Dilip Cherian | After Aviation Chaos, Should Generalists Still Run Our Skies?

The IndiGo incident has once again reminded us of something we often overlook: India operates one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets with a regulator that treats expertise as an optional add-on. Sensible? Not particularly.

Across the world, aviation regulators are led by people who’ve spent their lives in cockpits, control towers, airline boardrooms or engineering hangars. The UK trusts a commercial pilot. The US picked a man who ran a major airline. France and China have engineers who know the difference between turbulence and incompetence. These countries don’t consider specialised knowledge a luxury, but a prerequisite.

And then there’s India, where the DGCA job often goes to a babu whose career highlights include agriculture, health, tourism, and if we’re feeling lucky that year, transport. Our system seems to operate on the touching belief that if you’ve been a district magistrate, surely you can handle flight safety regulations, aircraft airworthiness, and pilot licensing. After all, how different can a Boeing 737 be from a district?

But when something snaps, like in the recent IndiGo imbroglio, we all start asking the same question: did we finally hit the limits of on-the-job learning?

Aviation is unforgiving. It doesn’t respond well to guesswork. And it certainly doesn’t respect administrative seniority. The DGCA is not just another sarkari office. It’s the country’s safety valve for millions of passengers who trust that the person in charge actually understands the job. Maybe it’s time we admitted that running civil aviation needs more than managerial confidence — it needs competence rooted in aviation expertise. The skies may be open, but they’re not forgiving of amateurs or generalists in charge.

Why Prasar Bharati chairman exit raises big questions

Navneet Kumar Sehgal’s abrupt resignation as Prasar Bharati chairman has thrown the spotlight back on an institution that always seems to be balancing on a tightrope. He had barely completed nine months in office after taking charge in March, filling a post that had been vacant for years. And just like that, with a one-line acceptance from the I&B ministry, he was out. No reasons offered, no explanation asked for — at least publicly. In Delhi, silence is usually the loudest clue.

What makes this exit controversial isn’t just its timing, but the uneasy history of Prasar Bharati itself. For an organisation that is meant to be autonomous, it somehow manages to look perennially supervised. Mr Sehgal’s tenure had coincided with a phase of visible churn — from the fresh branding of DD News to rejigs in programming, outsourcing deals and attempts to give the broadcaster a sharper, more contemporary identity. These moves needed steady leadership, not another leadership vacuum. His early departure now risks sending the entire system back into suspended animation.

Naturally, theories are multiplying. Some point to friction with the ministry, others to disagreements over the pace and direction of reforms. And in the current political climate, where every institutional shift is viewed through a magnifying glass, there may or may not be any connections with events in the PMO — but the very fact that this question is even floating around tells you how fragile the trust ecosystem has become.

Until the government explains more clearly why its chairman walked away halfway through his mandate, the speculation will only grow.

A shadow secretariat in Telangana

The Telangana secretariat is buzzing again, and not because of any bold policy move. It’s a WhatsApp group, allegedly run by a handful of senior IAS officers, that’s sparking unrest. In a system built on files, hierarchy and written accountability, the idea that crucial decisions may have been whispered through a private chat is understandably setting teeth on edge.

Now, nobody minds a bit of informal coordination. Bureaucrats aren’t monks; they talk. But the reports suggest this wasn’t casual chatter. This was a carefully curated circle of officers in powerful posts, including some tied to the chief minister’s office, quietly steering file movement and fund approvals outside the formal chain. Add to that the murmurs that the group’s membership leans heavily towards officers from outside the Telugu region, and suddenly it stops looking like convenience and starts looking like exclusion.

The political ripples are inevitable. Ministers, we’re told, are frustrated that their own referrals sometimes get nudged aside while certain files inside the group move faster. It’s not just protocol that suffers — it’s trust. And trust is hard to rebuild once officials begin suspecting that governance has been outsourced to an encrypted side-channel.

The real issue isn’t technology; it’s opacity. Bureaucracy is supposed to leave a trail because public decisions must be traceable. Once those decisions migrate to private chats, no audit, no note and no citizen can ever truly know what influenced the outcome. In a democracy, decision-making shouldn’t depend on who’s in the secret group chat.