two pilots and ten crew members. One British national of Indian origin miraculously survived and is currently undergoing treatment.advertisementThis incident is the first fatal crash involving a Boeing 787 since the aircraft entered commercial service in 2011. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) recovered the black box 28 hours after the crash. Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu confirmed that the device, found near the tail section of the aircraft, will be critical in determining the cause of the tragedy.As investigators work to uncover the reasons behind the crash, the saplings in Madurai now stand as living reminders of the lives lost, offering a measure of peace and hope through nature.Tune InTrending Reel
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Time of India
19 minutes ago
- Time of India
'Most heartbreaking crisis of career': Tata Sons chairman on Air India crash; urges to 'stay on course'
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First Post
20 minutes ago
- First Post
How is the Air India investigation unfolding? Why are UK, US involved?
At least 270 people were killed after a London-bound Air India flight, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner (AI 171) crashed at the Ahmedabad airport on June 12 just moments after taking off. The Centre has constituted a high-level committee to examine the causes of the crash and experts from Boeing as well as teams from the UK and the US are aiding the investigation read more Parts of an Air India plane that crashed on Thursday are seen on top of a building in Ahmedabad, India. AP The investigation into the Air India plane crash is on. At least 270 people were killed after a London-bound Air India flight, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner (AI 171) crashed at the Ahmedabad airport on June 12 just moments after taking off. Two-hundred and forty-one people of 242 aboard were killed in the incident. The lone survivor, Vishwashkumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian-origin, is currently being treated in a hospital. This was the first Dreamliner crash since its commercial debut in 2011. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Experts from Boeing and teams from the UK and the US are also aiding the investigation. But how is the probe unfolding? Why are teams from the UK and US involved? Let's take a closer look: What do we know? The Centre has constituted a high-level committee to examine the causes of the crash. The committee, which will be headed by the Union home secretary, will also submit a list of recommendations within three months on how to prevent such accidents in the future. The committee is comprises of people from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Indian Air Force, as well as aviation experts. 'A High Level Multi-disciplinary Committee is constituted for examining the causes leading to the crash of the Air India Flight AI-171 from Ahmedabad to Gatwick Airport (London) on June 12, 2025. The Committee will examine the existing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and guidelines issued to prevent and handle such occurrences and suggest comprehensive guidelines for dealing with such instances in the future,' the order issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Saturday read. Experts from Boeing and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) arrived in Gujarat on Sunday to examine the crash site. So did a 10-member team from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The (AAIB), which probes aircraft accidents and incidents, found the black box – which comprises the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) – of the plane 28 hours after the tragedy, according to Union Minister of Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD After a plane crash, the black box becomes the most important tool for investigators. Reuters Their contents, which are currently being analysed, could help unlock the mystery of the crash. Graham Braithwaite, an aviation professor at Cranfield University in England, told The Guardian, 'The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder will tell us a lot – assuming they are undamaged … and help the industry know how best to react in the short term.' He said the focus would be on 'making sure they don't lose evidence from the site during recovery efforts, or from the hangar, airport or training records'. 'The team can involve specialists from the manufacturer or operator … but under very strict controls to ensure the independence of the investigation.' Investigators are also looking at CCTV footage from BJ Medical College as well as Ahmedabad Airport. Footage of the crash recorded by a local named Vijay is also being looked at. While bird hit remains a possible theory, investigators are yet to find any proof of it. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD A source on Friday said the probe is narrowing in on the plane's engine, flaps and landing gear . The source said that the plane's engine thrust, flaps, and landing gear are all under scrutiny. It is also examining whether Air India is to blame as well as any issues with the plane's maintenance. Why are teams from US and UK involved? This is because of international aviation regulations. Annex 13 defines an accident as 'an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft: in which a person is fatally or seriously injured; in which an aircraft sustains damage or structural failure requiring repairs; after which the aircraft in question is classified as being missing'. Officials from the US are joining the investigation because the Boeing was manufactured there. 'The AAIB has launched a detailed investigation, and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a parallel probe under international protocols, since the aircraft is American-made,' US officials said in a statement on Sunday. Meanwhile, experts from the UK are joining because of the large number of British citizens on board the aircraft. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Maybe we will be able to speak later. We saw what you guys can see. It's just the same, as you can see from here,' one of the team members said. Daksha Patni mourns for her relative Akash Patni, 14, who died when an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft crashed during take-off from an airport, outside the postmortem room at a hospital, in Ahmedabad. Reuters Boeing's chief Kelly Ortberg in a statement said the company 'stands ready to support' the AAIB in its investigation. Meanwhile, the toll from the plane crash touched 270 on Saturday. 'Around 270 bodies have been brought to the civil hospital so far from the plane crash site,' Dr Dhaval Gameti,president of Junior Doctors' Association of BJ Medical College, said. The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said. The passengers included 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. With inputs from agencies
Scroll.in
27 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
‘Frequently, heaven erupts': A new book of poetry takes readers across 37 Indian cities
The City is an Atlas of Lost Things by Siddharth Dasgupta We lie crushed and burgeoned across the geographies of open windows and meteor showered skylights, across prairies of idle conversation, across the creaking ancestral heft of bookshops and the wild tongues of bars that speak in the creole of desire. We bloom in accordance with the seasons – wildflowers always in search of summer, else the portioned ghazals of these Indian winters. We prosper in the faded aura of yesterday's pink or the lost enchantment of another sky's blue, in the brief dazzle of a sea teal, in the wild tongues of streets that speak in the creole of desire. Often, we memorise days. In the magic frisson of twilight, we brush against each other, praying for the spark. We learn to speak other languages and shed skin in the wild tongues of hotel beds that speak in the creole of desire. Frequently, heaven erupts. Frequently, we don't even enquire. Irani Restaurant, Bombay by Arun Kolatkar the cockeyed shah of iran watches the cake decompose carefully in a cracked showcase; distracted only by a fly on the make as it finds in a loafer's wrist an operational base. dogmatically green and elaborate trees defeat breeze; the crooked swan begs pardon if it disturb the pond; the road, neat oas a needle, points at a lovely cottage with a garden. the thirsty loafer sees the stylised perfection of the landscape, in a glass of water, wobble. a sticky tea print for his scholarly attention singles out a verse from the blank testament of the table. an instant of mirrors turns the tables on space. while promoting darkness below the chair, the cat in its two timing sleep dreams evenly and knows dreaming to be an administrative problem. his cigarette lit, the loafer, affecting the exactitude of a pedagogue, places the burnt matchstick in the tea circle; and sees it rise: as when to identify a corpse one visits a morgue and politely the corpse rises from a block of ice. the burnt matchstick with the tea circle makes a rude compass. the heretic needle jabs a black star. tables chairs mirrors are night that needs to be sewed and cashier is where at seams it comes apart. Goa, 2018 by Nandini Sen Mehra Teeming stories rush by my car window in overrun gates and crumbling church towers, in the two men at a restaurant trying very hard to pass off simply as two men in a restaurant as they mark their next paycheck who is smiling at his lover, fingers entwined over his last meal, a dead fish swims in shallow gravy. My stories lie trampled under the feet of three women working rice fields they do not own anymore, bent impossibly low at the waist, their saris hitched high, unmindful of the rain that soaks their crops and their skin. In a house called A. D'Souza and D'Souza, one half has run out of money and the other half is glad everyone can see it. A violently pink house, all new-age chic called Gulabo houses beautiful clothes for beautiful people. The house that lived within has quietly leached its stories under the floorboards. At the bend, a mansion sits recessed behind tall wrought iron gates I see her – after all these years, Dona Maria at an open window, invoking the spirit of her dead husband – Ernesto! Ernesto! I shut my eyes tight. Trikal – a half forgotten film from my childhood, the past, the present, the future. All of these stories but I speed on by. Not now. Not now. Golden Hour by Satya Dash There's cause, there's effect, there's splaying open of backyards into lilac meadow – here blooms the average of nothing and everything, daily a hint of twilight to replenish the pulse of our half-lives. What was your first moment of bewilderment at the center of this meadow? Mine – at a desolate guesthouse on the eastern coast of India, a kind of glee to watch for the first time, my mother's tears. The rapture of revelation that grown-ups cry too, disappearing fast into the despair that came from viewing her weeping face. The culprit – red faced, curry spangled, eight year old me who went for a walk after breakfast and came back at sunset. To notice the pin of unconditional love prick a fully functional adult heart – a lesson or premonition? Almost every day I use the word paradox as a way to fake resolution. At a parlour in Bangalore, when a small kid brings the house down, I watch. He bawls from the scrape of razor on scalp. I watch. Strands fall on tiny shoulders, his cheeks flooded in pink. I watch. When the heist is over, the dad and barber shake hands with tired smiles. The kid sobbing in Daddy's arms, the brunt of trial and burn of blade fading away. Turning his eyes slowly, he takes me by surprise. On my lathered face, stainless steel erasing oceans of accrual. Is this how symbiosis works? His actor, now wondrous big eyed observer in response to mine. Polishing the Stones, Chandigarh, 1963 by Malovika Pawar Corbusier's city is still young. My mother irons our clothes all Sunday, so many uniforms, so many sheets and blouses. She treasures her one silk saree, like gold. At night, she knits, head bent as if in prayer. She is preparing for the winter to come. My brother craves toys in shop windows, the new shoes on other feet. Listen, when the new houses were built in this city, we played in the underground caverns of their foundations, kingdoms of sand and of gravel, ran in the labyrinths. The caverns filled in the rains, and iridescent insects floated in the water. We did not even know that fireflies were about to disappear from our lives! That night-time terraces would soon grow dark! All night, jackals howled at the jagged edges of the city. We were all dreaming of a better life, even my father the poet, who left the house each morning with poems in his pockets, rough stones he would polish later. Love at Red Light in Delhi by Ashwani Kumar One Holy river in slush flows intermittently. Two Basil leaves lye spiritless on the scattered corpses robbed by wanton autumn delight. Three priests play holi on the spy camera. Besotted with the nonsense science, endowed with senseless arts, bulletproof polygamous soldiers arrive in a raid on hiding mongooses … Hoarding imported roses under the encroached shades of lampposts Flower-sellers haggle in crooked humility … Oozing with tons of oomph, teachers confess poor job satisfaction on the childrens' day … Yawning cheerfully in the flattery of desperate eyes of lewd onlookers Siberian storks begin another day … Believe it or not, people say Renunciation lives happily in the missing genitals of civilisation … Calorie too low, enthusiasm all time high Girls in the capital make love in platform shoes at the red light … They make love in deserted shopping malls … They make love on sky-high expressways … They make love in shy underground metros … They make love on the virile spines of racing bikes … They make love everywhere except in the mildew homes. Believe it or not, people say Love is permanently domiciled in strange cavities of desire … Marina Beach by Jayant Parmar, translated from the Urdu by Riyaz Latif with dusk's advent, unloading the sun's burning rock from the shoulders, exhausted from the day's travails, launching many-colored balloons into the skies, whistling away, on Marina Beach, the blue ocean, barefooted, has come for a promenade – Kolkata High Street by Gopal Lahiri Fine rain walks with the pedestrians, mirror halls and amber rooms shine with the shadows of back garden walls and noiseless leaves. The flood of colours excavate the layers of the city, the allure of words collecting, from inside out, waits for a new language. The footprints seek the light of a deeper place, commoners talk about freedom without compromise for good or evil – willing to be struck dumb. Rumbles of cars on the street seek the meaning of memories, each trope comes close to song, the whispers write libretti, the music embraces the alphabets of evening. A solitary flower tumbles from the long arms of the branch and then the ovation of the unknown birds splits the rainbow of night. Like the hum of a taut string in the dark the city loves to sing his own words taking us down numerous mystic lanes and bye lanes.
