BENJAMIN NETANYAHU CONVERSES WITH CAPTAIN SMIT MACHCHHAR

 Benjamin Netanyahu: Captain Machchhar, I want to thank you for your extraordinary courage. What you did saved many lives. You are being admired in Israel, in India and around the world. I wish you a speedy and complete recovery. Please tell me—how did the incident begin?

Captain Smit Machchhar: Sir, it had been a normal flight. At one point, the co-pilot said that he wanted to pray. That was not unusual, so out of respect I kept looking forward and gave him privacy.

Captain Smit Machchhar: After about four or five minutes, I suddenly felt a very heavy blow to the back of my head. At first I thought something catastrophic had happened to the aircraft. Then the blows continued, one after another, and I realised that the person in the cockpit with me was attacking me.

Benjamin Netanyahu: And you were already badly injured at that point?

Captain Smit Machchhar: Yes, sir. My vision became badly blurred. At the same time I realised the aircraft was pitching sharply downward. I tried to stop him and also tried to get the cockpit door open so that help could come in.

Benjamin Netanyahu: How were you able to open the cockpit door?

Captain Smit Machchhar: From inside, the door has a mechanism that can be opened by turning the knob. My colleagues outside were trying to enter the code, but the co-pilot was preventing them from getting in. I managed to reach the knob and open the door once, but he closed it again.

Captain Smit Machchhar: Later I was lying on the cockpit floor. I could hear the aircraft rushing downward and people screaming. I felt that I had one final chance. I gathered whatever strength I had left, pushed myself toward the door and opened it again. People outside were ready. They came in, overpowered the attacker and helped regain control.

Benjamin Netanyahu: Your courage and your judgment under such impossible conditions are remarkable. You saved so many lives. What you did goes far beyond one flight—you showed extraordinary human courage.

Benjamin Netanyahu: I would be honoured to welcome you to Israel. I would also like to invite you, together with my friend Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to take part in our next Independence Day celebration. You are a hero to the people of Israel, to the people of India, and to people around the world.

Captain Smit Machchhar: Thank you very much, sir. I am grateful for your words. I would also very much like to meet the Israeli doctor who helped me immediately after the incident. He saved my life.

Benjamin Netanyahu: You will be welcomed with open arms. Please concentrate on your recovery. You have our respect, our gratitude and our best wishes for a full recovery.

Captain Smit Machchhar: Thank you, sir. I truly appreciate it.

HUSBAND TO WIFE

 

Though it's an advertisement in The Times of India on 01.10.2026, the letter makes sense.

BANK STRIKE PROPOSED AND AFTERMATH

 

Quiet funny. 

A bank strike was proposed for three days - the last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of September 2026

It was withdrawn on the eve of the day the strike was set to begin. 

The demand was implementation of  5 day week like in RBI etc along with other longstanding issues.

First they made them work on Sunday that was a holiday.  Then they were made to work on the proposed strike days. 

Net result they worked for four days whereas they had to work only on three days.

Now the govt is going to abolish the 5 day week for everyone. It's going to be a seven day week.

Rotation  could mean the key holders might be tied up on all seven days. 

Just my guess

TURNING DEFICIT TO DIVIDEND

 Sharmila Mona Sinha was the third daughter.

In a society where the arrival of a son was treated as family dividend and another daughter as deficit, she absorbed the message early. She wanted to do something about it.                        She recalls,"I wanted to be a boy and do what boys did."

Last week, she entered the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York - the cradle of the American Women's Right Movement.

She is the second woman of Indian origin to receive the honour after Indra Nui, former  CEO,Pepsico. 

She absorbed from her grandmother who showed her that challenging status quo was not alien to her family - the grandmother had helped to organise women during India's freedom movement.

She was in the corporate world after graduating in Economics from Smith College in Massachusetts and after an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Over time, Sinha began wondering whether the tools she had acquired in business could be deployed for a different kind of return. Rather than abandoning the language of capital, management and organisational efficiency, she brought it into philanthropy and social change.

Her worldview was shaped by her childhood where she could never shake off the feeling that her parents would have preferred a son, not a daughter Number 3. The care she received was no less than for her sisters, yet Daughter  Number 3, as a kid, internalised  her parents' ",disappointment."

She is a rarity for the strides she has made. But her words will have struck a chord with the women of the world. 

She now works for women. She toils to eliminate discriminating laws affecting women and girls.

Her story offers an Indian lesson about the evolution of feminism. Her Hall of Fame induction is more than another accolade for a prominent philanthropist. It is a long distance answer to the question that confronted the girl in Calcutta. 

What might that "wrong" daughter become, if nobody put a ceiling on her? 

Four decades later, the answer is inscribed in the National Women's Hall of Fame.

The Times of India 05.10.2026 and its editorial 06.10.2026

UPENDRA MACHCHCHAR, FATHER OF CAPTAIN SMIT MACHCHCHAR

 Upendra Machchchar reflects.

"The cuts are deep and he is in terrible pain. But when leaders of nations speak to him, he gathers himself and responds with remarkable calm.

As his family we know what lies behind that calm. the stress is immense. But the God who saved him will also decide the course of his life ahead. 

Right now, we are one hundred percent positive God will do what is best for him."

For Upendra, the question that keeps returning is what made his son open the cockpit door despite grievous injuries. 

"What happened shocked us. But it's his intrinsic nature to place others before him that made him do what he did."

The Times of India, 05.10.2026

ACT AS ONE

 

The team succeeds only when the members act as one

SPLIT VERDICT AT THE SC - APPOINTMENT OF CEC AND THE ECs

 Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma were on the bench at the Supreme Court of India. They were hearing the petition on  the validity of the law on appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs) by a panel consisting of the Prime Minister, a Cabinet Minister and the leader of the opposition.

Views of Justice Dipankar Datta on appointment of the CEC and the ECs

1. It would not be a fallacious metaphor if it is said that since the umpire is picked by the captain of one side and his team wins, even if the decisions taken by such umpire are correct, it has the patina of suspicion.

2. Deliberating on the validity of the law on appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners by a panel consisting of the Prime Minister, a Cabinet Minister and the leader of opposition, he mentioned the flaws.

a. It gave "overwhelming power" to the  executive.

b. It made the presence of the LOP ornamental.

c. It undermines the appearance of independence in the selection process.

d. Since independence, governments had tried to control the poll body.

e. Over seven decades, every dispensation wresting office found it convenient to keep institutions which the constitution envisioned to be independent under its control.

f.  To enact a law on the lines empowered by Article 324 (2) would have meant freeing ECI from exclusive executive control and inviting trouble for the ruling regime.

g. To the mind of this court, this has not been the failing of any one party or one period.

h. A consistent trait of political power, discernible over the decades, has been to preserve leverage over the very body that is meant to judge its claim to power.

i. If free and fair elections were to be ensured, it was axiomatic that the EC must not only be an independent body, but also be seen to act independently.

j. It was painful to note that not a single party in power entrusted by the people of India to govern this great nation took the initiative of enacting a law of the nature which Article 324 (2) left to the supreme law making body, ie. Parliament, to legislate.

k. Placing its own electoral fortunes in the hands of a truly independent arbiter was not favoured by any political party for obvious reasons.

l. To remain in power, the consistent pursuit through executive action has indeed been simple - influence the composition of the EC, control the process of appointment of the CEC and ECs and thereby temper adverse electoral outcomes.

m. The bottom line of the argument runs like this:-  It would not be a fallacious metaphor if it is said that since the umpire is picked by the captain of one side and his team wins, even if the decisions taken by such umpire are correct, it has the patina of suspicion.

n. There can be no gainsaying that free and fair elections, to a large extent, depend on a truly indepndent Election Commission. It is not enough for the EC to be independent, it must also appear to be independent. The minister nominated by the Prime minister to function as the third member on the selection committee chaired by the Prime Minister cannot be expected  to defy his own nominator.

o.In such a circumstance, the inclusion of a minister in the selection committee fails to provide the independent counterweight that a neutral selector could and he would merely echo the voice of his leader. 

p. Consequently, the presence of the leader of opposition in the selection committee becomes largely ornamental, without furthering the purpose of his inclusion.

Views of Justice Satish Chandra Sharma

a. The petition challenging the 2023 law on appointment of the CEC and the ECs raised substantial questions of law.

b.The substantive constitutional questions should be systematically referred for an authoritative pronouncement. 

c. It required consideration  by a larger bench.

Outcome

While Justice Datta did not find a reference to a Constitution Bench necessary, Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, puisne judge on the Division Bench held in favour of sending the case to a constitution bench reasoning that several questions of substantial importance were at stake.

Due to the differing opinions on whether to directly process or refer the matter regarding the inclusion of a Cabinet Minister in place of the CJI, the two judge bench delivered a split verdict. 

The Bench requested the Chief Justice of India to constitute a five judge Constitution Bench to settle the issue.