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Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

AI’s Maharaja smiles joyfully

All 30 grounded aircrafts now fly Mumbai : Air India’s Maharaja is all pleased as punch at 80. After years of huge costs and efforts, the last of the grounded 30 aircraft – inherited by the Tata Group during the privatization in Jan. 2022 – is now resurrected fully and took to the skies gracefully on Monday.   The aircraft is the gleaming VT-ALL, a Boeing 777-300ER, that was gathering grime since February 2020, and becomes the final among the two-and-half dozen aircraft that have been revved...

AI’s Maharaja smiles joyfully

All 30 grounded aircrafts now fly Mumbai : Air India’s Maharaja is all pleased as punch at 80. After years of huge costs and efforts, the last of the grounded 30 aircraft – inherited by the Tata Group during the privatization in Jan. 2022 – is now resurrected fully and took to the skies gracefully on Monday.   The aircraft is the gleaming VT-ALL, a Boeing 777-300ER, that was gathering grime since February 2020, and becomes the final among the two-and-half dozen aircraft that have been revved up and revived in the past few years, AI official sources said.   It marked a symbolic milestone for Air India itself - founded in 1932 by the legendary Bharat Ratna J. R. R. Tata - which once ruled the roost and was India’s pride in the global skies.   Once renowned for its royal service with the iconic Maharaja welcoming fliers on board, in 1953 it was taken over by the government of India. After years of piling losses, ageing aircraft, decline in operations and standards – almost like a Maharaja turning a pauper - it returned to the Tata Group four years ago.   This time it was not just the aircraft, the brand and the deflated Maharaja coming into the large-hearted Tata Group stables, but a formidable challenge to ensure that the airline could regain its old glory and glitter. Of the total around 190 aircraft in its fleet were 30 – or 15 pc – that had been grounded and neglected for years.   At that time, the late Ratan N. Tata had directed that all these valuable aircraft must be revived as far as possible and join the fleet. Accordingly, the VT-ALL, languishing at Nagpur for nearly five years, was ‘hospitalized’ at the Air India Engineering Service Ltd., its MRO facility in May 2025.   New Avatar Then started a thorough, painstaking nose-to-tail restoration of an unprecedented scale, in which over 3000 critical components were replaced, over 4,000 maintenance tasks executed, besides key structural upgrades like the longeron modification, engines, auxiliary power units, avionics, hydraulics, landing gears and almost every vital system was rebuilt or replaced.   After the repairs, the old aircraft was reborn, under the gaze of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and technical assistance from Boeing, and the new ‘avatar’ jetliner emerged with the highest global safety standards.   The aircraft cleared all the rigorous checks, a successful test flight, earned the mandatory Airworthiness Review Certificate and then made its maiden commercial flight from Monday, March 16 – after a wait of six years.   Sturdy Fliers Created in 1946 to become an instant global icon, the Air India’s mascot Maharaja now sports a youthful and chic look, a welcome with folded hands, closed eyes, featuring a bejewelled turban, stylish jootis, and a textured kurta in Air India’s new colours. He is prominently visible at various touch-points in a flyer’s journey, such as First Class, exclusive lounges, and luxury products.   Today, he commands a mix fleet of around 190 narrow and wide-body Airbus and Boeing aircraft like : A319, A320, A320neo, A321, A321neo, A350-900 and B787-8, B787-9, B7770200LR, B-777-300ER. With the merger of Vistara and agreements signed for 10 A350 and 90 A320 aircraft, the Maharaja’s fleet is slated to soar to some 570 in the near future.

Deepfakes: The Age of Digital Deception

If left unchecked, deepfakes pose a direct threat to public trust—the social foundation for media, institutions, and law.

In today’s world, where social media clips can go viral within seconds, a troubling question arises: What happens when the video you are watching is not genuine, yet appears completely convincing? Deepfakes represent one of the most advanced applications of artificial intelligence. They rely on sophisticated models such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and newer diffusion techniques, harnessing powerful tools that are capable of producing astonishingly realistic videos, images, or even audio recordings. These creations can make it seem as though a person said or did something that never actually happened, blurring the line between reality and fabrication.


While the technology feels new, its roots stretch back more than two decades. In 1997, researchers developed a system called Video Rewrite that could synchronise lip movements with different audio tracks. In 2016, a project called Face2Face took things further by allowing real-time manipulation of facial expressions. A year later, Synthesising Obama stunned viewers by generating a convincing video of the former U.S. President saying scripted lines he never spoke. But it was in the 2020s that deepfakes became truly mainstream, powered by easy-to-use software and open-source AI models.


Several high-profile deepfake cases have recently emerged in India. One of the discussed cases in India is that of BJP leader Manoj Tiwari, who in 2020 had a deepfake created to clone his voice and facial expressions. Another case was in May 2024; a young man named Yash Bhavsar was arrested in Madhya Pradesh for creating inappropriate content images of women using deepfake technology. Two months later, in July 2025, Assam's Pratim Bora was caught using AI to generate explicit images of an ex-classmate, which he sold online through a subscription model. In July 2024, the Bombay High Court delivered a landmark ruling in Arijit Singh vs Codible Ventures, ordering an interim injunction against unauthorised voice cloning using AI. Another case is Ankur Warikoo v. John Doe (Deepfake Identity Misuse), Delhi High Court (May 2025). These are two genuine High Court judgements in India related to deepfake misuse, where courts granted injunctions recognising the threat posed by AI-generated fake content, especially relating to the misuse of personality rights:


However, as of now, the Honourable Supreme Court hasn’t yet passed a landmark judgment specifically on deepfake content. Nevertheless, the legal framework for digital evidence requires strict authentication for all electronic content.


In response to these challenges, both the legal system and the technology sector are moving quickly. One major area of focus has been developing ways to detect and block deepfakes. Zero Defend Security, a company of Bengaluru, launched Vastav.AI, a cloud-based platform that helps analyse and detect deepfakes with up to 99% accuracy. Another breakthrough came with FaceShield, a tool that protects images from being used in deepfake generation. Indian institutions like IISc Bengaluru and IIIT Hyderabad are working on tools that can detect subtle signs of fakery, such as unnatural eye blinks, mismatched lighting, or inconsistencies in speech rhythm. Globally, tech giants like Meta and Google are also building AI to detect AI, creating what’s called “deepfake detectors”.


Yet even with national efforts, the threat is global in scale. International bodies like INTERPOL, the UN’s ITU, and UNODC are now pushing for global standards in watermarking and AI verification, warning that deepfakes are already being linked to child exploitation, online defamation, and election interference. There is an INTERPOL “Beyond Illusions” (2024) report that stresses deepfake threats. Experts like Dr Danielle Citron, Dr Robert Chesney, and Dr Hao Li have all raised red flags about how deepfakes could erode public trust. Prof. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, at IIT-Hyderabad (Department of AI), is known for projects on deepfake detection and misinformation, especially in Indian contexts. Another renowned scientist is Dr Sumeet Agarwal (IIT Delhi). Works in deep learning, adversarial attacks, and generative AI.


In conclusion, deepfakes are blurring the silver line between truth and fiction at an alarming pace. The results can be almost indistinguishable from reality, and the consequences are starting to show up in real lives, real crimes, and real courtrooms.


(Dr. Kumar is a retired IPS officer and forensic advisor to the Assam government and Shiwani Phukan is a student of National Forensic University, Guwahati. Views personal.)

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