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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Choked JNPA’s relief for containers

Mumbai : The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) – which handles nearly 50 pc of India’s container traffic – announced a slew of measures bringing relief to exporters whose containers remain stuck, choking up the port in the wake of the Gulf War.   JNPA Chairperson Gaurav Daya along with top officers and stakeholders are monitoring the situation 24x7 and has given relief by way of 100 pc waivers of ground rent/dwell-time charges.   An estimated 3,250-plus containers bound for different...

Choked JNPA’s relief for containers

Mumbai : The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) – which handles nearly 50 pc of India’s container traffic – announced a slew of measures bringing relief to exporters whose containers remain stuck, choking up the port in the wake of the Gulf War.   JNPA Chairperson Gaurav Daya along with top officers and stakeholders are monitoring the situation 24x7 and has given relief by way of 100 pc waivers of ground rent/dwell-time charges.   An estimated 3,250-plus containers bound for different countries are stuck at the JNPA, rattling exporters, particularly those laden with perishable food stuffs, medicines and other emergency supplies, worth thousands of crores of rupees.   The waiver charges shall be applicable for 15 days, from midnight of Feb. 28 to midnight of March 14 for all containers lying inside the JNPA Terminals from Feb. 2 or those which had entered its gates till 0700 hrs of March 8, as per a circular issued by JNPA GM (Traffic) Girish Thomas.   “All terminal operators shall waive 80 per cent of the reefer plug in charges up to 15 days to those stranded reefer containers loaded with perishable goods, which were tying inside from Feb. 28 or those or those which had gated in till 0700 hours on March 8 only,” the circular reads.    The JNPA comprises five container terminals – the Nhava Sheva Free Port Terminal (NSFT), Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT), Nhava Sheva India Gateway Terminal (NSIGT), Bharat Mumbai Container Terminal (BMCT), and GTI-APM Terminal (APM). They are operated by a mix of Indian and global port operators, including DP World, PSA International, APM Terminals, and JM Baxi.   The JNPA said it will provide all necessary help and relief as per directives of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPS&W).   Prior to this, the Port and Terminal Operators had already extended relief to the EXIM community which included a facility to store stranded containers in the terminals container yards till the cargo is shipped out.   It engaged in constant consultation with the Customs authorities to facilitate storage of laden containers from other ports destined to the Middle East, as temporary transshipment cargo at JNPA terminals, besides providing additional storage area to the terminals for stacking such extra cargo.

Language Wars

India’s linguistic politics ignited once again when the website of the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India briefly defaulted to Hindi, triggering protests across Tamil Nadu. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin lambasted the state-run insurer for reducing its website to a “propaganda tool for Hindi imposition,” decrying the absence of English as the default language while alleging cultural trampling. LIC quickly issued a clarification, attributing the incident to a “technical problem” but the damage had been done. Leaders from the AIADMK and the state’s Congress unit joined the chorus, accusing New Delhi of linguistic tyranny.

This anti-Hindi outrage is far from isolated. CPI(M) MP from Kerala, John Brittas, recently claimed that treasury bench members received cues to speak in Hindi, undermining the multilingual ethos of the legislature. Such incidents, he claimed, were symptomatic of a broader attempt to elevate Hindi as the de facto national language.


For Tamil Nadu and the southern states, anti-Hindi grievances have a long history. The language agitations of the 1950s and 60s, spearheaded by the Dravidian movement, were driven by fears that Hindi might marginalize Tamil. These protests reshaped India’s linguistic policies, securing the primacy of regional languages in their respective states while maintaining English as a link language. These movements ensured the primacy of regional languages in states while making Hindi and English co-official languages at the national level. Tamil Nadu, in particular, owes its linguistic pride to this legacy of resistance.


Yet, today’s anti-Hindi tirades often appear less about defending Tamil, Telugu or Kannada, and more about consolidating political clout. Leaders like Stalin have transformed the language debate into a rallying cry, portraying New Delhi’s policy measures - such as promoting Hindi in Union government communications - as attacks on federalism. This is disingenuous. Even as they rail against Hindi in public, these same leaders promote English as the lingua franca of aspiration, sidelining their regional tongues in higher education and employment.


This selective zeal for linguistic purity exposes the cracks in their rhetoric. The genuine fear of losing linguistic identity cannot explain why, for instance, Tamil Nadu routinely outsources its state board syllabus to English. Nor does it justify the stark divide in urban and rural educational standards, where fluency in English often determines economic mobility while Tamil is relegated to secondary importance. While Tamil Nadu opposes Hindi in schools, English-medium education thrives unabated, often endorsed by the very politicians decrying Hindi’s proliferation.


Across southern states, regional chauvinism is weaponized against New Delhi’s policies, but seldom against the tide of globalization that sidelines these same regional languages. The selective opposition to Hindi, while enabling English to dominate, undermines their credibility.

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