The Company of Master Mariners of India conducted a 2-day Masterclass on the virtual platform on the 27-28th of August 2022. The topic taken was " Difficulties faced in the implementation of MLC”.

Capt. Kaustubh Pradhan, Dy Master CMMI briefed on the purpose of Masterclasswhich is a concentrated effort to give knowledge in a package on the subjects as needed.Capt. Sasikumar, CEO CMMI and Capt. B. K. Jha, Master CMMI welcomed the panelists/ speakers and the gathering.

A large number of key participants from manning offices, maritime institutes, and the sea staff attended the webinar, these included participants from MSC, Seaspan, AESM, ARI, MMTI, TMI, Fleet, Synergy Maritime, MUI,and others.

Capt. M. P. Bhasin, Secretary General CMMIgreeted the participants and shared a few valued inputsnamely on the appointment of PEME doctors in the countries where onedoes not have DG offices, and also gave a heads up on the use of certified translators where required.

Mr. Neti Viswanath, Technical Service Manager, Principal Surveyor, and a Lead Auditor DNVGLthe first speaker of Day 1, covered in his presentation the introduction of MLC/ Background and thereafter briefed on MLCArticles, Titles, and Regulationsstep-by-step.

The next speaker on the Day 1 was Capt. Amol Deshmukh, Proprietor of Aeghiscorp Maritime Ventures LLP, Head of marine claims and insurance, Master Mariner and Advocate, LLM in Maritime Law. His presentation covered "Financial Security under the MLC- P&I perspective and legal challenges”. He explained very extensively Regulation 2.5.2 Abandonment and Regulation 4.2.1 Contractual Claims and the amendments in place with three recently held case studies. An excellent takeaway from his presentation.

On Day 2, Mr. Neti Viswanathcontinued on the remainingparts Titles 4 and 5 of MLC covering the Regulations and amendments, thereafter he briefed on the certification process. His session was concluded with Q&A from the participants followed by interesting assessments.

The next speaker was Adv.(Capt.) Rahul Varma, Founder of Ally Maritime and Legal Services, Mumbai, and CMMI Warden. His presentation covered important aspects, the Criminalization of Seafarers. Briefing on how our hypothesis testing gives participants a good insight intohuman rights compliance on board the vessels.

Highlighting that most of the time local jurisdictions are followed, he covered reasons for criminalization, including very commonly seen pollution, being with huge financial implications. Other reasons he pointed out covered Human right violation. He also shared the ramification when a seafarer is criminalized, and reminded as the saying goes that a seafarer’s mistake is normally taken as a crime.

He projected SRI survey statistics that indicated 91% of seafarers facing criminal charges who needed interpretation services did not receive it and 88% had no idea what their legal rights were.His session was summed up with an interesting Q&A.

The Two Days value added webinar came to an end with appreciation words from Capt. M. P. Bhasin, Secretary General CMMI, thanking the panelists and the participants,especially Team(Ms. Swapna & Mr. Pritam)from Vancouver / Seaspan, and Ms. Saleha/ MUI from Turkey.