Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has picked up a 24% stake in India’s Jet Airways. This is the first deal struck after the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy for the aviation sector was amended in September of last year.

The new government rules allow a foreign entity to take a 49% stake in an Indian scheduled airline. By buying just 24%, Etihad stays above the Securities & Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) radar. SEBI regulations would have required Etihad to make an open offer — Jet is a listed company — if the acquired holding was to be above 25%.

The minority holding in India’s largest private sector carrier is valued at $379 million at Rs. 754.74 ($13.90) per share. Etihad will also inject another $220 million  into the deal “to create and strengthen a wide-ranging partnership between the two carriers.” The UAE group has already paid Jet $70 million for the sale and lease back of the latter’s slots at London’s Heathrow airport.

“The Indian market is fundamental to our business model of organic growth partnerships and equity investments,” Etihad president and CEO James Hogan said in a statement. “This deal will allow us to compete more effectively in one of the largest and fastest-growing markets in the world.”

“This is a win-win situation,” adds Jet founder and chairman Naresh Goyal. “This transaction further strengthens the balance sheet of Jet Airways and, more importantly, underpins future revenue streams, which will accelerate our return to sustainable profitability and liquidity.”

The Jet-Etihad deal is likely to catalyze dramatic changes in the Indian aviation sector. The Jet group will further consolidate its position as market leader. According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DCGA), Air India (domestic) has a market share of 20.7%, and Jet is second with 18.3%. However, when combined with with Jetlite, the budget airline that is part of the group, its market share rises to 25.2%.

Air India’s leadership has already begun complaining about “unfair competition.” Others have sounded warning notes as well. “Instead of giving Air India the time it needs to consolidate as well as expand its network, [the Jet-Etihad deal] will only hasten its demise,” said former federal railway minister Dinesh Trivedi in a letter to the prime minister. In a previous article, Wharton management professor Saikat Chaudhuri told Knowledge@Wharton that “external shocks” could derail the initial signs of a turnaround at Air India. “I have been a vociferous supporter of government backing for Air India,” he noted.

Critics, however, say that a turnaround at Air India is an oft-repeated story. “It is no longer credible,” says Jitender Bhargava, a former Air India executive director who is writing a book about the airline.

And the national carrier is likely to face even more competition soon. The Foreign Investment Promotion Board has already cleared a joint venture proposal between the Tata conglomerate and Kuala Lumpur-headquartered budget airline AirAsia. AirAsia would hold a 49% stake, Tata Sons 30% and Arun Bhatia of Telestra Tradeplace the remaining 21%. Bhatia runs Hindustan Aeronautics and is related by marriage to L.N. Mittal of ArcelorMittal.

Apart from Air India, the other loser in this deal is Vijay Mallya’s beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines. Etihad was negotiating with Mallya to pick up a stake in Kingfisher. But the airline — which has lost its license — may have been too big a risk.

The markets and analysts have welcomed the deal. “It is a game changer not only in terms of what it gives to Jet Airways but for Etihad as well, which has big plans for India,” Kapil Kaul, South Asia CEO of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, told The Economic Times.

“I don’t see this as a game changer, but it is certainly very good for the sector. It will bring in cheer and optimism and may open up one or two similar deals, which will be good in the long term,” Captain G.R. Gopinath, the founder of Air Deccan, told Knowledge@Wharton. “For Jet, it is a very good deal…. It will bring in the much-needed cash infusion and will allow it to dovetail into Etihad’s network. For Etihad, it gives access to the inexhaustible Indian market…. For consumers, it will mean better connectivity, better prices and better service.” Gopinath adds that “India needs to wake up and figure out what kind of policy framework it needs to make the country an aviation hub.”

The $13.90 Etihad is paying per share is at a premium of 31.55% to Jet’s closing price on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday. (Wednesday was a market holiday.) The scrip was trading 13% up on Thursday. It has risen 15% since April 17.

The Indian automobile market is in bad shape: In 2012-2013, passenger car sales fell for the first time in 12 years, according to figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. Amid the gloom, however, two new models have just hit the roads — Amaze from Honda and Dzire from Maruti Suzuki.

The cars come in both gasoline and diesel variants, but demand is likely to be largely for vehicles that run on diesel. “In France, Italy, Spain and several other countries in Europe, diesel-engine cars sell more than [gasoline] for the same reason: Diesel is cheaper,” says Gautam Sen, editor of Auto India. “In the U.S., Japan, China and most of Asia where diesel and [gasoline] have similar prices, diesel cars don’t sell at all. As long as there is a significant gap between diesel and [gasoline], I guess diesel cars will keep selling. When that gap diminishes, [gasoline] cars will be favored, as making a [gasoline] engine is cheaper than making a diesel engine and a [gasoline] car will always be cheaper than a diesel car.”

What makes the timing of the launches from Honda and Suzuki surprising is that India is in the process of cutting subsidies on diesel. This was a point of contention for many because farmers use the fuel to run pumps for irrigation and no government could afford to alienate the huge voter bloc they represent. In January, faced with a ballooning current account deficit, the government allowed oil marketing companies to raise diesel prices by a small amount — around 1% — every month. In 2012-2013, the government had to foot a $15 billion diesel subsidy bill. That is no longer affordable.

What will happen when the diesel subsidy disappears? As Sen points out, the diesel variants of Dzire and the Amaze are also likely to disappear.

“Men have become more egalitarian, but women are more realistic.” That’s how Stew Friedman, Wharton practice professor of management, describes some of the preliminary results of a 20-year study on careers and family life based on data collected from Wharton undergraduates in both 1992 and 2012.

As part of his work with Wharton’s Work/Life Integration Project, Friedman surveyed members of the graduating classes from both years and then compared the results. He also checked back in with the 1992 graduates to see how their attitudes had changed after 20 years in the working world.

Among his findings: In 1992, nearly 80% of men and women responded “yes” to a question about whether or not they planned to have children. That number dropped to 42% for men and women in the graduating class of 2012. “This result speaks to a number of important trends, one of which surely is the challenges today’s young people anticipate in raising children and having productive work about which they feel good, proud, and successful,” Friedman says. While the survey did not ask for all of the reasons that students responded in the ways that they did, Friedman notes that one of the study’s other findings was that while graduates in 1992 expected to work an average of 53 hours per week, the class of 2012 anticipated spending about 70 hours a week on the clock — nearly two work days more than their peers from 20 years earlier.

“Think about … that perception of work demands just in terms of raw time,” Friedman says. “I’m not surprised that people are thinking, ‘I’m not going to be able to have children, or I will have fewer children.’ And the reduced likelihood of having children held true for men and women, which speaks to how the attitudes of men and women have evolved over the last two decades.”

The survey also asked the graduates to weigh in on whether two-career relationships are better able to thrive when one partner is less involved with his or her career. Men in 2012 were less likely to agree with that statement than men in 1992. But women were actually more likely to agree with this view. Two-career relationships are much more prevalent today than they were 20 years ago, when male survey respondents likely expected that they would advance while their female partners slowed down to accommodate a family, Friedman notes. “Men’s attitudes now are increasingly more like women’s,” he adds. “It reflects that more male graduates now expect to be in dual-career relationships, and they want their partners to be pursuing their careers. Over the last couple of decades, we have set the cultural norm more clearly that women’s careers matter, and the advancement of women in society is something we can all expect and should support.”

But what about the reactions from women in 2012? Were they simply more realistic about the realities of integrating work and family than female graduates in 1992 — or more pessimistic? “Twenty years ago, Wharton women graduates were thinking they wouldn’t have to sacrifice career for family, but given the experience of the last two decades, the models they’ve seen and the education they’ve gotten about what they will have to do to be successful, today’s 22-year-old women are more likely to see that someone is going to have to make some sacrifices,” Friedman says.

While there’s no way to know just yet how the 2012 graduates’ attitudes will change, Friedman notes that the definition of career success did evolve for a group of survey participants from 1992 who were queried again last year. “Flexibility was a lot more important to them as 42 year-olds than it was at 22. Where they lived mattered more, but prestige, power and influence, and even enjoyment in work didn’t matter as much as it did when they first started out.”

As attitudes toward work continue to evolve, Friedman says there are numerous possibilities for progress in the area of fully integrating career with family and personal life. “The combination of radical changes in technology and the changing values of men and women with respect to the place of work in their lives indicate that we’re going to see a lot more experimentation and creative alternatives for what work looks like and what families look like and how the two look together,” he notes. “I’m hopeful as a result that there will be new models and solutions that make it possible for people to have more of what they think is ‘having it all.’”

From 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. ET on Tuesday, January 29, Knowledge@Wharton and Friedman will host a Twitter chat to further discuss the changing nature of work/life integration:

Q1 How has your definition of “having it all” changed over the course of your career?

Q2 What life- or work-related factor most influences how you define “having it all”?

Q3 How is the changing nature of work affected your ability to integrate career and the rest of life?

Q4 If you could change one thing about your work that would make life easier, what would it be?

Q5 For whom is “having it all” easier – men or women?

To participate in the chat, follow @knowledgwharton and @StewFriedman on Twitter and include the hashtag #kwchat in your replies.

Diwali, the Indian festival of lights celebrated earlier this week, did not bring any cheer to the employees of India’s liquor-to-airlines tycoon Vijay Mallya’s cash-crunched Kingfisher Airlines. The employees have not received their salaries for the past several months. A few weeks ago, Mallya had promised that by Diwali, he would clear most of their dues. The Kingfisher employees have other causes for concern: Earlier this month, the State Bank of India (SBI), the lead lender to Mallya’s airlines, warned that the carrier would not be allowed to fly if Mallya failed to infuse the business with fresh capital by the end of this month. SBI has an exposure of around Rs. 1,200 crore (approximately $220 million) to Kingfisher. The airlines has a total debt burden of around Rs. 8,000 crore ($1.4 billion) and accumulated losses of around Rs. 9,000 crore ($1.6 billion).

In October, Kingfisher’s license was suspended by the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) for failing to come up with a tangible revival plan. The regulator has said that it is willing to renew Kingfisher’s license if it can prove that it can operate in a “safe, efficient and sustainable manner.”

Last week, there seemed to be a spark of hope. Mallya sealed a deal to sell a majority stake in his flagship firm, United Spirits Ltd. (USL) to British distiller Diageo. The deal size is $2.04 billion. Mallya and other stakeholders are selling 19.3% of the firm. USL will make a preferential allotment to Diageo, which will amount to 10% of the post-issue capital, and Diageo will make an open offer to ordinary shareholders for another 25%. If the open offer is fully subscribed, Diageo will end up owning 54.3% of USL. Mallya’s United Breweries Holding Ltd (UBHL) — also the parent company of Kingfisher — will be left with 14.9%. Mallya himself will continue as the chairman of USL.

But this much-speculated sale doesn’t seem to hold any promise for Kingfisher. Mallya has been categorical that the money from the USL-Diageo deal will not be plowed into his airlines venture. Talking to the media he said: “We have multiple businesses, and each business operates independent of the others. There is no cross-contamination. There never has been, there never will be. I have now done what I think is best for my spirits business.” According to Mallya, Kingfisher will “chalk out its recapitalization plan separately and independently of this transaction.”

Meanwhile, the USL-Diageo deal is expected to change the dynamics of India’s booming Rs. 55,000 crore ($10 billion) liquor market. The country is one of the fastest-growing geographies for alcoholic beverages. This deal will give Diageo more than 50% market share in the country. It will also make India Diageo’s second-largest market after the U.S. According to Ivan Menezes, Diageo’s chief operating officer, “India has the potential to become the largest market in the long term.”

With the Diageo deal, 70% of India’s liquor market will be controlled by two multinationals — Diageo and its French rival Pernod Ricard. Talking to the business daily, The Economic Times, Ravi Jain, industry veteran and former partner of Mallya, said: “[This deal] will change the shape of the business in the spirits segment.” According to Kishore Chhabria, chairman of Allied Blenders and Distillers, “The multinationals will focus on the bottom line rather than the topline.” The multinationals are also expected to bring in global best practices and more investments in brand building.

In recent years, India has increasingly become a favored destination for a host of foreign companies and educational institutions. Now, the New York Film Academy (NYFA), a leading film education institute, is setting up its first state-of-the-art South Asian campus in Greater Noida near New Delhi. The academy is set to open in January and will offer the same courses as the New York campus.

According to NYFA, professors from the school’s New York and Los Angeles campuses will travel to the India site on a rotating basis to teach for at least one year. Industry observers say the school will fill a training void in the country. According to the report, “Film Industry in India: New Horizons,” by Ernst & Young and the LA-India Film Council, “India currently has a dearth of institutes that impart formal training and education in film and creative technologies. At the grassroots level, there is a need to formally train technicians in the industry, who [at present] are largely self-trained.”

Ashesh Jani, a partner at consulting firm Deloitte Haskins & Sells, notes that for Hollywood, India is an important market. “The key indicators of this are the [recent] collaborations and purchase of stakes by Hollywood studios in Indian companies,” he says. “There is also a surge of Hollywood films that are being dubbed in several Indian languages and are even forming part of the major content on reputed television channels. In the animation world, too, the Hollywood studios have made it a point to release the latest films promptly in [India.]”

Pointing to specialized Indian firms catering to the demands of various Hollywood studios in the fields of production, post production and distribution, Jani adds that India’s media and entertainment industry, which was earlier viewed as being fragmented and dispersed, has reinvented itself in the areas of technology, planning and governance. This, in turn, has made multinationals more interested in forging relationships with them.

Indian post-production company Prime Focus, for instance, worked on 200 visual effects for James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar. India Take One Productions has prestigious projects such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Eat Pray Love, Life of Pi, and Mission Impossible 4 – Ghost Protocol in its portfolio. DreamWorks Studios is funded among others by Reliance BIG Entertainment. Earlier this year, Walt Disney acquired a controlling stake in India’s UTV. The Motion Picture Association of America has a wholly-owned Indian subsidiary. Viacom18 Motion Pictures, a part of the Viacom18 Group, has a partnership with Paramount Pictures International to distribute the latter’s theatrical releases in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

According to a recent report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and PwC titled “India Entertainment and Media Outlook 2012,” the industry is projected to grow from $1,764 million today to $2,829 million in 2016. The Indian box office is among the fastest growing markets in the world, next only to China among markets greater than $276 million and is expected to surpass the U.K. market to become the fifth largest market in the world by 2016.

With over 1,000 films being produced every year in India in more than 20 languages, the Indian film industry is one of the biggest in the world. However, there is a lot of scope for growth. According to the CII-PwC report, an Indian on an average watches only 1.7 films in a year, as compared to an average of over four films a year in the U.S.