Selling veggies to changing car tyres, Goan youth turn humble starts into flying careers
Panaji:
Sitting behind a rack of vegetables and fruits in her father's shop at Porvorim, 23-year-old Samiran Banu Maglani still can't believe that her dream of becoming an
airhostess
has turned into a reality.
From weighing vegetables to cruising altitudes, Samiran's journey has been one of grit and determination.
Raised amid the bustle of her father's fruit and vegetable stall, Samiran spent her teens helping with sales and stocking the shelves. But behind the counter, Samiran nurtured a lofty dream: To fly as a cabin crew one day.
'I never saw an airport before...never flew in an aircraft, but I wanted to become an air hostess.
I tried to join many airlines, but I was rejected in the second or third round. Becoming a cabin crew was a dream I chased since I was 19,' says Samiran.
Today, she starts her workday at 4am, serving passengers on board early morning flights of Goa-based
FLY91
, and returns home by early afternoon — just in time to help her father back at the stall. Though she failed the first round of training, she asked for another chance and proved her mettle.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
She Was The Dream Girl Of 90s, Here Is A Proof
I Am Famous
Undo
Nearly 35km away from where Samiran lived, Atul Ulhas Chari was leading the life of a dairy farmer at Keri, Ponda.
Having ventured into dairy farming, the 29-year-old realised it wasn't as easy as he thought it to be. As the venture grew too fast, the debts also mounted. Forced to abandon the business, Atul turned to driving cars to repay loans.
That's when an advertisement caught his eye — FLY91 was looking for drivers. After the heartbreak of watching his entrepreneurial dreams slip away, he knew he needed to start over.
He decided it was time to chart a more stable course — and chose driving as his new profession.
However, a serendipitous conversation with the airline's management led to a gamble that appears to have paid off. Atul was put in the line maintenance department, a role that he soon excelled at.
'Now, I'm living a life I never dreamt of,' says Atul. 'From changing a car tyre, now I can change an aircraft tyre in less than 45 minutes.'
He has risen through the ranks to work in the engineering and maintenance stores division at Mopa and could soon shift to ground support equipment. 'It's a proud feeling that a local boy from a non-aviation background is getting an opportunity to work on an aircraft,' he says.
If Samiran and Atul's stories were of dreams turning into reality, 29-year-old Pranesh Fadte from Old Goa was fortuitous that he got into the airline company as a driver. Pranesh had returned home from Mumbai after finishing his training in
aircraft maintenance engineering
.
With no job openings and pandemic worsening his prospects, the 29-year-old finally took up work as a driver.
It was while driving the airline's CEO and MD, Manoj Chacko, and chief operating officer Chenna Reddy that during a casual chat, Fadte, prompted by Chacko and Reddy, revealed his technical qualifications. And from there his journey started.
'They told me they would give me a chance once the airline started,' he recalls.
True to their word, after training, Pranesh joined as an aircraft technician. Today, he works 12-hour shifts inspecting oil levels, tyre conditions, and brakes, and coordinating with pilots before every flight.
'When I thought of setting up the FLY91 base in Goa, many advised me against it, saying we wouldn't find satisfactory talent here. However, we found out that was not the case,' says Chacko.
Of the nearly 300-strong workforce, many, like Samiran, Atul, and Pranesh, are
first-generation aviation professionals
.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
40 minutes ago
- Time of India
Buyer with ties to Chinese Communist Party got VIP treatment at Trump crypto dinner
The Trump White House has repeatedly sounded an alarm about visitors with ties to China's Communist Party coming to the United States, arguing that they are a potential security threat. But the administration appears to have literally left the door open to a member of a Chinese government group when it went along with a plan to give the biggest purchasers of President Donald Trump's digital currency access to the president and the White House. Trump launched a so-called meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency, just days before his inauguration. To bolster sales, the president's business partners created a contest in April, offering the coin's top buyers a tour of the White House and a private dinner with Trump at his Virginia golf club. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like If You Eat Ginger Everyday for 1 Month This is What Happens Tips and Tricks One of those buyers was He Tianying, who is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, according to government documents in China examined by The New York Times. That government group, referred to as the CPPCC, is an advisory body that seeks to broaden the Communist Party's influence and solicit support from influential people in Chinese society. Live Events He, who was registered at the Trump event as a resident of Hong Kong, advises the Chinese government through his role as a delegate of the Fangshan CPPCC, a district of Beijing. He is listed as a member of the organization's science and technology committee. The Times could find no indication that He is a member of the Communist Party, and the government body he serves on is fairly low-level. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories There were no restrictions on who could buy the Trump meme coin -- which was marketed like a collectible baseball card -- including foreign nationals. But the winning buyers were given the opportunity for close proximity to the president. It is not clear why He wanted to attend. Still, at a time when the administration is seeking to scrutinize and revoke the visas of Chinese students with ties to the Communist Party, the incident illustrates inconsistencies in the Trump administration's approach to how it handles Chinese nationals, as well as potential weaknesses in the background checks the Trump administration did on the guests who bought his meme coin. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in an interview that the dinner was a private event and that government officials were not closely involved. "As the White House has always maintained, this was not an official White House event," she said. Once a crypto skeptic, Trump has done an about-face and declared himself a digital coin enthusiast, raising ethical concerns and blurring the line between his personal business ventures and the presidency. His family's company has issued its own cryptocurrency, and he has also heavily promoted the meme coin, known as $TRUMP. The meme coin dinner engendered strong criticism from Democrats, government watchdogs and even some Republicans about the appearance of monetising the presidency for personal gain. The event was arranged by the president's business partners to directly enrich the first family, even as Trump spoke that evening behind a stand emblazoned with the presidential seal. Bidders competed to accumulate the largest holding of the coin over several weeks. The top 220 won a dinner with Trump, and the top 25 also got a "VIP" tour of the White House. The buyers used self-adopted nicknames that disguised their identities, but the Times obtained copies of several pages of an official sign-in sheet for the dinner and over the past two weeks has been examining the biographies of many of the attendees. He, using the nickname Sky, owned $3.7 million worth of the meme coin, public transaction records show, at the time the contest ended. He was ranked as the seventh-largest buyer of the cryptocurrency, which entitled him to a gold-colored VIP wristband for the event. The day after the dinner at Trump's golf club, He was observed by a reporter from the Times entering the White House for the tour that had been set up by Trump's business partner Bill Zanker, who created the Trump meme coin. Zanker and the Trump family share in the revenues from the meme coin business, which has already totaled at least $320 million, according to an estimate by Chainalysis, a crypto forensics group. After the tour, He, using a social media account under his Sky pseudonym, posted a series of photos from the dinner and White House tour, which he electronically modified to cover his face. The Times was able to establish his identity through publicly available information, including photos and biographical information on his company website. He made several waves of purchases during the three weeks of the meme coin contest, according to the transaction records. "May I have the pleasure?" he wrote in one social media post, showing off his standing as one of the top owners of the meme coin, several days before the contest ended. He declined to comment as he entered the White House, and he did not respond to follow-up emails, calls and text messages from the Times. The dinner invitation sent to He stands in contrast to the statement Trump issued Wednesday, arguing that his administration needed to urgently move to block visas for certain Chinese nationals, including those attending Harvard University, as "the Chinese Communist Party has sent thousands of midcareer and senior bureaucrats" to the United States. He said this order was for "crucial national security reasons." A senior White House official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the matter, said this week that the presence of He at the dinner and White House tour was unfortunate and that overall, the meme coin dinner had created unnecessary questions. But the White House official added that it had occurred because Trump "carelessly committed" to his longtime friend and business partner Zanker that he would be a part of it. The official added that Trump was not notified who would be attending and was unaware of He's background. Supporting the party The mission of the Fangshan District division of the CPPCC, which lists He as a member, is to "uphold the overall leadership of the Communist Party of China and strengthen the common ideological and political foundation," the group says in describing one of its meetings this year. CPPCC committees are advisory bodies to China's rubber-stamp legislatures at the national, provincial and, like Fangshan, district or county levels. Members can make policy recommendations to the legislative bodies, called People's Congresses. These committees are part of the Communist Party's United Front system, which is devised to co-opt broad segments of the population, including entrepreneurs like He, into supporting and carrying out the party's policies. The CPPCC bodies also act as networking clubs. "When you are a CPPCC member, you are expected to be a part of the United Front system and carry the water where the party asks you to," said Peter Mattis, the president of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation who studies the United Front. The Times turned up documentation on Chinese government websites showing He's participation in the CPPCC group, as well as an attendance list for the committee's gathering in Beijing in January that included He's name. Chinese government records show that He is the majority owner of a Beijing-based investment firm, TechSharpe (Beijing) Capital Management Co., which says on its website that it uses artificial intelligence to "conduct quantitative investment in stocks." Recently, He has also promoted a crypto firm called LuckyFuture and has interacted on social media with Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the giant crypto exchange Binance. In a social media post, responding to an inquiry from the Times, Zhao said he learned about LuckyFuture after He reached out to him in the last few weeks. (A Binance spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.) He came to the United States from China about a decade ago to get a master's degree in finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before returning to China and becoming active in the CPPCC, which is noted in his TechSharpe biography. This made He just the kind of student Trump is now targeting. But there was no hint of those kinds of fears in gracious invitations sent via email in mid-May to the dinner guests. "Congratulations!" said the notice sent to He, with a photo illustration of a muscular, smiling Trump at a dinner table, with an American flag on his lapel. "We can't wait to see you at the Gala Dinner." (He posted a copy of these emails on his social media account.) A table of foreign visitors According to a video taken at the dinner, the VIPs at just one table illustrated how many of the guests had traveled from overseas, including from China. He's dining companions included Justin Sun, a Chinese-born billionaire who was the contest's single largest buyer and one of the largest investors in the Trump family's other crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. Sun also has experience as a CPPCC member. In 2016, he was named as a delegate for a committee in a district in Guangzhou, a city in southern China. Only 26 at the time, he was among the youngest people in the country to sit on a CPPCC body. "I feel that the responsibility is very heavy, and I must strive to adapt to the new role as soon as possible," Sun was quoted in state media as saying at the time. (His representatives did not respond to a request for comment.) Also seated at the table were Cheng Lu, a Singapore-based crypto investor, who told the Times in an interview outside the White House that he bought a large amount of the family's meme coin because he wanted a chance to privately meet with Trump. Sheldon Xia, the founder of BitMart, a cryptocurrency trading platform backed by China-based Fenbushi Capital, joined them at the table, along with Sangrok Oh, the CEO of Hyperithm, a Seoul- and Tokyo-based firm that manages digital assets for institutional investors. Guests invited to the dinner were "required to fill out a brief form as part of the security background check to gain entry to the event," according to an email sent to the winners. The questionnaire was created with a service called CryptoComply offered by the New York-based firm Canaria Consulting. It requested information such as name, date of birth and place of residence. The 25 top Trump meme coin holders had their names submitted to a background check system called White House Worker and Visitor Entry System, a government official told the Times. This system compares the names of the pending visitors with government databases that include terrorist watch lists and lists of known criminals. "The U.S. Secret Service is responsible for vetting all White House visitors and guests, and we fully trust their process in doing so," Leavitt said. Some guests at the dinner said they were surprised at how lax the security appeared at the event. People not on the guest list were in certain cases allowed to enter the golf club grounds that evening and remain there after Trump arrived, the Times also confirmed. "I expected more from the security questions," said Nicholas Pinto, a Florida resident and crypto trader who attended the dinner. "It was very basic. And next thing you know, I am standing there in the room with President Trump."
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
H&M owners quietly buying its shares
Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), the fast-fashion retailer that's been listed on the Swedish stock market since 1974, is steadily moving back towards private ownership. The founding family has stepped up purchases of H&M shares, spending more than $6.6 billion since 2016 to amass nearly two-thirds control and fuelling speculation it could take the Stockholm-based company back into private hands - despite denials from family members. The Perssons, one of Sweden's wealthiest families, has ramped up insider buying by reinvesting dividends, boosting its H&M stake to almost 64% from 35.5% over the past nine years through a holding company Ramsbury Invest, saying little about their intentions other than that they "believe" in H&M, founded in 1947 by Erling Persson. Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
Can't club terror-backers with victims: EAM Jaishankar to UK's Lammy
NEW DELHI: While thanking his visiting UK counterpart David Lammy for the strong condemnation of the Pahalgam terrorist attack, external affairs minister S Jaishankar told him India will never countenance perpetrators of evil being put at par with its victims. India follows a policy of zero tolerance against terrorism and expects its partners to understand it, Jaishankar told Lammy who visited Pakistan last month welcoming "sustained ceasefire between Pakistan and India, both important partners to the UK". Lammy became the first UK foreign secretary to visit Pakistan since 2021. India doesn't use the word ceasefire and has strongly denied that the US or any other country had a role to play in the cessation of military hostilities between India and Pakistan last month. Lammy also called on PM Narendra Modi and strongly condemned the Pahalgam attack, expressing support for India's fight against cross border terrorism. Modi underscored the need for a decisive international action against terrorism and those who support it, according to an Indian readout. He later said in a post on X that he valued UK's support for India's fight against cross-border terrorism. Lammy later told Reuters without elaborating that India and the UK are discussing "next steps" in counterterrorism measures, while acknowledging terrorism designed to destabilise India. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Thousands Are Saving Money Using This Wall Plug elecTrick - Save upto 80% on Power Bill Click Here Undo I n the meeting, Modi expressed satisfaction at the successful conclusion of the India-UK Free Trade Agreement and welcomed the deepening of the India-UK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Lammy, according to the readout, conveyed the UK's strong interest in further enhancing cooperation across key sectors including trade and investment, defence and security, technology, innovation, and clean energy. Lammy expressed confidence that the FTA will unlock new economic opportunities for both countries. As the two countries remain in touch diplomatically to finalise dates for a proposed visit to India by UK PM Keir Starmer, Modi reiterated his invitation for an early visit by his counterpart. The visit will see both sides formally signing the FTA. Lammy also met commerce minister Piyush Goyal and NSA Ajit Doval during the visit. The ministry of external affairs said Jaishankar and Lammy reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation and expressed satisfaction at the progress in diverse sectors, including trade & economy, defence & security, technology & innovation, health, green energy & climate, education and people-to-people ties under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
