Article - 84 Week 50 The Ghost Of Honest Mistakes

Article - 84  Week 50  

The Ghost Of Honest Mistakes 

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing" - George Bernard Shaw? 

 Don't we all make mistakes as human beings? Mistake is not a desirable thing to start with. Mistakes are made when we cross the lines of the laid 'rule'. When we cross a line and the consequence makes us better off or congruent with the objective at hand, no questions are asked. However, if the consequence is adverse, you are in for big trouble! And most of the people working in the government are in big trouble. 

There are barely any sharp line in the process, norm or rule of governance. The lines are blurred beyond discern. Any thing you do, you tend to stay on the blurred line. These blurred lines even shift in any unpredictable direction, depending upon how confused the elected leadership is or the philosophical inclination of the cerebrals of  the bureaucrat beginning from the bottom of the hierarchy. One such highly ranked bureaucrat I came across, thinks that any minor typo is a deliberate attempt to cheat the government, while if a fraud is committed with impeccable compliance of the existing rules and exacting documentations, it is unnecessary to pay any heed to this.  The good news is, if you cross the line, most of the time nothing happens. You get away easy and clean. However, sometimes these lines get sticky. No matter how carefully you manage your act, you land up in hell for a minor transgression or flirt with the blurred line. You could be heading  for Tihar jail, for an innocuous enough act or decision that becomes the monster of the future, for really no fault of yours except that you did apply your mind. You consider this your misfortune. The only option to stay completely clear of any trouble, is not to act at all. Coming extremely late or disappearance from the work place is one of the means of staying away from acting. That way you never make a mistake. 

And that is the dumbest thing in our governance system. It's time to be more objective with clear 'do's and clear 'don't's. The lines need to be meaningfully sharp and definitive. The ghosts of honest mistakes do not drop from the sky on our bureaucracy. It's their own making at times. Of course, a confused central leadership is the driver behind this crazy & Transformer like, machine called 'bureaucracy'. Our norms are hazy. Our rules are myriad and are multiplying as I am typing this very thing. It's time for us to pressurize the government from all forums to make our rules razor sharp, simplify them, and keep their numbers manageable, rather than clamoring for more rules to check on bad governance. More rules mean more trouble.

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Rath

Article - 83 Week 49 Penalising Mindset:

Article - 83  Week 49

Penalising Mindset:

"In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organised robbery?" - Saint Augustine

At the drop of a hat, you could be penalised in the corridors of Customs in India. The word 'penalty' stems from a retributive & abusive power system. It's directed at people who cross the line of the rule. However, when no rule is broken this 'Penalty'  should not be imposed. Any 'Penalty' so imposed, without any clear violation on technical, intuitive or textual interpretation of the rules,  stamps a traumatic stigma in addition to the pecuniary difficulty on the people. Such arbitrariness is crudely oppressive.

As an example, if you missed a 'zero' on the third place after the decimal on the BL, the penalty imposed could be to the order of Rs 20,000/ or even higher. The Officer could insist that the typing should have been 3.840 Metric Tons, in place of 3.84 Metric Tons. The "zero'' on the third place has no significance, from any accounting or mathematical perspective. But not from the perspective of our Officer in question. He thought that the Rule was transgressed. And imposed a steep penalty, by quoting a Section that barely relates to the issue at hand. Governance is reduced to whims and moods of the people. Was he arithmetically or morally challenged? The answer to the question would do little to the sad consequence. 

This cranky despot attitude by our Customs Officials is a matter of extremely regressive. The juggernaut of discretion and arbitrariness seems to pick up steam along with the protests from the public to bring it down. It is difficult to say, what direction this monster is going to take in the future with a crippled government on shaky morals. The bureaucracy is utterly confused. It refuses to change, while fretting and fearing an uncertain future repercussion. Such arbitrariness is a result of ambiguous rules, suspect intents of the formulators, a great deal of opaqueness, unaccountability of bureaucracy to the people they serve and too much regulations. 

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Brgds

Capt Rath

Article - 82 Week 48 Culture of Big Talk

Article - 82  Week 48

Culture of Big Talk

Culture is a gooey stuff, brewed with individual biases and beliefs into a gigantic sticky snowball. It's so overbearing that it strongly controls and directs the thoughts of the very individuals who contributed in building this sticky snowball in the first place. The set of responses of any individual in a group or industry has a clear pattern and commonality. To an outsider this looks strange and funny at times, unless he gets carried away to lose his shirt at a later date. He tries to rationalize his observations, based on his own culture. When we talk about groups, they do not necessarily mean to comprise of a geography or demography. The group could be engaged in a specific industry or business over a large geographical or time span, influenced by common factors like government regulations and policies, consumer appetite, and various other terrains of the enterprise. 

There are many facets to the culture of our Indian shipping industry - both good and bad. We shall discuss about one of the facets - Big Talk & Despondency. I have yet to come across one in our industry, who believes that the future holds promise for Indian shipping. Some people believe in a state of stagnation at best, while majority love to stay in their make-believe temple of doom  and confusion. Meet any sales professional in our industry. They would spew up unbelievable numbers on your face! They throw such fantastical numbers on your face like so many1000 containers, that too from a small port incapable of handling such a volume in months, or so many million tons of bulk cargo to put even China's appetite to shame, or so many tons of air cargo that no plane has been built to carry that kind of load. If bravado is a mask to hides one's vulnerability, such claims are no more than pumped up words to hide the deep seated despondency within. To outsiders, such claims are mind bogglingly incredible at times.

It's time for us to stay away from such fantasy and indulge in a real a world with real numbers. And these are by no means small any more. They are impressive numbers in the backdrop of a buoyant economy. By believing in reality and working with confidence, we can change this culture of Big Talk  to Real Talks.

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Brgds

Capt Rath

Article - 81 Week 45 Understanding Compulsive Business Dishonesty?

Article - 81  Week 45

Understanding Compulsive Business Dishonesty?

Its wonderful for an industry to do well. This creates jobs and helps other industries to thrive with cheaper and efficient support. We know that consumption, skill, technical know-how, people, infrastructure, raw materials, ecology, and cheaper connectivity to the consumer are clear givens. What we really underestimate is the role of our Big Daddy - the Government. It decides on its policy, taxes, skill development, education, health, infrastructure building, and freeing up consumption climate. Assuming, people explore ways around to combat the defects in infrastructure and skill developments etc, our Big daddy finds a way to tax the ingenuity and productivity of the entrepreneur - stealing a major chunk. Sometimes, Big daddy steals every thing that is produced in the industry. The industry becomes sick like a non-milch cow. Big Daddy wakes up and starts doling put subsidies to keep it alive, so that he could continue milking.  

There are times, when Big Daddy steals more than the industry could produce. In such a scenario, the business heads for sure death. The entrepreneur sees this. And with an instinctive survival mechanism hard-wired into him from evolution, finds a way to steal back part of the taxes from Big Daddy. The harder the Big Daddy tries to extricate its claimed pound of flesh, the more ingenious the entrepreneur becomes in devising his stealing back mechanism. This prolonged struggle results in systematic (at times open and blatant) supremacy of wits of the nimble-footed entrepreneur over the slow and large Big Daddy. The industry does survive with a culture of dishonesty and deceit. This trait gets embedded in to the psyche of the people, until such a time when the words 'business' and 'dishonesty' become almost inseparable. Businesses are considered dirty. Businessmen are assumed to be dishonest, treacherous, conniving, and ruthlessly unscrupulous. 

A stage comes, when Big Daddy realizes loss of revenue and finds a sickly industry living two lives of deception. It loses its power and potency to deal with the menace. The people working for the poor (some times almost insolvent) Big Daddy find it logical and beneficial to cozy up with the businessman. They join hands and connive the contrivance of tax escapades and duping an unsuspecting population. Stealing taxes becomes legitimate. Subsidies are doled out. And budget deficit snowballs into ugly inflation. The best possible example of this can be seen in our domestic shipping industry - an incurable culture of dishonesty and a helplessly miserable government. Can we come come out? Time will tell for sure. Until such time, we need to pray that the Big Daddy steals lesser than the sum total of productivities of our industry - both direct and indirect. And invests in better policies and institutions. 

For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/

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Capt Rath

Article - 80 Week 44 Can You Sell To A Total Stranger?

Article - 80  Week 44

Can You Sell To A Total Stranger?

We sell all the time. We buy all the time. That's unique to humans and we are hardwired that way. However, there is a big barrier created by our social culture or bonding. An extreme example ; The infamous cliches` that 'Money can not buy love'  and 'There is a price for every thing', stand opposed to each other. Volumes of fictions and movies have triumphantly taken on one or the other, captivating the mind of the people. The fact is, we find it easy to push hard bargains with perfect strangers, while we easily acquiesce to make concessions to known people. We sort of avoid bargaining with friends for material prices. We voluntarily give away without pre-conditions to the people we love. Even though there may be unsaid motives for getting some thing out of the other person whom we unconditionally give and the other person guesses it right, we can not call it a true Sale. If we try hinting anything to that effect, it would be a social disaster. Try paying for the birthday cake baked specially for you by your mother or sister!

Therefore, we have two distinct types of Sales - (A) Impersonal Sales (B) Social Sales or Gifts. In impersonal sales, it is a pure deal between demand and supply at that particular moment between the two individuals. Both the individuals are pushed to the edge of 'take it or leave it' point. Each individual consummately assesses the extent of compulsion of the other, while hiding his own vulnerability. Then you have the offers and the counters. Finally you have on the table, an objective price or subjective conditions to arrive at a price in a future date. Think of it. It is a big disadvantage to sell something to a stranger. So, if you are a salesman like me, you would better have many friends in your basket of clients. In other words, before you seriously attempt to sell what you set out to sell, you need to vigorously campaign to have as many friends as possible in the basket of clients in front of you. This is where, most of us go wrong. We start selling on our first meeting, struggling hard to hold on to our prices and other advantages. If we delay this until there is a personal relationship, then we can be far more effective. However, this should not be kept so late and subtle that it backfires - like those close friends of yours who chase you for those network-sales for herbals and shampoos. You run away from them or avoid taking their calls! You can not effectively sell to a completer stranger or a very close friend. Understanding that fine line in between is one of the essential keys to effective sales.

Brgds

Capt Rath

Article -78 Week 38 “Monkey see - Monkey do” & Our Maritime Cabotage Law

Article -78  Week 38

"Monkey see - Monkey do" & Our Maritime Cabotage Law

Paradoxically, Adam Smith, the vociferous proponent of Free Market Economy advocated the idea of Cabotage Law - the law that severely restricted foreign ships to call British shores. That's a humungous departure from his theory of free market. Jones Act of USA was more of a lobby stuff by the American shipping magnets, soon after the World War I. The fear of war-time necessity was fed in the public mind, by taking a leaf from the theory of Adam Smith. Then it went viral and continues till date. Interestingly the most vocal hardliners of this restrictive trade practice, like US, UK, Australia, and India have lost heavily on this lucrative trade and display a poor & declining market share in world shipping - even when you add their tonnage through FOC flags. And the liberal nations like Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece and Japan have stamped their authority in the industry.  The hardliners used the insecurity of the World War II to reinforce the idea and till today the idea is pushed vociferously in countries like India much to the detriment to their home economy and particularly their shipping industry. Ironically, more than 75% of the logistical support to the US forces during Korean War & Vietnam War was provided by chartered vessels flying different flags and shadow-owned by many different nationalities.

As to why Adam Smith had this aberration or exception is very clear from the history of that period of later part of 18^th century. The Dutch beat the British hands down in trade and commerce. There was this prevalent concept of core nation exploiting the peripheries or colonies with shipping as the main tool to boost its national wealth. Even intra-Europe trade was considered a secondary perphery. The Dutch were superior, especially in this secondary periphery. It was not possible to compete with the Dutch, without severely restricting their ships to British shores and its colonies. Being a strong nationalist, Adam Smith propagated this idea to weaken the Dutch business and give a strong protection and subsidy to the British shipping.

However, after the World War II things changed. Colonies were freed. British, US, and other adherents to Cabotage Law suffered due to this restrictive Law. They had to shift to Panama, Liberia, and Isle of Mann etc. Their coastal shipping was monopolized by a few fat, incompetent, subsidized, and inward looking companies. The ship building industries in them had a pitiable fate and had to survive on expensive defense contracts. Where as the ship building yards in Germany, other Scandinavian countries, and Japan became global leaders. South Korea and China joined the party later. German, Dutch, Norwegian, Greek, and Japan became world leaders in the shipping industry. Later, Taiwan, South Korea, & Singapore joined the party. And the countries like US, UK, & Australia, etc stagnated or declined. They were forced to migrate their tonnage to FOC or off-shore locations. India being a third world nation with a sickly shipping industry, inherited from the colonial era, did not have the good fortune or capital to take the FOC route. And pitiable journey continues. 

Maritime Cabotage can best be explained this way. Permit a few domestic players on the coast. Tax them heavily on every possible way. Further cut their efficiency by red tapes, permits, and licenses etc. Set the Unions on them. Further escalate their costs by forcing them to pay bribes to government pain-points. Once in a while, dole out a few dollies so that they keep quiet. Then allow them to charge what they like to the home user. But competition will still be there from unexpected alternatives like roadways and the rails. Ultimately, the ROE will be lesser than their brethren in international waters with open flags. So, those already in the business have this false sense of protection from the government and shall keep themselves content with whatever ROE they manage. Sometimes, they would click a government deal and make a killing and go partying. But then that too is limited in scope and happens far too infrequently. They would lose all their appetite to scale up and compete. They would constantly look up to the government with folded hands for more dollies. They would sing the same song for the justification of Cabotage, as sung by Uncle Jones. After all, how can Uncle Jones be wrong? He is from the land of freedom and opportunity - the USA! Any attempt to justify India's Maritime Cabotage is nothing more than a "Monkey see - Monkey do" syndrome, of looking unquestionably with unthinking awe, at Jones Act of 1920 in USA.

For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/

Rath

Uncle Jone & Our Maritime Cabotage Law

Paradoxically, Adam Smith, the vociferous proponent of Free Market Economy advocated the idea of Cabotage Law - the law that severely restricted foreign ships to call British shores. That’s a humungous departure from his theory of free market. Jones Act of USA was more of a retribution to the British restrictions on US trading ships. Then it went viral and continues till date. Interestingly the most vocal hardliners of this restrictive trade practice, like US, UK, Australia, and India have lost heavily on this lucrative trade and display a poor market share in world shipping - even when you add their tonnage through FOC flags. And the liberal Scandinavian nations like Norway, the Netherlands, Greece and Germany have stamped their authority in the industry. The hardliners used the insecurity of the World War II to reinforce the idea and till today the idea is pushed vociferously in countries like India much to the detriment to their home economy and particularly their shipping industry. As to why Adam Smith had this aberration or exception is very clear from the history of that period of later part of 18th century. The Dutch beat the British hands down in trade and commerce. Since the excess grains could not be exported due to high export duty, the farmers were in a pitiable state. The general economy was in comparatively bad state. Adam Smith was a strong nationalist. He knew that the Dutch were great traders and prosperous. It was not possible to compete with them without restricting their ships to British shores and its colonies. However, after the World War II things changed. Colonies were freed. British, US, and other adherents to Cabotage Law suffered due to this restrictive Law. They had to shift to Panama, Liberia, and Isle of Mann etc. Their coastal shipping was monopolized by a few fat, incompetent, subsidized, and inward looking companies. The ship building industries in them had a similar fate and had to survive on expensive defense contracts. Where as the ship building yards in Germany, other Scandinavian countries, and Japan became global leaders. South Korea and China joined the party later. German, Dutch, Norwegian, Greek, and Japan became world leaders in the shipping industry. Later, Taiwan, South Korea, & Singapore joined the party. And the countries like US, UK, & Australia, etc stagnated or declined. They were forced to migrated their tonnage to FOC or off-shore locations. India being a developing nation with a sickly shipping industry, inherited from the colonial era, did not have the good fortune or capital to take the FOC route and still continues in its pitiable journey. Maritime Cabotage can best be explained this way. Permit a few domestic players on the coast. Tax them heavily on every possible way. Further cut their efficiency by red tapes, permits, and licenses etc. Set the Unions on them. Further escalate their costs by forcing them to pay bribes to government pain-points. Once in a while, dole out a few dollies so that they keep quiet. Then allow them to charge what they like to the home user. But competition will still be there from unexpected alternatives like roadways and the rails. Ultimately, the ROE will be lesser than their brethren in international waters with open flags. So, those already in the business have this false sense of protection from the government and shall keep themselves content with whatever ROE they manage. Sometimes, they would click a government deal and make a killing and go partying. But then that too is limited in scope and happens far too infrequently. They would lose all their appetite to scale up and compete. They would constantly look up to the government with folded hands for more dollies. They would sing the same song for the justification of Cabotage, as sung by Uncle Jones. After all, how can Uncle Jones be wrong? He is from the land of freedom and opportunity - the USA!

Article - 77 Week 37 We Need A Nw Rule Book

Article - 77  Week 37

We Need A New Rule Book

India has changed. The world looks at us with a curious mix of awe and frown : awe for what we have achieved or promise to achieve and frown for sticking to insane archaic rules and processes reminiscent of the pre-digital era. Let's discuss the export and import processes pertaining to declarations before the shipments arrive or depart our country. No country of India's might and stature does it this way any more. In today's world, every aspect of trade is highly specialized. There is a clear divide between the carrier and the owner of the cargo. The owner of goods is a clearly seen and visible entity and is fully responsible towards the ownership of his possessions. On the other hand, the carrier is the custodian of the goods until fulfillment of the contracts of carriage with the owner of the goods. 

However, in the sailing ship era, this was not the case. You could never see the entities behind the ownership of the goods. You could barely communicate with them. When a ship called upon a port, the government and its officials of this host country knew nothing about the owner of the goods. They saw the ship with the cargo and it's Master. The Master represented every thing. He could sell the cargo and do whatever he wanted to. He owned the cargo in proxy. Therefore, it was incumbent upon him to declare the cargo to its last ''t''. He had every reason and interest to declare wrongly either to avoid duty or artificially inflate the price of the cargo. He was a direct beneficiary of these extra revenues. Therefore, the Laws, especially the British Laws, were overtly punitive and suspicious to the carrier and his representative. Any small mistake in declarations was severely punished. At times the cargo along with the ship was confiscated. Those were the semi-dark ages and those were the dark rules. 

In this context, our laws stink of that era. The carrier is fully held responsible for omission of  an insignificant content in it's declarations and penalized disproportionate to the spirit of of the contents. Our Laws hold the carrier for all wrongs, while pretending that the receiver or shipper don't exist. In US, you have a declaration, before the cargo is loaded in the port of loading, eliminating the chance of wrong cargo coming into the country in the first place. But in our country, even banned or prohibited cargo sneaks in. And then the carrier is penalized with rule books, stinking of repressive rules and regulations of the British colonial era. In more pragmatic countries like Singapore, carrier makes no declarations at all. The receiver does this from the contents of the BL issued by the carrier. In India, essentially though the contents of the BL are considered paramount, but the duplications of the contents in many points makes this process utterly complex and prone to delays, corruption, and costly. In Malaysia, they have a simple online system where the data is shared by many departments. The officials are practical and don't have the interest or inclination to strictly match the "t'' to a "t'' or interpret the  rule books esoterically with many different versions like they do in our country.

We are crying for corruption to end. But unless our rule books are burnt and new-age rules are in place, this would be a tall demand. In fact the inertia is terrifying. It's widely believed that the old rules are kept preserved because it serves the officials to exercise unlimited power without accountability. And therefore fuel the juggernaut of corruption to thump on our progress for a long time. It's time, we look at the rule books in addition to this ugly beast of corruption and lethargy of governance.

Brgds
Capt Rath

Article - 75 Week 35 Execution - THE REAL DILEMMA

>>
>> Execution means getting things done. Straight and Simple. This skill is an important weapon in the armoury of a manager. Nothing can be accomplished in our world without execution. To understand its true implication, let's watch out on the frequent answers of poor execution,
>>
>> "But … I forgot.."
>> "I told Mr. X and he never called back…."
>> "I'll do it tomorrow…"
>> " Mr. Y refused to accept my instructions…"
>> "I'll surely do it tomorrow.."
>> "I phoned Mr Y and no one picked up the phone.."
>>
>> The list is endless and the implied meaning is of poverty in execution. This is no secret that Indians working on ships are technically and theoretically sound by rote acts on complex rules and regulations. But they are far too unwilling to roll up their sleeves when it comes to execution. This act of procrastination, avoidance, dodging, or even evasion is a manifest poverty of an indispensable soft skill for a manager. It has been observed that all star CEOs are fabulous in execution. And in day to day life we come across ordinary uneducated people who excel in the art of getting things done and highly qualified and trained people who display a manifest poverty of this skill. This may not be the only defining skill for a good manager, because you need many more other skills to excel as a manager in addition to having this skill of execution. But without it, you go no where. The question is why some people are good at it while others just cant get it right? Why some are naturals? The moment they walk in, they get things done effortlessly. And there are the others, who need rigorous training, workshops, motivations, bonuses, and change of responsibilities to just chug along.
>>
>> This skill is a matter of both nature and nurture, and more of the latter. It is a mindset. We are socially and evolutionarily wired to take more and give less. We want to take more salary and do less work. In individuals, where this belief is deeply ingrained, they just can not come up so easily to execute. As a second nature they resist action. They hone a sharp mind that churns out excuses instantly to procrastinate, avoid or evade action. Therefore, such individuals can be effective, if they think through and change their ingrained false belief system. And innate qualities are the strengths on which to build this capability of execution after vanquishing the demon of resistance to action.
>>
>> For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/
>

Article -74 Week 34 SHUTTING OUT CORRUPTION WITH NO OPTION TO SSR:

Article -74 Week 34

SHUTTING OUT CORRUPTION WITH NO OPTION TO SSR:

What do we feel inside yourself, when you pay  Rs 10,000/ bribe to amend an innocent typo in the IGM? To put a rubber stamp on the online print of a TP copy at Rs 50 per document? To chase the peon who moves around the tea stalls in the Customs Office with the rubber stamps in his pocket and pay him Rs 20/ to put the stamp on after the signature of the Inspector? To pay Rs 80,000/ to the Customs officer in Vizag to renew Steamer Agency License? To Pay a monthly fixed bribe of Rs 4000/ to the Customs officers in Vizag port when you have low volume of exports or import? To pay Rs 12000/ to CONCOR officers in Delhi ICD to release the cargo, because of an innocent typo in the Forwarding Note? To pay the Customs officials on every IGM copy? On every CMC permission? Every Bond cancellation? Every Shipping Bill submission? Every EGM ? On every inspection? When you bring to India your personal effects by containers on transfer from overseas, paying Rs 20,000 to Customs Officers? When you pay Rs 40,000/ for every back to town container from the Terminal to the CFS? Paying bribe of Rs 16,000/ for a permission to move a box from Pipava to Nhava Sheva via Colombo? To pay bribe to get your Passport in spite of the online system? Pay in lakhs to Income Tax raiders for the narrow interpretation in finding faults in your books or not cooking your books properly by experts? Paying lakhs to the Service Tax officers for assessment or centralization? To pay DG shipping for Multi Modal Transport license? For dispensation on crewing? To MMD officials for passing seaworthiness? SSR to NSICT by force? To the traffic cops in JNPT on the hapless trailer drivers on their serpentine queues?  To the Municipality officials for Shops and Establishment certificates? To their occasional visits to your offices demanding and negotiating bribes? To pay to get a birth certificate? To again pay to get a Death certificate? To pay to get a Marriage certificate? The list is long and exhaustive.

Do you not get angry? Do you feel ashamed of being an Indian? Do you feel frustrated? Don't you feel that your soul has been soiled? A piece of you is rotting within your conscience? You may have the power to endure and swallow, but can you ever overcome these strong feelings that dents your freedom, choice, and opportunity? 

The answer is on the streets of India. We are proud of being Indians, the way we have expressed our pent-up hurt with unanimous solidarity with Anna Hazare's movement. Let's be part of this large movement to clean our house. It is our house. We have to clean up. Let's not look at others to to do it for us. 

Vande Mataram!

For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/

____________________________________________________________________________

Rath

Article - 71 Week 31 Our System Punishes The Innocent:

Article - 71 Week 31

Our System Punishes The Innocent:

India grows sustainably in spite of a third rated governance and third rated Laws and Policies. But we the people inside the industries, know the dirty little tricks and secrets of our growth. There are times, we run out of tricks. We take a beating and retreat, mauled and bleeding. We don't even expect the last vestiges of justice or humanity to save us. Only hope lies with the influence or connection to a dirty politician or a local goon to stop us from sure death. Let me tell you a true story:

It has been six months. 41 containers have been arrested by the Local Customs in Tuticorin. The containers belong to the shipping line. They came in empty, but were manifested as having full cargo inside. The shipper and consignee indulged in some scam in connivance to perpetuate a fraud. Both the shipper and the consignee are bonafide Indian nationals. The department does not have the gumption to catch them for reasons best known to them. The reasons could range from active connivance with the fraudsters, the fraudsters being too powerfully connected to politics or the underworld, simple lethargy and imbecility, ineptitude, or a sadistic pleasure of tormenting the innocent, as has been the habitual more of our system of bureaucracy.  Wonder, why we call them (Government) servants, when they harass the innocents of this nation and do such an evil disservice and get paid by our taxes! They should rather be called (Government) terrorists. That's more apt.

The facts are fully presented to the department. The investigations have been conclusive about the innocence of the shipping line with substantiations from the load port's Customs. The consignee and shippers are still free birds. But the property of the shipping line continues to be under seizure. The shipping line has been warned that it is better not to take on the crocodile, if it wants to live in the same water. 

It is time we feel ashamed of ourselves. We have lost any sense of justice, sensibility and dignity. We penalise the innocent and let the criminals go happily free. Let's hang our heads in shame for continuing with such a rotten bureaucracy!

For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/

Brgds

Capt Rath

Article - 70 Week 30 The Rewards Of Criticism:

Article - 70 Week 30

The Rewards Of Criticism:

"We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend." - Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher and Thinker)

We are far too used to a culture of flattery and a false sense self glorification. In olden days there used to be professional flatterers in the courts of aristocrats and kings. Every one with money and a social standing, lived on a over spiced diet of flattery. Even our gods indulged in this luxury. The remnants of this culture is suffocatingly dominant in our work places. The less privileged are tacitly coerced into demeaning themselves from saying 'multiple times of Sirs', to folding  or wringing hands, to looking down at the floors  etc, in order to keep the bloated ego of the privileged in its elevated pedestal, supported by the eluding legs of flattery. The best negotiator for paying lesser bribes are those who can flatter the Babu to no end, without any sense of logic or decency. Some times I have been bemused by the ingenious Babus who flatter back with a consummate skill to up their price. It's amazingly hilarious to be part of such negotiations. The parties pretend to be like blood brothers and offer to sacrifice their lives for the other, only to seal the deal at a suitable price.

Therefore, there is this chronic scorn to criticism & critics in our society, to the point of intolerance and violent retribution. People and organizations are blinded with rage, when criticized. This stems partly from our inherited history and also our propensity to hold on to what privileges we already have - no matter how unfairly we might have acquired them. Coupled with this is the stubbornness to avoid inevitable changes, dictated by time of openness and equity. 

Had their been no critics, we would still be living in the stone ages. The aspersion that the critics only display their flair of painting in repulsive black, the softer belly of an issue, with quite a pompousness and audacity, while completely ignoring the brighter side, does not belittle their usefulness and gravity. The society needs to see the dark side of things from as many perspectives as possible in order to bring light and drive change. Pragmatically speaking, our systems have many evils. Many would agree that the evils outweigh the goodness we possess in our governance and society. Leaving the debate open to the degrees of goodness or badness, we would rather do good by articulating the painful parts. This awareness is the first pointer towards a positive change. And we need a change from this never ending cycle of vice. After all, wisdom of the crowd can only prevail through debates from all possible perspectives.

For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/

Brgds

Capt Rath

Article - 69 Week 29 No Law vs Bad Law

Article - 69  Week 29

No Law vs Bad Law

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."  Mahatma Gandhi

India has Law and China has Order. Saw this in one of the twitter posts. We have so many laws. And sadly many of them are bad laws. China has a few laws; most  are meaningful and purposeful. For an example, if you buy a vessel and get it registered in India, you will be slapped with 5% customs duty - applicable if you wish to bring her home. So long as you keep her outside India, there is no duty. If at all, you are compelled to bring her home, you need to prove that it is temporary in nature. Then, you may be exempted. I wonder if temporary has a qualifying meaning within the ambits of the law! If there is no qualification, then it is left to the discretion of some Babu. The Babu can define even 10 years as temporary, if he wishes to. Or if he does not like your face, he may not even consider one month as temporary. So the doors to corruption and connection is split wide open with this law. After all, we need a whole lot of cabotage vessels for our coast and people will find a way to meet this need, so long as it is commercially profitable.            

This law, simply tells you to bribe and manage. Or else, use foreign flag vessels for the Coastal trade through dispensations, which is more damaging to Indian shipping. And remember that dispensation does not come free. You have to grease the wheels of bureaucracy generously with plenty of ego massaging and connections in the top. But all this great struggle to carry our own cargo on our own shores using foreign vessels and killing our own shipping industry? What a shame on this sham law!

No Lokpal Bill can touch this. We say yes to stricter and fairer laws and yes to quick redressals on the infringements. But along with them, we must demand to remove all bad laws. Simplify them. Make them congruent with the betterment of the industry and broader national interests.  It is time, we the people, realize that "We are not party to this national graft mess by choice, but rather arm-twisted into them by bad Laws". These are the crafty laws, leaving us with no option to honesty and nation building. 

Let's scream and shout at bad Laws! Let no one point his dirty finger at us with the accusation that we are guilty of breaking bad laws and therefore a party to the 'Corruption Cauldron' of our all-consuming bureaucracy & polity! 

For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/

Brgds

Capt Rath

Article - 68 Week 28 Anti-market Conferences:

Article - 68  Week 28

Anti-market Conferences:

Too big to be questioned upon. Container shipping lines are mostly giants in the industry. And when the titans take up their cudgels, there is a whole lot bleeding. This bleeding becomes pervasive and gory. The freights plummet to abysmal lows. Bottom lines are swept to the bottom of business  rationale. All that matters is 'market share' and 'market turfs'. The smaller players simply drop mortally wounded or perish. The name of the game is brute 'size' and 'scale'. When bottom lines shriek for panic attention, the giants declare cessation. They huddle behind closed doors and direct their collective violence on the consumer of their services. PSS, CBR, FAF, CAF, and many such mysterious and strange sounding missiles are fired at the end customers at tandem. The consumers shake their heads and roll their eyes. The giants shake their legs all the way to their Banks.

If these unholy behind-the-door collusions and alliances are broken, the giants would no more dare to drop rates to desperate and impossible lows. And therefore, there would be no need for such unholy alliances to spike the general freight rates. There would be stability and semblance of it among the end users. This too will invite smaller competitors to wedge themselves in to the niches. The market would slowly be a true market - not a manipulated one in the hands of the giants. It is true that the consumers benefit immensely when the titans clash. But they too get their deadly 'freight and service shocks' when the giants join hands. This is especially bad for an emerging economy like India. It's export industries experience periodic shocks on both input costs and export competitiveness.

India is basically a consuming nation for this service and would continue to be so for a long period. With the kind of shipping and taxation policies on Indian shipping, it would be impossible for a pure Indian company to raise its head among the giants. SCI can thrive on mediocrity on tax payers' money. It would face the same dilemma like Air India in the hands of conniving politicians and never grow to be a giant among giants. Therefore, this is time to declare such conferences anti-competition and anti-market by the government of India, in line with EU. 

For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/

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Brgds

Capt Rath