To mark the 65th Annual Day celebrations of the Company of Master Mariners of India, the Chennai Chapter of the CMMI, organised a seminar on “Global Shipping – Trials and Tribulations“, at the Holiday Inn in Chennai on Friday, the 9th September.

At 9.30 am, the seminar hall was flooding with participants from various sectors eagerly awaiting for the seminar to begin.

Capt. Ajay Gangadharan, Chairman, CMMI Chennai Chapter, in his introductory speech, enlisted the achievements of CMMI since its inception. He also welcomed the distinguished speakers, the audience and the sponsors of the event.

Capt. KN Ramesh was the first speaker and his topic was “Effects in Global Shipping” and in his unique style he quickly got in to the stride and punctuated his speech with pinpoint updated statistics on a plethora of problems and crisis that present day shipping was encountering. He highlighted the potential challenges which the industry faces due to the political tensions between China and Taiwan. He hit on the note appropriately about the present day seafarers and their crisis during and post pandemic. Ramesh concluded his speech depicting the blue lit IMO headquarters saluting the courage of the seafarers on 30th Sept.

GLOBALIZED FITURE AWAITS? 

Mr. Jagmeet Makkar was the next to talk on “Globalisation in Shipping”. He commenced his speech with a query to the audience asking them “Will globalisation in shipping increase or decrease?”… and the answer was a yes with dilemma.

That being the prime mover of his articulated speech gave the scope of building the bricks to emphatically construct a wall of an effective speech studded with facts and figures cemented by logical reasoning. The rate of growth of Indian economy post independence until post pandemic was a key aspect to remind ourselves about our position in the global trade. He compared the global trade which is 28.5 trillion USD making 30% of global GDP in the present day. He stacked up the challenges in globalisation beautifully and the acronyms JIT to JIC was the highlight. He finally ended his wonderful presentation once again with Q and A’s.

Death of globalisation- NO

Flourish in globalisation- YES

Regionalisation- YES

Opportunities- YES.

MEDIATION WINS

Adv. Ms. Sathya Rao was No.3 to decorate the stage with the mike in her hands, to talk on “Mediation – The powerful tool in dispute resolution”.

Being an experienced advocate, and practising mediation in the present day to resolve disputes, her speech gave an insight about the panchayat history which forms the basis of modern day mediation. She emphasised the fact that mediation is a voluntary act and the courts also can enforce it.

She listed the mutual benefits of mediation to both the parties and compared the advantages with arbitration.

She drew the bottom line magnificently by saying “A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit“.

This was followed by Adv. Mr. PVS Giridhar who also is a mediator and arbitrator involved in corporate practice for the oil & gas industry.

He too was all for mediation and justified the fact with a case history of the lengthy litigation of M.V.Prestige. The Spanish law, the arbitration law of UK and the European council law were the three different laws which drifted this case for 20 years wasting time, money and energy fighting court cases.

He highlighted the conflict of law beautifully with examples like… an Israeli woman marrying an Egyptian man living in Australia and ends up in a divorce case in England. Which law will apply for such a case?

He highlighted the models of resolution as Win – Win, Win – Lose, Lose- lose! He indicated that the options in mediated settlement were using acronyms like BATNA, WATNA, RATNA and PATNA. Better Alternative, Worst Alternative, Realistic Alternative and Positive Alternative Than No Alternative.

He concluded by stating that a Win- Win with positives as alternative was possible only through mediation. Also suggested that Arb-Med-Arb was a hybrid solution recommended.

Nobody in the audience had a moment of respite throughout the seminar and the last speaker of the day who lit the stage on fire was none other than Mrs HK Joshi. She is a passionate personality driven by tons of positive energy, with a goal seeking mindset ingrained in her for decades. She took over the reins of SCI in 2019 when she had to face the national government’s disinvestment drive.

Her speech was studded with history of Indian shipping, growth of Indian tonnage post independence, and the steep rise in tonnage since 1990 until 2020.

She identified the global driving forces in the competitive market and how the 20% extra operating costs imposed by our government weakened the already weak Indian ship owners. Also she dwelled on the fact that how the foreign flag ships were effortlessly bidding for the Indian cargo exports due to less bureaucratic procedures imposed on them.

Her creation of the coinage DIFT and its implications on the Indian ship owner was exemplary.

D- irect taxes a great burden.

I-ndirect taxes an additional burden.

F-inancing Capital intensive industry lacking fund structures

T-echnology to compete with IMO’s latest mandatory guidelines to comply with!

She concluded her glittering speech by saying it was she who commenced the purchase of second hand ships for SCI which relaid the course for the organisation.

Following this firing of nonstop missiles of knowledge from all the speakers, Capt. N.J . Nair chaired the Q and A session. He wanted to include alphabet “R” in Mrs. Joshi self coined DIFT… making it DRIFT, saying archaic and unrealistic regulations also imposed more strain on Indian ship owners.

The speakers answered various questions from the audience with utmost patience and understanding.

SOME KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Mrs. Joshi answering question indicated that our governments since post independence were moving at snail’s space lacking fundamental knowledge of business in shipping.

So much so, that organisations like Air india and SCI were not distinguished, reason being SCI was also a service Industry and hence could not avail the infrastructure status.

Is mediation a part of a CP?

The answer by Mr. Jagmeet was yes because BIMCO has introduced it.

The seminar thus ended with vote of thanks by Capt. Ganeshyam.

Seminar paved the way for the Annual Day Dinner. The evening get together was well attended by the Chennai shipping fraternity. It was an apt occasion to recognise the services of legendary Capt. A.K.Bansal. Capt. Anil Midha formally introduced Capt. AK Bansal to the audience. Capt. Bansal shared a few words with those present and was given a standing ovation as he signed off.

Networking, music, games and a sumptuous dinner was the highlight of the evening.

Marex Media