Rishul Saraf

Very old #AirIndia ad. Good day to post this today. First. Fastest. Nonstop. #ReadyforMore

All 22 Indian ships that were stuck in the Strait of Hormuz are expected to reach India within the next 72 hours 6 are LPG carriers 1 LNG tanker 4 crude oil tankers 1 chemical products tanker 3 container ships 2 bulk carriers

I've tried to visualize this data several different ways over the years, but I think this version does an especially good job of showing the transition that took place with the twin economic liberalizations of first Rajiv Gandhi and then (more enduringly) Narasimha Rao.

Following on from the post about flying fast… One of the quiet miracles of the Boeing 747 isn’t how fast it flies but how slowly it can go during landing. This giant was designed in the 1960s, at a time when most airports were built for much smaller aircraft. If the 747 was going to change the world, it couldn’t just cross oceans, it had to fit the airport when it arrived. The solution was one of the most ambitious high-lift systems ever put on a civil aircraft… the triple-slotted flap. As the flaps extend on approach at the back of the wing, they don’t just increase wing area, they completely reshape the airflow. Three slots allow high-energy air from beneath the wing to re-energise the flow over the top, delaying that aerodynamic stall and dramatically increasing lift at low speeds. The result? A 400-tonne aircraft that can approach at speeds not much higher than aircraft half its size. Meaning it stops in less tarmac, making even the smallest airports accessible. That innovation mattered. It meant the 747 could safely operate into airports never designed for something so big, opening up routes, cities, and continents that would otherwise have been out of reach. The world didn’t have to rebuild aviation overnight. The aeroplane adapted to it. This is what made the 747 revolutionary. Not brute force, but elegant engineering. Massive capability paired with surprisingly gentle manners. JUMBO, my book, explores moments like this in depth, the ideas, those compromises, and breakthroughs that allowed the Queen of the Skies to change how the world moves. If you love aviation for how it works, not just how it looks, this one’s for you. If you want to know how short, is truly short, for a 747… Then preorder JUMBO now on Amazon and learn how this jet changed the world. #JUMBOBook #Boeing747 #QueenOfTheSkies #AviationEngineering #AvGeek #AviationHistory #FlightDeckView #HighLift #Widebody #AirlineHistory #BookLaunch #AviationLovers

This is way more impressive than some of you may realize.

On the night of May 20, 2025, a little girl in a faded pink frock fell asleep on her mother’s lap at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. Her parents, simple people from Solapur, had come to Mumbai for her father’s treatment. They were exhausted. Just for a moment, the mother closed her eyes. When she opened them, her daughter was gone. Six months. Six months of walking from police station to police station. Six months of showing the same crumpled photograph to strangers on trains, in slums, in orphanages. Six months of the father not sleeping, the mother not eating, both of them growing hollow-eyed, whispering the same name into the dark: “Aarohi… Aarohi…” In Varanasi, a thousand kilometres away, a tiny girl with no memory of her real name was learning to call herself “Kashi.” She had been found crying near the railway tracks in June, barefoot and terrified. The orphanage gave her food, a bed, and a new name. She smiled easily, because children always do, but sometimes at night she clutched the edge of her blanket and asked for “Aai” — Marathi for mother — and no one understood. Back in Mumbai, the police refused to close the file. They printed posters with Aarohi’s face, stuck them on every platform from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus to Bhusawal to Varanasi Cantt. They ran newspaper ads, knocked on doors, begged journalists for help. Six months is a long time for hope to stay alive, but some officers carried her photograph in their shirt pockets like it was their own child. Then, on November 13, a local reporter in Varanasi saw the poster. Something clicked. He had seen a girl who spoke Marathi words in her sleep. He made a phone call. The next morning, a Mumbai Police inspector sat in front of a laptop in Varanasi and opened a video call. On the screen appeared a little girl in a pink frock — the same colour she was wearing the day she vanished. The mother, standing behind the officer in Mumbai, saw her daughter and collapsed without a sound. The father just kept repeating, “That’s my Aarohi… that’s my baby…” They flew her back on Children’s Day — November 14. When the plane landed, the entire Mumbai Crime Branch was waiting. They had bought her balloons and a new frock, sky blue this time. But the moment the little girl stepped out and saw the sea of khaki uniforms, she did something no one expected. She ran. Not away — toward them. Tiny legs pumping, arms outstretched, she threw herself at the nearest officer and laughed — the purest, clearest laugh that had been missing from the world for half a year. The officer, a tough man who had seen everything, felt his eyes burn. He lifted her high, and she wrapped her arms around his neck like he was family. Her parents were crying too hard to walk. So the policemen carried their daughter to them. The mother touched her face again and again, as if checking she was real. The father fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to his child’s tiny feet, sobbing words no one could understand except God. And the little girl? She just kept smiling, looking from her parents to the officers and back again, completely unaware that she had turned an entire police station into a sobbing, laughing, praying family. Six months of darkness ended in one hug. Aarohi is home now. The kidnapper is still out there, but that is tomorrow’s fight. Today, a mother is singing lullabies again. Today, a father is smiling in his sleep. And somewhere in Mumbai, there are policemen who will never forget the weight of a four-year-old girl in their arms — the weight of an entire life returned. Sometimes the uniform doesn’t just catch thieves. Sometimes it carries lost children all the way back to their mothers’ hearts.

@unraveaero Timelines*

@unraveaero I used to love this, but excitement has died down,immensely VBs that we're doing 160 have been capped at 130kmph DEL-BOM corridor is under upgradation to support 160 kmph for eons VB Sleeper has been in hibernation for an year Limited visibility on timelies for all projects

If you believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents, you're illiberal. If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you're a fundamentalist. If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian. If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you're a terrorist.

India's economy grows at faster-than-expected 7.8% in the June quarter cnb.cx/464IsKm The gross domestic product print for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2026 came in higher than the 6.7% growth forecast by economists in a Reuters poll Nominal GDP growth is showing signs of softening Lower that expected inflation, better than expected corporate earnings led to strong GDP growth rate In the coming quarters economy could see impact of punitive US tariffs

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. If talent, genius, and education don't matter, how is this even a motivation, you talented genius of an educated derelict, Calvin?

We can debunk this article and claim all is well; or we can admit the mistakes made, especially the fact that we have disincentivised manufacturing and entrepreneurship by imposing stifling regulations and extortionist bureaucracy. We can either become an ostrich or an eagle. Choice is ours. theprint.in/opinion/indias…

Air India advertisement in the ABC World Airways (and Shipping) Guide, June 1949 edition

:: Completed 3 years at Air India, today 😃

Fierce sense of pride looking at this 😃

There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.

Some would get this … from the #GodFather “But let me say this. I am a superstitious man, a ridiculous failing but I must confess it here. And so if some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son, if some police officer should accidentally shoot him, if he should hang himself in his cell, if new witnesses appear to testify to his guilt, my superstition will make me feel that it was the result of the ill will still borne me by some people here. Let me go further. If my son is struck by a bolt of lightning I will blame some of the people here. If his plane should fall into the sea or his ship sink beneath the waves of the ocean, if he should catch a mortal fever, if his automobile should be struck by a train, such is my superstition that I would blame the ill will felt by people here. Gentlemen, that ill will, that bad luck, I could never forgive. But aside from that let me swear by the souls of my grandchildren that I will never break the peace we have made.”

Had a conversation with US @SecRubio this morning. India’s approach has always been measured and responsible and remains so. 🇮🇳 🇺🇸

Pakistan started this conflict by sending terrorists to slaughter Indians. India, while responding with restraint, made sure to offer Pakistan an honourable way out. Pakistan rejected it and escalated a crisis of its making into war. It deserves everything it gets now.

+ - As the map below shows, IAF's bases form a chain with each base separated by 130-150km. - These are India's first line of air-defense against intruding Pakistan Air Force fighters, base for conducting strike inside Pakistan and to provide ground support in their sector. +

Thank you now, in future and forever to the men & women of our security forces. And to your families. No matter how many times we say this, it won’t be enough. 🇮🇳🙏🏽