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Showing posts from February, 2011

LACKING SENSE OF DEMOCRACY IN INDIAN OFFICERS—a series on self-examination

“Chief, one thing I want to ask you—why there is no harmony on board ships where Indian officers are there?” -- Chief mate of box-ship Hanjin Melbourne to me, at a bar in Nanjian ,China, in November 2008, in the presence of my ship’s master, second engineer and few other crew members. This blogpost is specifically aimed at Indian merchant marine officers whose lacking sense of democracy is gradually rolling-up a new kind of problem for the future generation of Indian mariners to find employment with foreign multinationals (well, this is purely my personal observation on future of this kind of problem.) I call this the Interpersonal-troubles. Case study 1 : On one ship, the cargo loaded in ‘Gasoline grade P’, and ‘Gasoline grade R’ ( names, as described in the B/L). It is a product carrier, designed and certified to carry only petroleum clean products. On completion of loading the Indian master asks me to conduct a vapour valve segregation too, of the two grades, in compliance with the