In his flamboyant style, Mr Branson announced at a quickly arranged press conference how he was put on the wait list for an early morning flight to London, when he had a confirmed ticket for the flight. He said he was "outraged" by the treatment and described the British Airways’ behaviour as "churlish". He then said he would take an Air-India flight instead, even though it was inconvenient to him.

British Airways, however, disagreed. It said there was mis-communication after the airline inquired, as part of its normal policy, to confirm which flight he was going to take since he had booked himself on three different flights on three different days.
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Industrialists constitute PM’s special groups
New Delhi: Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee appointed finance minister Yashwant Sinha as chairman of the reconstituted implementation review committee. The committee will include industry and commerce minister Murasoli Maran and planning commission deputy chairman K.C. Pant.

Mr Vajpayee also announced the constitution of special groups on eight economic themes and nominated N.R. Narayana Murthy and Kumar Mangalam Birla to the group on good governance in private sector, Mukesh Ambani and A.C. Muthiah for education and health, N. Srinivasan and Rahul Bajaj on WTO strategies, G.P. Goenka and Rajiv Chandrasekhar on disinvestment., Ratan Tata and Nusli Wadia on unshackling Indian industry from regulations, Rahul Bajaj and Sanjeev Goenka on the pitfalls in globalisation, G.P. Goenka on the group on power and Mukesh Ambani on non-resident Indian issues.
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