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By:

Commodore S.L. Deshmukh

31 October 2024 at 8:30:19 am

The Digital Compass at Sea

Electronic chart systems have transformed maritime navigation, but their promise of safer voyages depends on reliable data and rigorous regulatory compliance. The sea has always punished navigational complacency. For centuries, mariners relied on paper charts, manual plotting and accumulated experience to steer vessels through treacherous waters. These methods remain part of maritime tradition, but modern shipping demands a more integrated approach to navigation. The Electronic Chart Display...

The Digital Compass at Sea

Electronic chart systems have transformed maritime navigation, but their promise of safer voyages depends on reliable data and rigorous regulatory compliance. The sea has always punished navigational complacency. For centuries, mariners relied on paper charts, manual plotting and accumulated experience to steer vessels through treacherous waters. These methods remain part of maritime tradition, but modern shipping demands a more integrated approach to navigation. The Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) represents a decisive step in that direction, combining official digital charts with real-time information from a vessel’s navigational sensors. Its growing importance reflects a simple truth: in an industry where a minor navigational error can have catastrophic consequences, better information can make the difference between a safe passage and disaster. ECDIS is not merely a digital version of a paper chart. It is a type-approved navigational information system that displays official Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs) and integrates data from equipment such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), gyrocompass, radar, Automatic Radar Plotting Aid (ARPA), Automatic Identification System (AIS) and echo sounder. By bringing these inputs together, it gives navigators a consolidated picture of the vessel’s position, its surroundings and potential hazards. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) recognises compliant ECDIS, when used with appropriate official chart data, as meeting the relevant chart-carriage requirements under Chapter V of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). The distinction matters: an ordinary electronic display is not necessarily an ECDIS, and the use of unofficial chart data does not confer the same regulatory standing. Beyond Charts The system’s principal advantage lies in its ability to combine information and alert navigators to developing risks. It supports route planning and monitoring, checks proposed routes against configured safety parameters, displays the vessel’s position in real time and generates alarms when specified dangers or deviations are detected. Depending on the equipment and data available, radar, AIS, weather, tidal and other information can also be overlaid on the chart. This integration can reduce the burden of maintaining paper charts and manually plotting a vessel’s position. It can also help crews identify navigational hazards earlier, monitor their progress more efficiently and make better-informed decisions. In commercial shipping, where time, fuel consumption and operational reliability all matter, these benefits extend beyond safety to voyage efficiency. Yet ECDIS should not be mistaken for an autonomous navigator. Its alarms and safety checks depend on correctly configured settings, reliable sensor inputs and accurate chart information. Officers must understand what the system is displaying, recognise its limitations and retain the judgement to challenge misleading or incomplete information. The regulatory framework reflects the importance of getting this right. Under SOLAS Chapter V, ECDIS carriage became mandatory for specified categories of ships through a phased implementation schedule. The requirements cover, among others, new passenger ships of 500 gross tonnage and above and new cargo ships of 3,000 gross tonnage and above, subject to the applicable provisions and ship categories. The charts themselves are equally important. Official ENCs are vector charts produced to International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) standards. ECDIS processes this information into a System Electronic Navigational Chart (SENC), the internal database used by the equipment. Raster Navigational Charts (RNCs), by contrast, are digital images of paper charts. Software maintenance is therefore central to compliance. IHO standards have evolved, and equipment must remain compatible with the applicable requirements. New ECDIS installations have been expected to meet the relevant standards in force at installation, while existing systems require appropriate maintenance and upgrades. IMO guidance, including MSC.1/Circ.1503, has highlighted the importance of keeping ECDIS software properly maintained. Ship operators cannot assume that a system remains compliant simply because it was approved when first installed. Flag administrations and port-state control authorities may identify deficiencies where applicable requirements are not met. Maritime Imperative For India, these requirements carry particular significance. Its commercial shipping fleet operates within an international regulatory environment in which navigational safety, technical compliance and crew competence are inseparable. India has acceded to SOLAS and has used directives issued by the Directorate General of Shipping (DG Shipping) to implement applicable ECDIS carriage requirements. The government has also pursued the incorporation of relevant provisions into the domestic regulatory framework. DG Shipping has invoked Section 406(3) of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, in connection with ECDIS carriage requirements and the conditions attached to statutory certification. Implementation schedules for Indian ships undertaking international voyages have been prescribed, with compliance subject to regulatory oversight. Training is the other indispensable element. Navigational officers serving on ECDIS-equipped vessels must receive the applicable training in accordance with the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), including the Manila amendments of 2010. Officers must be competent in route planning, alarm interpretation, chart management, system limitations and the response to equipment failure. India has an established marine services sector capable of supporting this transition. Companies offer ECDIS upgrades and maintenance alongside services for AIS, anemometers, autopilots, bridge navigational watch alarm systems, compasses, echo sounders and Global Maritime Distress and Safety System equipment. Marine radar servicing, including X-band and S-band systems, and the maintenance of associated electronic equipment are also available across Indian ports and anchorages. Shipowners must ensure that upgrades are undertaken by competent personnel, that equipment remains properly maintained and that the documentation needed for class surveys and port-state inspections is in order. Periodic checks should be treated as an operational necessity rather than an expense to be deferred. ECDIS is most effective when official charts, updated software, dependable sensors, trained officers and disciplined bridge procedures work together. A failure in any one of these elements can compromise the whole arrangement. As shipping becomes more technologically sophisticated, ECDIS is set to remain a central platform for navigation aboard commercial vessels. Its value lies not simply in replacing paper charts, but in helping crews interpret their surroundings, anticipate hazards and manage voyages with greater precision. For India, effective implementation is therefore both a regulatory obligation and a strategic investment in safer shipping. The challenge is to move beyond carriage requirements and ensure continuing operational competence. (The writer is a retired naval aviation officer and defence and a geopolitical analyst. Views personal.)

Why is Mamata Seeing Ghost of Bangladesh?

Writer: Romita Datta
Romita Datta
Aug 27, 2024
4 min read

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Why is Mamata Seeing Ghost of Bangladesh?

Mamata is seeing a ghost of Bangladesh behind the massive outrage and waves of protest over rape and murder of the trainee doctor. And the reasons are many.

It’s been over a fortnight. Yet with each passing day the voice of protest is getting louder and stronger. From the streets of Kolkata it’s pouring into roads of hinterland. The cry for justice for a rape victim has consolidated into a wail of demands to set a lot of wrongdoings right. Here in lies the fear and trepidation. Wasn’t the issue that brought the youth of Bangladesh out on the thoroughfares a simple, innocent one of quota reform?

The chief minister of Bengal, known for understanding the pulse of people better than many, was quick to read the signages floating in the political horizon.

The most obvious reason for her to be tensed is that both the regime change in Bangladesh and the mass protest in Bengal, were student-driven to begin with. The two incidents---end of 15 year old Sheikh Hasina government and turbulence in West Bengal, over the heinous crime, falling back to back, the first on August 5th and the latter from August 9th onwards, give natural scope for comparisons. More so, because in both the cases the movement strayed beyond an affected constituency to include aggrieved people at large, cutting across socio-economic demography. If the quota reform protest started by students in Bangladesh became a mass uprising against an autocratic regime, the campaign demanding justice for the rape victim and overall safety and security of women in Mamata Banerjee’s Bengal soon snowballed into a movement of no-confidence against the government. Slogans--”Mamata must resign” also got floated in social media much in line with the call for ouster of Sheikh Hasina. In fact “Resignation of Hasina” became the single point agenda into which all other fringe demands coalesced.

Incidentally, even before people started drawing parallels, that there could be a thread of commonality in the way the upheaval in Bangladesh and Bengal played out, Mamata was quick to point out that the Opposition were trying to pull off a Bangladesh by politicizing the tragic incident: “A coordinated approach has been executed by the BJP and the CPIM with support from the Centre to defame Bengal and exploit the situation....They want to make a Bangladesh here. They are taking cues from student unrest in Bangladesh and are attempting to capture similarly. I have no longing for the chair. I came here to serve people.”

Not only Mamata, her political lieutenants are consistently equating the turmoil in Bengal with the mayhem in Bangladesh. Cabinet minister for North Bengal development Udayan Guha threatened to take stern action against those, who would be trying to exploit the situation by emulating a Bangladesh like movement. “ Even after the hospital was vandalised, the police did not open fire on anyone. The police will not allow a Bangladesh type situation. We will not allow Bengal to turn into Bangladesh, Guha thundered.

Is the government’s fear unfounded?

Apart from the similarities on ground zero, as to how and where the future course of events are heading to, there are ample reasons for Bengal to mull on-- as to what led to a Bangladesh like boiling point. To begin with, it’ll be appropriate to talk of Bangladesh and the prevailing situation, that made the students’ protest become big in magnitude. The students were out on the streets because of a high reservation in public jobs. Unemployment and stagnant job market in private sector coupled with a high rate of inflation drove the educated youth to rebel against the government.

But soon the students found enormous number of sympathisers, who were equally at the receiving end. According to Bangladesh citizens, the last two terms of the Sheikh Hasina government were a mockery of democracy. Even elections would be compromised. As Hasina grew from strength to strength, she politicized institutions. The rank and file of police owed allegiance to the ruling dispensation. Extortion, harrassment and raids by police and people in power became rampant. An atmosphere of fear and repression reigned and people got restless to overthrow the government.

Politicization of institutions has been happening in Mamata government too. Allegations are quite strong that police in Bengal functions at the beck and call of political bosses. The lapses and alleged loopholes on the part of police in handling the rape and murder of the young doctor have yet again revealed a sense of confused or misplaced loyalty.

But above everything else both Hasina and Mamata governments allegedly seem to have twined in accepting corruption as a way of life. In Bangladesh jobs of primary and secondary teachers got sold at premium, Rs 10-12 lakh in the Hasina regime. Even police had to pay up for prized postings and transfers. In Bengal busting of the teacher’s recruitment scam has revealed how unsuccessful and ineligible candidates got government jobs in schools in exchange of bribes.

Similarities are multiple and inescapable. Mamata has good reasons to be apprehensive. It’s not only she, who can see and connect the dots. People, out on the streets, clamoring for justice, can see a providential pattern somewhere in the unfolding of future events in these two places-- Bangladesh and Bengal. True, they share more than 2,217 odd km of border. They share the same umbilical cord, other than language, culture, ethos, icons. Even emotions are the same. So she cannot take any risk.

(The writer is a senior jounalist based in Kolkata. Views personal)

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