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By:

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.

‘Vaayu’ turns kitchen waste into cooking gas

Pune-based engineer’s innovation brings relief in the time of LPG shortage

Mumbai: As urban households continually grapple with fluctuating LPG prices and supply constraints, a Pune-based engineer has developed a sustainable, home-grown solution.

 

Priyadarshan Sahasrabuddhe, an IIT-Bombay alumnus, has invented 'Vaayu'—a compact, domestic biogas reactor that seamlessly converts everyday kitchen waste into clean cooking fuel. By bringing renewable energy generation directly into the home, this innovation promises to significantly ease the burden of cooking gas shortages while simultaneously tackling the city's mounting waste management crisis.


The technology driving Vaayu is both remarkably simple and highly effective. The system utilizes anaerobic bacterial digestion, a natural process where microorganisms break down the carbohydrates found in organic food scraps and convert them into methane gas.


Instead of sending leftover food, vegetable peels, and organic refuse to overflowing municipal landfills, families can feed this waste directly into the Vaayu digester. The captured methane is stored in a dedicated balloon-like cylinder and piped directly to a conventional stove, delivering a cooking experience identical to that of regular LPG or piped natural gas (CNG).


One of the most appealing aspects of the Vaayu reactor is its ease of installation. Designed specifically with urban households in mind, the unit is incredibly compact and can be easily set up in an apartment balcony, on a terrace, or in a small backyard garden.


It requires no electricity to operate and comes with zero ongoing operational costs. The system is entirely self-sustaining and requires only a basic clean-up once every six months, making it a highly accessible, off-grid energy alternative that bypasses complex machinery.


The impact on a household's fuel dependency is substantial. A standard two-kilogram capacity Vaayu module can process daily kitchen waste to produce approximately 200 liters of biogas within 24 hours. This translates to about 40 minutes of uninterrupted cooking time every day, effectively saving an average household up to three LPG cylinders per year.


For larger families or communities, modular upgrades can scale the capacity up to handle 10 kilograms of waste or more, multiplying the daily fuel generation. Furthermore, the byproduct of this entire process is a nutrient-rich bio-slurry, which serves as an excellent organic fertilizer for home gardens, creating a complete zero-waste loop.


Through his social enterprise, Sahasrabuddhe has successfully installed well over a hundred Vaayu units across Maharashtra and neighbouring states, sparking a decentralized energy movement. As more citizens recognize the immediate economic and environmental benefits of managing their own waste to generate free fuel, innovations like Vaayu prove that the solution to localised energy shortages might just lie in our own trash bins.

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