Air travel booms but airlines in trouble

During the Covid pandemic, air travel was not possible for a full 2 years, due to which the aviation industry came to a standstill and people had to sit in their homes as no activity was taking place anywhere. Air traffic came to a halt all over the world and due to this airline companies fired several lakhs of their employees. But now that the pandemic is over,  and the fear of Coronavirus is also not there, people have started roaming around. As a result, the pressure on the airlines has increased tremendously. Huge crowds have started gathering at the airports. Many people might be thinking that lack of facilities and long queues happen only in India, but they are wrong as the situation is not good in the USA and European countries. Rather, the situation there is worse than in India because the airlines there had laid off employees on a large scale during the Corona period. One figure shows that 23 lakh employees were laid off from the airline industry during the last two years.
 
However, now the staff shortage is so high that it is becoming difficult to handle the rush of passengers at the airports. Hundreds of flights have to be canceled or passengers are made to wait for hours. There are long queues at the security gates themselves. According to the industry, air travel has grown by more than 400 percent. On the other hand, pilots, flight attendant security personnel, drivers running airport buses, etc. are falling short. It is not possible to increase the workforce overnight, as it is a lengthy process, which may take several weeks. The way the number of air passengers has increased in the US and European countries has broken the record of the last 40 years.
 
It is said that happiness is a matter of choice. Being happy is a decision that  nyone can take at any time, which is the best policy also. The state of happiness keeps problems smaller, mood lighter, and mental stress at bay. The people of Ukraine understand this formula very well. The whole country has been troubled by the attacks of the Russian armed forces for more than two months now. Yet a comedy club in a western Ukrainian city has been entertaining people through its laughter shows almost every night, where jokes are told about the enemy army. There is no particular comedian, anybody comes on the stage and shares a joke. One of its objectives is to reduce the tension of the local people by laughing about the enemy and reducing the troubles caused by the ongoing war. It also makes them motivated for further fighting. A survey has found that the South Indians are at the forefront of telling jokes in the office. In this matter, the people of Italy are no less if compared with others in the world. A recent LinkedIn survey has revealed that three-quarters of professionals in India consider jokes to be good in the workplace, although many find them unprofessional. Still, most people feel that laughing at the workplace increases productivity, lightens the mind, and keeps the mind stress-free.
 
The number of adults in India is more than 100 crores, while more than 50 crore people use WhatsApp on their smartphones. That is, almost half the population of the country uses WhatsApp. True too, because WhatsApp has made life very easy. WhatsApp is used for most interactions because it is fast and easy to send photos and videos in a fraction of a second. However, many people misuse this facility and use it to increase obscenity and crime. For this reason, in view of the country's IT law, two crores 28 lakh WhatsApp accounts had to be banned in the last year. If we talk about last month, ie May 2022, then WhatsApp blocked 19 lakh 10 thousand accounts.
 
The WhatsApp report states that the maximum number of accounts was banned in July 2021. The number of such accounts was 30 lakh 27 thousand. WhatsApp bans accounts if someone shares obscene, defamatory, threatening, intimidating, hate speech, or objectionable content against local laws and is reported by another user. Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram are owned by the same company - Meta. In the first quarter of 2022, Facebook took action against 2 crores 17 lakh people for posting violent and inciting content and removed 1 billion 88 crores of fake information from the platform. Similarly, 18 lakh posts promoting substance abuse were removed from Instagram as well.
 
WhatsApp and other social media platforms are there for our convenience to facilitate mutual conversation and communication. These mediums should not be misused. Forwarding or sharing fake information through them is a crime, which is not in the interest of the country. These days you must have noted that there is continuous action on social media on anti-national or defamatory posts, tweets, etc. and the guilty are being booked. If you have a smartphone in your hand and you have an account on social media, it does not mean that you can write anything and sleep quietly. Think twenty times before writing anything wrong on social media and do not post anything which is illegal or which causes harm to any individual or society. The same caution that is taken in speaking face to face, should also be taken on social media.
 
Former Punjab Chief Minister and a probable contender for the post of Vice President of India, Captain Amarinder Singh has recently returned from a London hospital after undergoing his spinal surgery, on the other hand, former captain of the Indian Cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is getting treatment in the jungles of Jharkhand. He is getting his knees treated by a vaidya, who charges a small fee of Rs 40 only. Dhoni has been taking vaidya's medicine for the past one month, which is prepared from a local herb. It’s a matter of choice, to get treated in the Indian jungle or in a foreign hospital.

(The writer is a senior journalist & columnist)