these are the days of unearthing of scams. big ones, which deal on lakhs-of-caror of rupees. The recent ones being the 2G scam. more recent but not-yet-investigated scam is that of food scam in UP.
Actually my issue that being a employed, busy making my earning and bread-and-butter citizen of India, I don't quite really get the hang of what these scams are really all about. There is always some media-hysteria around them, a lot of sarcasm, cartoons, literalistic fun , but none explains to me the mechanism of these scams, the account to whom the money has traveled to through the scam,. who were the scam-sters, and why couldn't they be brought to the book , to the law. what was the role of each of the person charged in the scam log of investigation agency.?
They all never get answered. the scene is quite like someone hitting one six in the middle of a play and then rejoicing as though he has won the entire match.
For example, the Fodder scam. Every time i think of it, or hear of it, the only picture that comes to my mind is that of Laloo eating the chara of a buffalo. In the 2G scam, I always think of one south indian man A Raja sitting on his desk with some files. That is all i know.
Today I tried to dig a little deeper into a few scams which i could. The fodder scam internet search , for example, showed that the CBI had some 20 truck-backs of documents to be taken to the court for the sake of giving evidence against all those chargsheeted by it. At one point I found that CBI itself has also been charged by those who were prosecuted, and to more surprise, courts have accepted the case. So, who investigates the CBI now? Whom do i trust.
The media is more busy making stories for or against the political big-nut it wants to play upon.
Another question in my curious thoughts is about the causes of these multiple carors of scams rampantly happening through our society? Why is that. In most cases of scams, it is one single person on who the entire poison couldron is turned. But than, does it it all happen by action of one single man who is the sole benefactor of all that multiple caror funds which have been siphoned off? Many people say that there are many many more people involved and that the amount deficited is not incurred in one day's time but over many many years.
So, how does it all began and why do all people, high or low, educated or uneducated, learned or illiterate, rich or poor, --all get sucked into this chain of events leading to formation of that scam?
How do i know right at this moment that I am not being a part of some chain of events which will become a multiple caror scam tomorrow? There are many discretion I make everyday. Will i not become a part of scam, for not being able to explain my discretion tomorrow.
An ocean of thoughts,earlier this blog was named as "Indian Sociology..my burst and commentary". This is because it was meant to express myself on some general observations clicking my mind about my milieu...the Indian milieu. Subsequently a realisation dawned on that it was surging more as some breaking magma within . Arguments gave the heat to this molten hot matter which is otherwise there in each of us. Hence the renaming.
Contemporary Friends
26th Oct 2010
At sea, from Japan to Chile, (Voyage’s 24th Day, in Pacific Ocean.
Gaurav, my cheeky little insolent friend-cum- younger brother-like—cum- shipmate, tells me of how his real brother’s, who is a marine Chief Engineer, marital alliance had turned away after they learnt about Gaurav own reputation.(That’s what Gaurav feels was the reason behind their rejection). They never told his family directly the why of it, but before leaving they spoke of their knowledge of their own son being Gaurav’s classmate.
Ha, that happens!
--I said, as I thought of some such similar events in my own case. My own friend and his family had worked away one for me. It took long to come to terms with this, and indeed I could not and I do not intend to continue on that path anytime again.
In Sholay, Jai goes to Maami to seek alliance for his friend Veeru and does the same. Maybe, Jai does this because Veeru was his very close friend and a ‘partner in crime’, and as much a bachelor as Jai himself was. But in my case, my friend was married man, and surely as much a partner in crime as all contemporary clique are.
That brought me think of what are modern friends and their ethos are like.
Yesterday I was reading about the history of Exploration done by mankind. In my own thought I see myself too as some kind of an explorer sailing at sea. And, though, there is now hardly any place left where human beings have not put their mark, yet the eternity and continuity of ignorance over every new generation continues to produce explorer who still need to re-discover, at least for their own self and for their community, what the rest of the mankind may already have known. So what would we call these modern explorers as, who have otherwise nothing new to explore? Well, i thought that the olden explorers discovered facts of history, geography, science but Social Sciences are still the world of unknowns. That’s where the modern explorers may do their discoveries, and, in my case, by attempting to view my own family, culture, country and society – from an outside angle. To see what it looks and what it feels like.
Over here, i thought about having a look at these modern cliques as they settle down their old confusions and give birth to new confusions, marred by effects of today’s times – of technology, or increased scientific awareness, of cinemas and of the internet.
India has changed, we know that. Moved from villages to town to a very huge extent. And then that unthought-of the rate of change which surprised all the soothsayers. What did it make of our ethos and of our culture. As i viewed things in my case of friend’s treachery, I thought about how different was he from my own self? We were friends, but how much? Birds of same feather—in what sense? To what extent? We both shared some common ethos in the beginning that brought us together. That extreme parental control when we both had our backgrounds still hanging on the evolutionary past of the today’s India. The villages. The ethos of clique in the generation of our fathers was about moving to towns, but still not forgetting their own parents. That is what was the theme of Cinemas in those years,- of Upkaar, of how the educated lad Prem Chopra, in town was revelling in life forgetting his poor hardworking parents back in his village. The cinema ended on the note giving a message of how this prodigal lad had now found his right path of serving his family as well. The generation of our fathers perhaps then followed the same and gave good pressure/lessons on us not to be misguided away.
But then there were other cinemas as well that talked about friends. Golmaal, showed the new clique of Dev Barman and Amol Palekar helping out each other to win over the old, high-educated of his times, and of a rich class, the father--- played by Utappal Dutt. In Namakharam, Amitabh and Rajesh are actually some spoiled brats, trying to seek revenge from poor labour class workmen. The two are all into all so-called misdeeds.
In the most recent of life-theme cinema Udaan, the young boy is about all ‘misdeeds’ and still right in his ways to have snatched away his freedom from his father’s tyranny.
Admire how times have changed and so have the ethos of societies of different era.
How much ‘spoiled’ then is the spoiled guy of today, the sex-MMS-crazy generation?
How bad is Gaurav and how bad am I?
Truely bad, I say because, to have gone for an arranged marriage in the contemporary ethos is all about being living in-between, half in the ethos of our father’s times, and half to have enjoyed the pleasures of the modern metropolitan city’s times.
In today’s clique, there are friends- none so leading, and none so following to live under somebody’s fold. They are all so much competing even in their close friendship. They each represent and standout for what their ethos are. Ethos in these days of un-predictable economy recession is not at all about the economic well-being, about their hometown, about their school, about their college-degree, etc.
People of all background are often seen mingling with each other. The outspoken-ness is the more appreciated value. To speak it right there and promptly. These are the days of gender mixing. The adulthood of the second or third generation of co-ed school goers. The parents are thus very ‘understanding’ at times. They (incidently that includes myself too) are financially safe, most of them. And then, the money don’t matter as much. The girls don’t matter in the way of friendship.
These are the times of how many girlfriends or how many boyfriends did you have. Or you had atleast one at all or not? The generation seeks pleasure most of the times. In alcohols, in having premarital affairs, and then in getting over the love affairs through finding the next one, in pleasure-trips, in the “weekends”(which is about having office party, or a date, or a lovemaking session, or a multiplex movie, ). The ethos of the recent past are nearly gone which were perhaps like, the rich and the poor, the urban or the rural, the virtuous and the depraved druggist. What has emerged is the resultant of the conflicting ethos of the recent past, as a new evolutionary product. Thus, now everyone drinks, likes to go party, likes to have a love partner, and the economic status is not so much accounted for. There are only the financially-independents who can afford their own multiplex tickets, or the pleasure trips. There are no high achievers and the low achievers. Only the qualified ones, because the “markets” ( that includes, the share markets, the job market, the Opportunity’s loco-position) can its own game any day any time to swing fortunes. There are no urbans and rurals—everybody speaks English, likes English-cum-Hindi music and cinema. Everybody swear foul words. Everybody reads English newspaper, and the Sunday reviews and the sarcasm-filled articles in them. Humour is the new mode- the more fresh and new, the more trendy. Everybody has all that forwarded joke mails, and the inspirational mail, and the informative email, and all those SMSes.
But that doesn’t mean that this new culture is villain free.
Who are its bad boys, then?
At sea, from Japan to Chile, (Voyage’s 24th Day, in Pacific Ocean.
Gaurav, my cheeky little insolent friend-cum- younger brother-like—cum- shipmate, tells me of how his real brother’s, who is a marine Chief Engineer, marital alliance had turned away after they learnt about Gaurav own reputation.(That’s what Gaurav feels was the reason behind their rejection). They never told his family directly the why of it, but before leaving they spoke of their knowledge of their own son being Gaurav’s classmate.
Ha, that happens!
--I said, as I thought of some such similar events in my own case. My own friend and his family had worked away one for me. It took long to come to terms with this, and indeed I could not and I do not intend to continue on that path anytime again.
In Sholay, Jai goes to Maami to seek alliance for his friend Veeru and does the same. Maybe, Jai does this because Veeru was his very close friend and a ‘partner in crime’, and as much a bachelor as Jai himself was. But in my case, my friend was married man, and surely as much a partner in crime as all contemporary clique are.
That brought me think of what are modern friends and their ethos are like.
Yesterday I was reading about the history of Exploration done by mankind. In my own thought I see myself too as some kind of an explorer sailing at sea. And, though, there is now hardly any place left where human beings have not put their mark, yet the eternity and continuity of ignorance over every new generation continues to produce explorer who still need to re-discover, at least for their own self and for their community, what the rest of the mankind may already have known. So what would we call these modern explorers as, who have otherwise nothing new to explore? Well, i thought that the olden explorers discovered facts of history, geography, science but Social Sciences are still the world of unknowns. That’s where the modern explorers may do their discoveries, and, in my case, by attempting to view my own family, culture, country and society – from an outside angle. To see what it looks and what it feels like.
Over here, i thought about having a look at these modern cliques as they settle down their old confusions and give birth to new confusions, marred by effects of today’s times – of technology, or increased scientific awareness, of cinemas and of the internet.
India has changed, we know that. Moved from villages to town to a very huge extent. And then that unthought-of the rate of change which surprised all the soothsayers. What did it make of our ethos and of our culture. As i viewed things in my case of friend’s treachery, I thought about how different was he from my own self? We were friends, but how much? Birds of same feather—in what sense? To what extent? We both shared some common ethos in the beginning that brought us together. That extreme parental control when we both had our backgrounds still hanging on the evolutionary past of the today’s India. The villages. The ethos of clique in the generation of our fathers was about moving to towns, but still not forgetting their own parents. That is what was the theme of Cinemas in those years,- of Upkaar, of how the educated lad Prem Chopra, in town was revelling in life forgetting his poor hardworking parents back in his village. The cinema ended on the note giving a message of how this prodigal lad had now found his right path of serving his family as well. The generation of our fathers perhaps then followed the same and gave good pressure/lessons on us not to be misguided away.
But then there were other cinemas as well that talked about friends. Golmaal, showed the new clique of Dev Barman and Amol Palekar helping out each other to win over the old, high-educated of his times, and of a rich class, the father--- played by Utappal Dutt. In Namakharam, Amitabh and Rajesh are actually some spoiled brats, trying to seek revenge from poor labour class workmen. The two are all into all so-called misdeeds.
In the most recent of life-theme cinema Udaan, the young boy is about all ‘misdeeds’ and still right in his ways to have snatched away his freedom from his father’s tyranny.
Admire how times have changed and so have the ethos of societies of different era.
How much ‘spoiled’ then is the spoiled guy of today, the sex-MMS-crazy generation?
How bad is Gaurav and how bad am I?
Truely bad, I say because, to have gone for an arranged marriage in the contemporary ethos is all about being living in-between, half in the ethos of our father’s times, and half to have enjoyed the pleasures of the modern metropolitan city’s times.
In today’s clique, there are friends- none so leading, and none so following to live under somebody’s fold. They are all so much competing even in their close friendship. They each represent and standout for what their ethos are. Ethos in these days of un-predictable economy recession is not at all about the economic well-being, about their hometown, about their school, about their college-degree, etc.
People of all background are often seen mingling with each other. The outspoken-ness is the more appreciated value. To speak it right there and promptly. These are the days of gender mixing. The adulthood of the second or third generation of co-ed school goers. The parents are thus very ‘understanding’ at times. They (incidently that includes myself too) are financially safe, most of them. And then, the money don’t matter as much. The girls don’t matter in the way of friendship.
These are the times of how many girlfriends or how many boyfriends did you have. Or you had atleast one at all or not? The generation seeks pleasure most of the times. In alcohols, in having premarital affairs, and then in getting over the love affairs through finding the next one, in pleasure-trips, in the “weekends”(which is about having office party, or a date, or a lovemaking session, or a multiplex movie, ). The ethos of the recent past are nearly gone which were perhaps like, the rich and the poor, the urban or the rural, the virtuous and the depraved druggist. What has emerged is the resultant of the conflicting ethos of the recent past, as a new evolutionary product. Thus, now everyone drinks, likes to go party, likes to have a love partner, and the economic status is not so much accounted for. There are only the financially-independents who can afford their own multiplex tickets, or the pleasure trips. There are no high achievers and the low achievers. Only the qualified ones, because the “markets” ( that includes, the share markets, the job market, the Opportunity’s loco-position) can its own game any day any time to swing fortunes. There are no urbans and rurals—everybody speaks English, likes English-cum-Hindi music and cinema. Everybody swear foul words. Everybody reads English newspaper, and the Sunday reviews and the sarcasm-filled articles in them. Humour is the new mode- the more fresh and new, the more trendy. Everybody has all that forwarded joke mails, and the inspirational mail, and the informative email, and all those SMSes.
But that doesn’t mean that this new culture is villain free.
Who are its bad boys, then?
Sachin’s captaincy dilemma
Yesterday’s cricket match (the IPL-3 Finals) saw some interesting turnaround. The biggest was the arrival of batsman Kevin Pollard who had almost singlehanded turned the face of the match—almost. But a clever captaincy work by skipper MS Dhoni brought an unpardonable end to that spectacular work of Pollard as also save the match for Dhoni’s team.
Many people have wondered as to why Tendulkar did not put Pollard on the crease before. Pollard came just at the last few moments when there was too much to be done in too less a time. What were we expecting, ? or what did tendulkar want from Pollard? – to do a magic of scoring so many in so less balls?!
Well, this is one captaincy decision I would want to put to diagnosis at this hour. What could have been the strategy of Tendulkar for holding back Pollard for so long a time? Was he working on ‘Saving the best for the last’? Well, I maintain that it was not a wrong philosophy given the chronic Indian problem of seeing the departure of entire batting order once the star batsman is scalped. Tendulkar had a wrist injury before the match and was quite unfit for the game. However he did make his appearance, perhaps under tremendous pressure from his fan and the media and his club owners.
This entire saga of calling upon Sachin to play it on again did what the entire Indian team has been suffering for so long a time. Made *him* the star member of his team. This might have, at least, psychologically dwarfed the thoughtfulness of the rest of the members besides diminishing their performance. Tendulkar knew it was the Big Match. And there must been tremendous pressure all over.
Taking lessons from the past, may be it was not a wrong strategy to hold back Pollard for as long as the captain could so that the former could extract the maximum out of the other batsmen he had. Weakness of pollard is quite obvious,- that of succumbing to spinners. Chennai Super Kings never had dearth of good spinners- Muthaih Murlidharan and R Ashwin. Sending pollard early had a good chance of dooming the maximum output of one good reliable performer for almost nothing. U never know when these spinner would have castled him out.
So the Idea, it appears to me, was to use the skill of other batsmen to wear out the overs-count of these spinner while getting the maximum exacted from them, before putting Pollard on job to finish the end work. In the light of these points, the strategy was revolving around saving the wicket –which automatically meant consuming away the spinners’ spell.
What did not work correct in the above is the performance of rest of the batsmen who were suppose to consume away these overs while also scoring acceptable runs in between. There seemed to be less motivation and more pressure on them. This started from the point that they had conceded a little too many runs in the last half of the opponent’s batting. The morale must have gone low.
Matches of these high order are just not about luck and chance, and inferior skills at all. They are more about the anxiety problem- of delivering the high performance against the high stresses and pressure. The players all were highly skilled which is why they could reach to the finals. But what made the deliverance in the finals low is the question I am trying to diagnose.
What was required of them to keep the pressure low? A batman’s grip on the handle of his bat is just not about his habit of holding it. The power the bat wields comes from the state of mind the batsman is in. The shots begins to go weak when the state of mind is low.
Tendulkar’s captaincy has shown this trouble many times in the past, when he was leading the Indian squad. Perhaps the behaviour of him versus many other truly well-achieving captains, which would include Dhoni also in the list, can show some underlying reasons for this trouble. Perhaps his god-like image in Indian masses and media is what is making the difference. And perhaps how he views himself among all this respect and reverence is what we need to search out.
Communication, in my opinion, would be holding key to how the psychology would be rolling making all that difference between the winner and the loser. How is Tendulkar’s sense of humor.? How easy and lose is his day today talk. Does he talk and abuse the way a normal person does in his day today life? Does he blabber and chatter and curses like the way we do? Does the message go correct in a low-pressured psyche from his mouth and tone like it happens from other captains.
One problem of Mr Arun Govil who played the role of Lord Ram is the famous tele serial of yesteryears , Ramayan, was that even in his day today life he was expected to be as pious and good natured, well spoken as was the character he was playing on screen. In fact in the real story also Lord Ram has lost out his wife to a second vanprasth for a no good reason of fulfilling a dhobi’s interrogation. In return, Krishna has been quite a better achiever with all that hooky-poky acts of him and those theories which we today know as the Bhagvad Gita.
The adrenaline begins of subside away on hearing the story of Lord Ram as against hearing about Lord Krishna.
Given these subtle difference, may I suggest that Tendulakar should re-assign himself as an advisor to the captain than thinking of leading himself. The dirtiness and mean-ness of the captain goes some good measure to confirm to us that he is as common, and one amongst us to say or suggest something extra ordinary. He proves his high standards by his bat not by his extra-gentle nature.
Many people have wondered as to why Tendulkar did not put Pollard on the crease before. Pollard came just at the last few moments when there was too much to be done in too less a time. What were we expecting, ? or what did tendulkar want from Pollard? – to do a magic of scoring so many in so less balls?!
Well, this is one captaincy decision I would want to put to diagnosis at this hour. What could have been the strategy of Tendulkar for holding back Pollard for so long a time? Was he working on ‘Saving the best for the last’? Well, I maintain that it was not a wrong philosophy given the chronic Indian problem of seeing the departure of entire batting order once the star batsman is scalped. Tendulkar had a wrist injury before the match and was quite unfit for the game. However he did make his appearance, perhaps under tremendous pressure from his fan and the media and his club owners.
This entire saga of calling upon Sachin to play it on again did what the entire Indian team has been suffering for so long a time. Made *him* the star member of his team. This might have, at least, psychologically dwarfed the thoughtfulness of the rest of the members besides diminishing their performance. Tendulkar knew it was the Big Match. And there must been tremendous pressure all over.
Taking lessons from the past, may be it was not a wrong strategy to hold back Pollard for as long as the captain could so that the former could extract the maximum out of the other batsmen he had. Weakness of pollard is quite obvious,- that of succumbing to spinners. Chennai Super Kings never had dearth of good spinners- Muthaih Murlidharan and R Ashwin. Sending pollard early had a good chance of dooming the maximum output of one good reliable performer for almost nothing. U never know when these spinner would have castled him out.
So the Idea, it appears to me, was to use the skill of other batsmen to wear out the overs-count of these spinner while getting the maximum exacted from them, before putting Pollard on job to finish the end work. In the light of these points, the strategy was revolving around saving the wicket –which automatically meant consuming away the spinners’ spell.
What did not work correct in the above is the performance of rest of the batsmen who were suppose to consume away these overs while also scoring acceptable runs in between. There seemed to be less motivation and more pressure on them. This started from the point that they had conceded a little too many runs in the last half of the opponent’s batting. The morale must have gone low.
Matches of these high order are just not about luck and chance, and inferior skills at all. They are more about the anxiety problem- of delivering the high performance against the high stresses and pressure. The players all were highly skilled which is why they could reach to the finals. But what made the deliverance in the finals low is the question I am trying to diagnose.
What was required of them to keep the pressure low? A batman’s grip on the handle of his bat is just not about his habit of holding it. The power the bat wields comes from the state of mind the batsman is in. The shots begins to go weak when the state of mind is low.
Tendulkar’s captaincy has shown this trouble many times in the past, when he was leading the Indian squad. Perhaps the behaviour of him versus many other truly well-achieving captains, which would include Dhoni also in the list, can show some underlying reasons for this trouble. Perhaps his god-like image in Indian masses and media is what is making the difference. And perhaps how he views himself among all this respect and reverence is what we need to search out.
Communication, in my opinion, would be holding key to how the psychology would be rolling making all that difference between the winner and the loser. How is Tendulkar’s sense of humor.? How easy and lose is his day today talk. Does he talk and abuse the way a normal person does in his day today life? Does he blabber and chatter and curses like the way we do? Does the message go correct in a low-pressured psyche from his mouth and tone like it happens from other captains.
One problem of Mr Arun Govil who played the role of Lord Ram is the famous tele serial of yesteryears , Ramayan, was that even in his day today life he was expected to be as pious and good natured, well spoken as was the character he was playing on screen. In fact in the real story also Lord Ram has lost out his wife to a second vanprasth for a no good reason of fulfilling a dhobi’s interrogation. In return, Krishna has been quite a better achiever with all that hooky-poky acts of him and those theories which we today know as the Bhagvad Gita.
The adrenaline begins of subside away on hearing the story of Lord Ram as against hearing about Lord Krishna.
Given these subtle difference, may I suggest that Tendulakar should re-assign himself as an advisor to the captain than thinking of leading himself. The dirtiness and mean-ness of the captain goes some good measure to confirm to us that he is as common, and one amongst us to say or suggest something extra ordinary. He proves his high standards by his bat not by his extra-gentle nature.
God and Karma - on the popular opinion about them
reference the blog : http://niceguy251.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-there-god.html
Good blog, all the more for people's review it has received.
But i wonder if this s a correct menifestation of the episode. I mean i feel it is a little biased work. The phone calls of Devina do not say for sure that there is another person in her life! Or that the person lives close to her house that she wants to go there, or lives near to Atul's place that she wants to escape away?!
The cause for her conduct is not much known.
The comments on your write up show that most people believe in god and karma. But they believe that only your karma impact your life. I often doubt that. Other's Karma also impact your life. And karma is all about you good conduct, and not about intelligent choices made in the past or to be made in future to correct a mistake of past. (like Mr Singh chose wrong person, Devina, for Atul/ Now they can dump her - a new intelligent Karma- to correct that incorrect Karma of past)
Karma alone do not matter.
What i conclude is that Karma seems to be popularly interpreted as something like conduct/behaviour or close to this word.
Does the event of Choosing /Decision-making come in the purview of Karma.?? A good karma person - is he destined to make a good decision in life?! Karma , in this case, is fetching him abundant Sympathy of public, but not helping him to decide good.
So what would be a more accurate meaning of Karma ??!
HOw did the question of god arise in all this? and question of his existence.?! I guess i am agnostic, more or less.
Good blog, all the more for people's review it has received.
But i wonder if this s a correct menifestation of the episode. I mean i feel it is a little biased work. The phone calls of Devina do not say for sure that there is another person in her life! Or that the person lives close to her house that she wants to go there, or lives near to Atul's place that she wants to escape away?!
The cause for her conduct is not much known.
The comments on your write up show that most people believe in god and karma. But they believe that only your karma impact your life. I often doubt that. Other's Karma also impact your life. And karma is all about you good conduct, and not about intelligent choices made in the past or to be made in future to correct a mistake of past. (like Mr Singh chose wrong person, Devina, for Atul/ Now they can dump her - a new intelligent Karma- to correct that incorrect Karma of past)
Karma alone do not matter.
What i conclude is that Karma seems to be popularly interpreted as something like conduct/behaviour or close to this word.
Does the event of Choosing /Decision-making come in the purview of Karma.?? A good karma person - is he destined to make a good decision in life?! Karma , in this case, is fetching him abundant Sympathy of public, but not helping him to decide good.
So what would be a more accurate meaning of Karma ??!
HOw did the question of god arise in all this? and question of his existence.?! I guess i am agnostic, more or less.
Aftermath of 3-IDIOTS
3-Idiots has been criticised basically for being another theatrical work to do a system-bashing. It has drifted too far away from real-life menifestations of system defects.
Perhaps nobody ever listed what he felt was short in education system by his experiences.
Here is a list of shortcomings in education style and system which i would like to greive about:
1. Education has become a substitue for farming, in India. It means: people have given-up agriculture as the basic profession for living and taken to doing other services. Then they invest these revenues into education of their children , which are equivalent of a crop, and schools being their farmlands, and the cash-crops (the children) are harvested(give good monetary returns) after they attain maturity( land into another good job-- as softy engg, docs, IAS/IPS, and so on).
2. The farmlands (the schools) have opened up in plenty and produce only the most yielding produce( that is, only what is popular in the society-- the Soft Engg, the Medicos, the MN Officers, the air pilots,IAS/IPS/IFS ,and so on).
3. During the growth years of the cash-crops, they are very much a protected being-- like no mobiles, no internet, no digi gadgets, no cable tv, no social functions of parents kin, etc.
4. The child is often a cut-away, isolated person, given a separate room, given the best of boks and monetary resource only to the extent of 'understandbly good for his development'.
5. His school-earned education on many occasion is in contrast with his domestic environment. Therefore he is built to survive in dual education models, both models 180deg to each other. Like, he is well-educated but still believes in supremacy of caste, takes his decision on the basis of the old village-taught sayings. His own critical mind cannot be worked in his domestic front.
He believes in astrology, numerology, and much more without enquiring into basic theories on these.
6. Philosophical extracts of the lessons taught in school are never considered and preserved.
7. Life is made to look different in books and in reality. No efforts to bring real-life simple problems of maths , say even finding the area or volume, into practical work. People do not even write books(or blogs) narrating their personal experiences, and neither do the students like to read such book, to begin diagnosing problems of real life.
8. The village schools are distance away from what the urbans are taught and trained to think.
9. Business sense is never promoted. One subject is shown to be better than another. Like Science better than biology, better than commerce, better than arts.
10. Amalgamation of arts , science and commerce --as a real-life constituents of life is not started early in life. After years of study into sciences, many researchers still think of doing a job and dont feel the need to comercialise their research; the researches of sciences are least taken for artistic work by a scientist to answer the problems of real life.
11. Laws, society, ethics -- have to be self-trained, not derived from the subjects people study in school.
Perhaps nobody ever listed what he felt was short in education system by his experiences.
Here is a list of shortcomings in education style and system which i would like to greive about:
1. Education has become a substitue for farming, in India. It means: people have given-up agriculture as the basic profession for living and taken to doing other services. Then they invest these revenues into education of their children , which are equivalent of a crop, and schools being their farmlands, and the cash-crops (the children) are harvested(give good monetary returns) after they attain maturity( land into another good job-- as softy engg, docs, IAS/IPS, and so on).
2. The farmlands (the schools) have opened up in plenty and produce only the most yielding produce( that is, only what is popular in the society-- the Soft Engg, the Medicos, the MN Officers, the air pilots,IAS/IPS/IFS ,and so on).
3. During the growth years of the cash-crops, they are very much a protected being-- like no mobiles, no internet, no digi gadgets, no cable tv, no social functions of parents kin, etc.
4. The child is often a cut-away, isolated person, given a separate room, given the best of boks and monetary resource only to the extent of 'understandbly good for his development'.
5. His school-earned education on many occasion is in contrast with his domestic environment. Therefore he is built to survive in dual education models, both models 180deg to each other. Like, he is well-educated but still believes in supremacy of caste, takes his decision on the basis of the old village-taught sayings. His own critical mind cannot be worked in his domestic front.
He believes in astrology, numerology, and much more without enquiring into basic theories on these.
6. Philosophical extracts of the lessons taught in school are never considered and preserved.
7. Life is made to look different in books and in reality. No efforts to bring real-life simple problems of maths , say even finding the area or volume, into practical work. People do not even write books(or blogs) narrating their personal experiences, and neither do the students like to read such book, to begin diagnosing problems of real life.
8. The village schools are distance away from what the urbans are taught and trained to think.
9. Business sense is never promoted. One subject is shown to be better than another. Like Science better than biology, better than commerce, better than arts.
10. Amalgamation of arts , science and commerce --as a real-life constituents of life is not started early in life. After years of study into sciences, many researchers still think of doing a job and dont feel the need to comercialise their research; the researches of sciences are least taken for artistic work by a scientist to answer the problems of real life.
11. Laws, society, ethics -- have to be self-trained, not derived from the subjects people study in school.
Critical view of movie 3-IDIOTS
Critical view of movie 3-Idiots
i saw it too, and i must say i do NOT approve it as much, surely after being through the groundwork book on this, FPS. God's grace that chetan didnot pursue hirnani and team for too long to claim his commendation, because the movie is much off his work and also the movie is not at all as intelligent in nature as was what chetan has composed. And most of all, the movie is very fictitious in nature to be sensed by human intelligence, more by making a theme line of bashing the education system, whereas the book sounds more realistic to appeal to the reader and surely by not highlighting any particular item on the writer's whim but describing a course of life/lives where mistakes vaciliate sides moment by moment.
I Wish that indian masses could understand the same someday
The movie should not have used the reference of that wonderful book to garner commendations for itself. In its independence self, the movie is nothing but another run-of-the-mill bollywood movies which fails to show the depth, causes, exact nature and realistic menifestations of Systemic errors, although it hovers around the same stuff to draw its patrons. In one sense it is like a mithun chakraworty work which almost always depict the rich oppressing the poor, and that too by way of physical hitting, abusing etc and poor to be right always. ! they are highly biased work. In 3-idiots, the plight of the professors is nothing too different, and they have been literally ridiculed as though they are the antagonist of good education system, or they have never contributed anything to what our system has achieved even after its several faults. The critics have cast big question on that and i would want to support them.
In another reference, it raises questions about the intellect and abilities of our film makers also, apart from our public. The citizens are going to be as good as its art-workers would be, the latter who feed the good thoughts and imagination of a big crowd in one go. The under-ability of filmmaker to understand and inability to send the right and balanced message through the art of cinema will become cause for depredation of high intellect work in Indian society. I am concerned about that. The book was not all about the bad education system, but also about some students taking the depravement out of their own inter-influence and becoming another bad lot, while agreeing that system was no good either and hence merit of the high performing students that this bad system produced also being questionable (about what have they contributed to nation-building). The movie makers have slipped away that big point, thus taking the movie into the realms of fantasy work, which the bollywood is infamous for.
Thankyou. :D
i saw it too, and i must say i do NOT approve it as much, surely after being through the groundwork book on this, FPS. God's grace that chetan didnot pursue hirnani and team for too long to claim his commendation, because the movie is much off his work and also the movie is not at all as intelligent in nature as was what chetan has composed. And most of all, the movie is very fictitious in nature to be sensed by human intelligence, more by making a theme line of bashing the education system, whereas the book sounds more realistic to appeal to the reader and surely by not highlighting any particular item on the writer's whim but describing a course of life/lives where mistakes vaciliate sides moment by moment.
I Wish that indian masses could understand the same someday
The movie should not have used the reference of that wonderful book to garner commendations for itself. In its independence self, the movie is nothing but another run-of-the-mill bollywood movies which fails to show the depth, causes, exact nature and realistic menifestations of Systemic errors, although it hovers around the same stuff to draw its patrons. In one sense it is like a mithun chakraworty work which almost always depict the rich oppressing the poor, and that too by way of physical hitting, abusing etc and poor to be right always. ! they are highly biased work. In 3-idiots, the plight of the professors is nothing too different, and they have been literally ridiculed as though they are the antagonist of good education system, or they have never contributed anything to what our system has achieved even after its several faults. The critics have cast big question on that and i would want to support them.
In another reference, it raises questions about the intellect and abilities of our film makers also, apart from our public. The citizens are going to be as good as its art-workers would be, the latter who feed the good thoughts and imagination of a big crowd in one go. The under-ability of filmmaker to understand and inability to send the right and balanced message through the art of cinema will become cause for depredation of high intellect work in Indian society. I am concerned about that. The book was not all about the bad education system, but also about some students taking the depravement out of their own inter-influence and becoming another bad lot, while agreeing that system was no good either and hence merit of the high performing students that this bad system produced also being questionable (about what have they contributed to nation-building). The movie makers have slipped away that big point, thus taking the movie into the realms of fantasy work, which the bollywood is infamous for.
Thankyou. :D
A ship for scrap 26th Oct 2009
Front Vanadis , a VLCC, is to be prepared for her scrap from today onwards. It is an emotional moment for me, although i don’t know why. Entire set of ‘procedures’ described to me by my captain appear to be some kind of ‘rituals’ to be done before a person is set to die. The items to be off’landed, the number of men to remain on board, and the number of men stay with her in her final hours, it all appeared like the family has to detach away as the old will finally complete rites towards his death.
It reminded me of my most wonderful days i have lived some 10 years ago on my favourite ship “State of Andhra Pradesh”. I was a cadet there, and the only one. No, she didn’t scrap away in my times, but helped me feel that there was a life and a spirit to every ship. And that, this spirit of every ship lived in its cadet’s cabin, while it’s Master commanded it. ‘Speak Father’ ...,’i wait thy orders’ echoed in my ears from one old poem Casabianca.
We had five families on board, (by family we seafareres usually mean mean-- officers with their wives and children) and two kids. During my tenure only one child and total five families stayed, while the other kid and family left away. Most staff were aged people of yesteryears of shipping industries, when the world of shipping moved almost without the government rules. Or that the government had been busy stealing powers from the people who were keeping it captives with themselves before the Governments were even born in most nations of earth. And even in the process of power transfer, the power was continuously emanating its hot tricks creating new centres, and then melting them away sometimes. For example, the old timer Bosum Mr Abdul Serang, from Ratnagiri , was reminding me of how he was picked up for the job of a DUH (the new apprentice deck sweeper, a rank discontinued now) long long ago. The Bosuns then, had the authority to pick up its crew from all the applicants around in the job market. And surely his terms and criteria for selection would be such as who are going to obey his orders so that those seamen find an employment for themselves. There were no government ‘certifications’ or ‘training’ for the job, or control on selection. Today, bosun himself is a selectee from all the ‘governement-certified’ seamen we have on board. His powers are almost lost, as he exerts no authority over his own crew. So is the story of the master of a merchant ship.
He is no more that ‘old man’ with an unaccounted reserve of ‘power’ by which he would decide-- whether to employ a man or not, to let a man live or kill him, there and then, avoiding the need to handle his corpse after he is killed by making him stand on the ‘bulwark’ of ‘HIS SHIP’ !!!. The master is no more a ‘king owner’ but merely a ‘government certified’ person ‘employed’ as a ‘mere’ ‘powerless’ ‘agent’ of some ‘tightly regulated’ ‘company’ controlled by semi-B—school educated, non-seafaring, graduates who are accustomed only to watching some stock market quotes, and creating some hysteria about their jobs among rest of the people of this planet!!!!
The powerful communication technology has stolen away the last bits of feathers from the masters arms by which he could control or exercise his authority. The government has made a puppet of him, who has least authority to exert any control over other crew, who are also ‘government certified’.
Hail boy, but i am not unhappy with all this. In fact i am more than happy that better justice can now be achieved because the arbitrariness of a Master’s discretion has ended now. The intellectualism has found means to find some way onto seas and un-tethered merchant ships. A centre of power without any accountability has seen the end of its era. The humanitarianism has found its way.
But the spirit of a ship has also lost its value in the eyes of all. It is only a lifeless commodity now. There are no emotions to scrapping a ship which would soon be ‘ she lived once’. She will all be gone and forgotten, even by its own sailors who sailed on its once in her young years. The small scale engineering models in the company offices, and the photographs of it will only remind of what unregulated life there was once, while each day passes away with a little more tightened noose on the life of professionals everywhere-- the seafarers, the doctors, the softies or whatever.
Well, the people also need to learn to live without power, and under the control of the ‘all-powerless’ governments. That’s what the new order of administration is about.
Surprisingly the mutinies and insurgencies still happen to this world, even when everything seems to be moving towards the era of powerlessness and democratisation.
(13th jan 2010)
A vessel for scarp has some very amazing events happening on it. One wonderful situation, a legal complication, happening there is about confusion on ownership of the articles on the ship. As a trade practice, a ship is sold to the scrap dealers mostly basis the prevailing scrap iron prices. Therefore, no matter how much the ship’s equipment will worth in the second-hand market, the scrap dealer purchases all of them including the ship from its last owners in price of their weight. This deal is usually done on “as is where is” basis, worked through the deadweight of the vessel. The ship owner hands over the inventory of articles as he possesses them from ship’s staff to the new owners- the scrap merchant. Scrap merchant surely knows in advance that all ships have to have certain item on them as a statutory obligation. Therefore, no person can take them away until he takes custody of his goods.
What about the other smaller items like- computers, binoculars, photocopiers, other office machines, cabin privileges-- TV, DVD, etc.?! Where is the official and authentic record, an inventory, of their presence on board./?
The ship staff, in these hours, understand that they can pick any of these items by their choice –all for free, until the new owner presents a proof of ownership to the world. There will always be room for a doubtful claim by the ship staff they purchased it second hand from some port.
Here on ship, it all becomes as game of political challenge as to who takes away what, going by his rank. It is all free-for-all sale, and the might begins to matter. If the master of the vessel also decides to join the feast than surely he becomes a big time gainer. In the situation which i witnessed, the crew member who were from the scrap yard port city were the biggest gainers, and all for reason that they would face least trouble in transporting to home even the biggest of the items they pick up. It was turning out to be a game of who’s who on ship.
Then i got thinking on the management solution to help this wild state of affairs. But soon i stumbled on the point that infrastructure in these scrap cities is too poor to organise a good market for this second hand ship items. How will the scrap merchant-cum-new-owner organise caretaking for his property? Will the benefits really be able to reach to the persons who are the rightful heir to them? Chittagong is just in the process of making good policies for a safe process of vessel scrapping their territory. The commercial issue are still too distant to be taken, i feel.
And then how will the arguments unfold around the ownership claims for the small items,? Will it not be a sea-farers right over them, even a dime, despite being the caretaker for the items, till they arrive for their last rites!? Will they not be at the mercy of the last group of seamen who would be working with them, to leave them intact or leave them destroyed. So, why would the seamen not claim their share from this, apart from all other benefits/compensations which their companies give to them.
For once, i think they would not be in the wrong to do their last feast.! What say, the legal minds!?
Front Vanadis , a VLCC, is to be prepared for her scrap from today onwards. It is an emotional moment for me, although i don’t know why. Entire set of ‘procedures’ described to me by my captain appear to be some kind of ‘rituals’ to be done before a person is set to die. The items to be off’landed, the number of men to remain on board, and the number of men stay with her in her final hours, it all appeared like the family has to detach away as the old will finally complete rites towards his death.
It reminded me of my most wonderful days i have lived some 10 years ago on my favourite ship “State of Andhra Pradesh”. I was a cadet there, and the only one. No, she didn’t scrap away in my times, but helped me feel that there was a life and a spirit to every ship. And that, this spirit of every ship lived in its cadet’s cabin, while it’s Master commanded it. ‘Speak Father’ ...,’i wait thy orders’ echoed in my ears from one old poem Casabianca.
We had five families on board, (by family we seafareres usually mean mean-- officers with their wives and children) and two kids. During my tenure only one child and total five families stayed, while the other kid and family left away. Most staff were aged people of yesteryears of shipping industries, when the world of shipping moved almost without the government rules. Or that the government had been busy stealing powers from the people who were keeping it captives with themselves before the Governments were even born in most nations of earth. And even in the process of power transfer, the power was continuously emanating its hot tricks creating new centres, and then melting them away sometimes. For example, the old timer Bosum Mr Abdul Serang, from Ratnagiri , was reminding me of how he was picked up for the job of a DUH (the new apprentice deck sweeper, a rank discontinued now) long long ago. The Bosuns then, had the authority to pick up its crew from all the applicants around in the job market. And surely his terms and criteria for selection would be such as who are going to obey his orders so that those seamen find an employment for themselves. There were no government ‘certifications’ or ‘training’ for the job, or control on selection. Today, bosun himself is a selectee from all the ‘governement-certified’ seamen we have on board. His powers are almost lost, as he exerts no authority over his own crew. So is the story of the master of a merchant ship.
He is no more that ‘old man’ with an unaccounted reserve of ‘power’ by which he would decide-- whether to employ a man or not, to let a man live or kill him, there and then, avoiding the need to handle his corpse after he is killed by making him stand on the ‘bulwark’ of ‘HIS SHIP’ !!!. The master is no more a ‘king owner’ but merely a ‘government certified’ person ‘employed’ as a ‘mere’ ‘powerless’ ‘agent’ of some ‘tightly regulated’ ‘company’ controlled by semi-B—school educated, non-seafaring, graduates who are accustomed only to watching some stock market quotes, and creating some hysteria about their jobs among rest of the people of this planet!!!!
The powerful communication technology has stolen away the last bits of feathers from the masters arms by which he could control or exercise his authority. The government has made a puppet of him, who has least authority to exert any control over other crew, who are also ‘government certified’.
Hail boy, but i am not unhappy with all this. In fact i am more than happy that better justice can now be achieved because the arbitrariness of a Master’s discretion has ended now. The intellectualism has found means to find some way onto seas and un-tethered merchant ships. A centre of power without any accountability has seen the end of its era. The humanitarianism has found its way.
But the spirit of a ship has also lost its value in the eyes of all. It is only a lifeless commodity now. There are no emotions to scrapping a ship which would soon be ‘ she lived once’. She will all be gone and forgotten, even by its own sailors who sailed on its once in her young years. The small scale engineering models in the company offices, and the photographs of it will only remind of what unregulated life there was once, while each day passes away with a little more tightened noose on the life of professionals everywhere-- the seafarers, the doctors, the softies or whatever.
Well, the people also need to learn to live without power, and under the control of the ‘all-powerless’ governments. That’s what the new order of administration is about.
Surprisingly the mutinies and insurgencies still happen to this world, even when everything seems to be moving towards the era of powerlessness and democratisation.
(13th jan 2010)
A vessel for scarp has some very amazing events happening on it. One wonderful situation, a legal complication, happening there is about confusion on ownership of the articles on the ship. As a trade practice, a ship is sold to the scrap dealers mostly basis the prevailing scrap iron prices. Therefore, no matter how much the ship’s equipment will worth in the second-hand market, the scrap dealer purchases all of them including the ship from its last owners in price of their weight. This deal is usually done on “as is where is” basis, worked through the deadweight of the vessel. The ship owner hands over the inventory of articles as he possesses them from ship’s staff to the new owners- the scrap merchant. Scrap merchant surely knows in advance that all ships have to have certain item on them as a statutory obligation. Therefore, no person can take them away until he takes custody of his goods.
What about the other smaller items like- computers, binoculars, photocopiers, other office machines, cabin privileges-- TV, DVD, etc.?! Where is the official and authentic record, an inventory, of their presence on board./?
The ship staff, in these hours, understand that they can pick any of these items by their choice –all for free, until the new owner presents a proof of ownership to the world. There will always be room for a doubtful claim by the ship staff they purchased it second hand from some port.
Here on ship, it all becomes as game of political challenge as to who takes away what, going by his rank. It is all free-for-all sale, and the might begins to matter. If the master of the vessel also decides to join the feast than surely he becomes a big time gainer. In the situation which i witnessed, the crew member who were from the scrap yard port city were the biggest gainers, and all for reason that they would face least trouble in transporting to home even the biggest of the items they pick up. It was turning out to be a game of who’s who on ship.
Then i got thinking on the management solution to help this wild state of affairs. But soon i stumbled on the point that infrastructure in these scrap cities is too poor to organise a good market for this second hand ship items. How will the scrap merchant-cum-new-owner organise caretaking for his property? Will the benefits really be able to reach to the persons who are the rightful heir to them? Chittagong is just in the process of making good policies for a safe process of vessel scrapping their territory. The commercial issue are still too distant to be taken, i feel.
And then how will the arguments unfold around the ownership claims for the small items,? Will it not be a sea-farers right over them, even a dime, despite being the caretaker for the items, till they arrive for their last rites!? Will they not be at the mercy of the last group of seamen who would be working with them, to leave them intact or leave them destroyed. So, why would the seamen not claim their share from this, apart from all other benefits/compensations which their companies give to them.
For once, i think they would not be in the wrong to do their last feast.! What say, the legal minds!?
My thoughts on the Discretionary Powers conferred on shipmasters by SOLAS
Reference the link/post below:
http://anujvelu.blogspot.com/2010/01/ais-internet-interfacing-dangers.html#links
Hello Sir. So, a nice self-examining post. The risk assessment for a new, upcoming event, huh?
Anyways, to help matters, let me just cross it a little bit, and that would also make the exercise a little more interesting,:-
It seems to me that the theories on Security systems and policing are based on the lines that an innocent man has nothing to fear and therefore nothing to hide.Infact it is as much possible and easy, a child's play, to create scenarios whereby not having an open system AIS-system could also be shown to be leading to incidents.Yes, anyone can do that.
But as i say the premise of secuirty and therefore the allied businesses in today's world is coming from the point - nothing-to-fear-and-hide, and thus the transperency demand; opacity is being dispensed away with, unless it can be sufficiently proven that opacity is severly needed to help the matters.
Private spaces have already been breached. From mobile phones cameras, to security cameras, to the frisking activity, to the human body scanners at airport, to evesdropping by police...where is the private space left?!?! And that's what the modern world is.It is very important to amend the mental understanding of such issues these days to soothen our own selves and adapt better.
I say that the word "disceretion" is another most misunderstood concept in Indian minds. We believe it is some unlimited, unquestionable power which cannot be challenged!
It is one very important place where the government and sea-farer's education systems should do maximum amends to bring about erradication of arguments from many of those poeple who ask "Making the master responsible is making a scape goat of him,( OR else make Discretiionery Powers unquestionable) ."
Discretion, in law is understood as something very basic of a decision making, without which human life cannot move. We all have some kind of discretionery powers for our day-to-day works too: for e.g What time you slept and Why only that, What colour you like and why only that,..etc.
Surely these are very much personalised decisions and we would not like anyone to question us about it. Same way, the SOLAS accords this power to masters only on matters related to Secuirty and Safety. For others matters it expects an already document plan on which the masters should act. The catch is that the masters, who are coming from un-powerful("powerless", candidly telling,) rural (and/or subservient) background see this as an issue of authority to impose oneself on another and thereby exericse the 'discretionary powers' without sufficient exploring the other paths (which in truth also exist for most the secuirty and safety related matters as well,) or may be strong rigid grounds for exercising the power. If the situation demanding the use of Discretion can be broken down to so simple question where discretions can be easily applied than they can survive the onslaught on law after they have exercised it.
But the practical scenario is that most cases demanding discretion cannot be broken down easily--in the limited time,rescource,space -situation when masters have to do this. thus, they slip away doing what is their cultural practice or I say --a cultural error..or wrongfully acting away.
Masters and infact all officers and officers-in-making should, right from their training years, begin to understand that indeed in the big legal world out there, no body takes 'responsibility' or leaves his bill "unclaused and clean". They necessarily put some clause or constraint on it. Then, why should a Master or any other officer ever demand or bother or take efforts to apply discretion whereby he takes away the 'responsibilty' or calling something that he did on his own accord, to be the right thing!!! It is very important that all seafarers and management thinkers begin to take notice of the point that in modern world actions happen on 'advise' from somebody or something while that somebody claims not to assume any responsibilty for the correctness of his advise for every case! therefore, there exist a confusion and wise men shuold let the confusion prevail instead of making it one side tilted platter by putting the weight of an exercised-discretion!
With this approach it will be more convenient to face the law than when trying to prove that one's sense of discretion on fundamental matters is better than most others.!
The openess or providing info on net for AIS systems may not be as much hazardous, if we can recall well the final say on that basic debate of school year "Science a good master or a good slave". Well, i remember that the most appealing answer was that:- it's the man's sense of morality that should be questioned, and not the science.
A deep thought on these line-- and i guess it can quench most of the arguments and clashes of our mind.
:-)
http://anujvelu.blogspot.com/2010/01/ais-internet-interfacing-dangers.html#links
Hello Sir. So, a nice self-examining post. The risk assessment for a new, upcoming event, huh?
Anyways, to help matters, let me just cross it a little bit, and that would also make the exercise a little more interesting,:-
It seems to me that the theories on Security systems and policing are based on the lines that an innocent man has nothing to fear and therefore nothing to hide.Infact it is as much possible and easy, a child's play, to create scenarios whereby not having an open system AIS-system could also be shown to be leading to incidents.Yes, anyone can do that.
But as i say the premise of secuirty and therefore the allied businesses in today's world is coming from the point - nothing-to-fear-and-hide, and thus the transperency demand; opacity is being dispensed away with, unless it can be sufficiently proven that opacity is severly needed to help the matters.
Private spaces have already been breached. From mobile phones cameras, to security cameras, to the frisking activity, to the human body scanners at airport, to evesdropping by police...where is the private space left?!?! And that's what the modern world is.It is very important to amend the mental understanding of such issues these days to soothen our own selves and adapt better.
I say that the word "disceretion" is another most misunderstood concept in Indian minds. We believe it is some unlimited, unquestionable power which cannot be challenged!
It is one very important place where the government and sea-farer's education systems should do maximum amends to bring about erradication of arguments from many of those poeple who ask "Making the master responsible is making a scape goat of him,( OR else make Discretiionery Powers unquestionable) ."
Discretion, in law is understood as something very basic of a decision making, without which human life cannot move. We all have some kind of discretionery powers for our day-to-day works too: for e.g What time you slept and Why only that, What colour you like and why only that,..etc.
Surely these are very much personalised decisions and we would not like anyone to question us about it. Same way, the SOLAS accords this power to masters only on matters related to Secuirty and Safety. For others matters it expects an already document plan on which the masters should act. The catch is that the masters, who are coming from un-powerful("powerless", candidly telling,) rural (and/or subservient) background see this as an issue of authority to impose oneself on another and thereby exericse the 'discretionary powers' without sufficient exploring the other paths (which in truth also exist for most the secuirty and safety related matters as well,) or may be strong rigid grounds for exercising the power. If the situation demanding the use of Discretion can be broken down to so simple question where discretions can be easily applied than they can survive the onslaught on law after they have exercised it.
But the practical scenario is that most cases demanding discretion cannot be broken down easily--in the limited time,rescource,space -situation when masters have to do this. thus, they slip away doing what is their cultural practice or I say --a cultural error..or wrongfully acting away.
Masters and infact all officers and officers-in-making should, right from their training years, begin to understand that indeed in the big legal world out there, no body takes 'responsibility' or leaves his bill "unclaused and clean". They necessarily put some clause or constraint on it. Then, why should a Master or any other officer ever demand or bother or take efforts to apply discretion whereby he takes away the 'responsibilty' or calling something that he did on his own accord, to be the right thing!!! It is very important that all seafarers and management thinkers begin to take notice of the point that in modern world actions happen on 'advise' from somebody or something while that somebody claims not to assume any responsibilty for the correctness of his advise for every case! therefore, there exist a confusion and wise men shuold let the confusion prevail instead of making it one side tilted platter by putting the weight of an exercised-discretion!
With this approach it will be more convenient to face the law than when trying to prove that one's sense of discretion on fundamental matters is better than most others.!
The openess or providing info on net for AIS systems may not be as much hazardous, if we can recall well the final say on that basic debate of school year "Science a good master or a good slave". Well, i remember that the most appealing answer was that:- it's the man's sense of morality that should be questioned, and not the science.
A deep thought on these line-- and i guess it can quench most of the arguments and clashes of our mind.
:-)
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