Crisis in Sri Lanka: Air India scales down flights to island nation due to poor demand
New Delhi(PTI): Air India on Sunday said it will reduce its India-Sri Lanka services from 16 flights per week currently to 13 flights per week from April 9 due to poor demand.
Sri Lanka is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis in history. With long lines for fuel, cooking gas, essentials in short supply and long hours of power cuts, the public has been suffering for weeks.
"Currently AI is operating 16 flights a week -- daily flights from Delhi and nine flights a week from Chennai," an Air India spokesperson told PTI.
In the new schedule, AI will be operating a total of 13 flights per week, the spokesperson noted.
In the new schedule, while the frequency from Chennai will remain untouched, flights from Delhi will reduce from seven to four per week, the spokesperson said.
"Four flights from Delhi instead of seven effective April 9 due to poor loads," the spokesperson noted.
AI 283 on the Delhi-Colombo sector will now operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays from April 8 to May 30.
AI 284 on the Colombo-Delhi sector will operate on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from April 9 to May 31.
The Sri Lankan government on Sunday blocked social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram after declaring a nationwide public emergency and imposing a 36-hour curfew ahead of a planned anti-government rally over the worst economic crisis in the island nation.
The move is aimed at preventing masses from gathering in Colombo to protest the government's failure to provide relief to the public suffering from shortages of food, essentials, fuel and medicine amidst hours-long power cuts, the Colombo Page newspaper reported.
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Melinda French Gates resigns as Gates Foundation co-chair, 3 years after her divorce from Bill Gates
New York, May 13: Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit she and her ex-husband Bill Gates founded and built into one of the world's largest philanthropic organisations over the past 20 years.
“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” French Gates posted on the X platform on Monday. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.”
She praised the foundation's CEO, Mark Suzman, and the foundation's board of trustees, which was significantly expanded after the couple announced their divorce in May 2021.
“The time is right for me to move forward into the next chapter of my philanthropy,” French Gates wrote in her statement. She organises some of her investments and philanthropic gifts through her organisation, Pivotal Ventures, which is not a nonprofit.
Bill Gates thanked French Gates for her “critical” contributions to the foundations in a statement, saying, “I am sorry to see her leave, but I am sure she will have a huge impact in her future philanthropic work.”
French Gates will receive $12.5 billion as part of her agreement with Gates, which she said would commit to future work focused on women and families.
The Gates Foundation did not immediately return a request for comment about whether those assets would come from the foundation itself. In an emailed statement, the foundation said that Suzman announced the decision to employees on Monday.
“After a difficult few years watching women's rights rolled back in the US and around the world, she wants to use this next chapter to focus specifically on altering that trajectory,” Suzman said of French Gates.
Suzman said he knew many had joined the foundation in part because of their admiration for her advocacy, especially around gender equity.
“I know how beloved Melinda is here,” Suzman wrote.
The Gates Foundation holds $75.2 billion in its endowment as of December 2023, and announced in January, it planned to spend $8.6 billion through the course of its work in 2024.
The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce from Pivotal Ventures.
