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Problems and Prospects of Maritime Education in Bangladesh

Bangladesh, being a maritime country, has economic and political dependence on her sea area. After having international recognition through judicial process, it is right time to utilise the ocean resource for sustainable development of the country through all means of exploration, collection and conservation of marine resources. But truly speaking, the conditions of human and technical resources are frustratingly insufficient to implement the concepts of blue economy in Bangladesh. This research focuses on the current situation, challenges and prospects of maritime education and training in Bangladesh for the purpose of sustainable economic development through blue economy.

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Problems & Prospects of Bangladesh Shipping Industry: A Comparative Overview

Bangladesh is traditionally a ship building nation and has a rich heritage of timber shipbuilding of many hundred years. Germanischer Lloyd has declared Bangladesh as a shipbuilding nation of international standards in September 2008.She is presently contributing to the shipbuilding industries globally through its exported workforce. These facts do not speak only of a heritage but of an inbuilt ability of shipbuilding of people of this region. For the development of shipbuilding industry we need to generate adequate demand in the local and foreign market, elevated engineering skills, reasonable infrastructure, long term government policy support along with attractive investment climate. National and international issues and factors which apparently do not encourage shipbuilding in Bangladesh need to be addressed. Impacts of those issues will be evaluated and measures towards finding a solution will be incorporated. In this paper at first, an overall picture of this industry has been depicted by identifying the actual shipbuilding practice in both public and private sector. Relevant data have been explored through extensive review of literature, field visits, interacting with shipyard and ship owners. The potentiality, capability and problems of the shipbuilding sector of Bangladesh have been identified.

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Interaction of Sea Surface Temperature and Precipitation during Indian Ocean Dipole years in the Bay of Bengal

Satellite data of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Precipitation from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) were analyzed to investigate the interactions between them in Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) years in the Bay of Bengal (BoB), located at 5° N - 25° N and 80° E-100° E region. In an agricultural country like Bangladesh, the success or failure of sufficient rainfall and its effects on agricultural production and water scarcity on regional basis are always of great concern. Even, a small fluctuation in the seasonal rainfall can have devastating impacts on agricultural sector. Understanding of these variability's especially the extreme droughts and floods are of great importance because the country’s economy has bounded with the availability of monsoon rainfall. The SST has shown a significant relation with precipitation but there was some time lag. However, IOD did not show much regular influences on precipitation pattern. The investigation also reveals that SST was not the main parameter to occur the precipitation variation in the Bay. There may exist some other factors such as oceanic heat content, incoming solar radiation, wind etc, which might influence the seasonal/annual precipitation. Future study may reveal the other factors that control the precipitation pattern in the Bay including the whole Bangladesh land.

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The Difficulties of Maritime Communication and the Roles of English Teachers

This paper looks at the communication difficulties faced by seafarers and the roles that English teachers can play to eradicate these communication deficiencies. The study finds that although English is an international maritime language, the mariners are yet to learn the skills of English efficiently. Over the years many accidents have occurred due to communication gaps or misunderstood communications. As mariners are trained before they go to the sea, the English teachers can do a lot to help them learn the language efficiently. By using new innovative methods and techniques, the maritime English teachers can produce fluent mariners who can encode and decode messages accurately.

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UNCLOS and the Future of Maritime Disputes in South China Sea

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) came into effect in 1994. All nations in the South China Sea except Chinese Taipei complied with the convention. Philippines, Vietnam, China, Brunei and Malaysia are the nations which ratified the convention consecutively. Chinese Taipei in 1998 adopted a series of domestic laws that conformed to the provisions of UNCLOS. Although some overlapping claims are noticeable, peaceful resolutions are possible according to the part XV of the convention. The peaceful way of settling the disputes is gainful for China because these can lead to good partnerships. Chinese ambitions may sound counterproductive but the soft approach will help China maintain a sphere of influence and support for its rise. The formation of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is an indication of influential superpower position of China through which she wants to contest USA. In fact, China is ready to make concessions peacefully with her neighbouring countries in order to remove the feeling of need for USA.

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Legal regime of ISPS Code: Maritime Security in Bangladesh

International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) plays a vital role in the shipping industry, ports and the associate bodies of Government for maritime nations in particular. The strategic trend of transporting merchandise from one State to another is significantly increasing. However, unsteady world politics, the threat of extremism and maritime casualties very often affects the total maritime sector. For safe and security in this sector, legal regime of ISPS Code under chapter XI-2 of SOLAS is evolved after 9/11 attack in the USA. It comprises different levels of security, Governments obligations, the responsibility of ports, shipping industry and other stakeholders. ISPS Code established an international framework to foster cooperation among the Contracting Governments, Government agencies, local administrations and the shipping and port industries, in assessing and detecting potential security threats to ships or port facilities used for international trade. Bangladesh is not apart from these threats. Any threat to this sector may cause demolishing the whole development of the country. The concerned authority should take immediate steps towards confirming strong security according to the standard mentioned in ISPS.

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Michael Porter’s Five Forces Analysis in Shipping Industry: Bangladesh Shipping Corporation Perspective

Despite having all sorts of competitive benefits of being only state-owned shipping company in the country, Bangladesh Shipping Corporation’s (BSC) overall position in the industry is not up to the mark. That’s why BSC is explored based on prominent Michael Porter’s five forces model. It is an exploratory research and the analysis is based secondary data. The study encompasses the attribution with the elements of the model and identifies the competitive areas of BSC in shipping industry. Some recommendations were proposed which entails if BSC is emphasizing on the good economic and political relation with its suppliers through government, efficient and effective ancillary services of shipping, appreciation of industrial shipping, proper application of new laws and sustainable as well as cost effective means of sea transportation, BSC’s position in shipping industry would be far more better than present’s.

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Freight Forwarding Industry: Function, Economic Role and Future Market in Bangladesh.

A freight forwarder is an entity that acts as an intermediary between the actual shipper and the carrier. Freight forwarder provides other logistics and legal services for shipper as value added service, nowadays it books Freight, prepares documentation, arranges Warehousing and aids to Custom Clearance on behalf of shippers or importer. The aim of the paper is to uphold function, economic role and services provide by freight forwarder and predict future market in context of Bangladesh. There are about 837 freight forwarding company have been registered under Bangladesh Freight Forwarders Association (BAFFA). Due to frequent shipment of garment, leather, medicine and other consumer product across the world, the industry is on making profit. The paper suggests some measures that can make our market stable for the future and some ways to reach sustainable goals simultaneously through technology (like cloud computing). And recommend freight forwarders leveraging new technology to compete with market leaders.

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An Overview of Tropical Cyclone Formation over the Bay of Bengal

Tropical Cyclone is characterized by a warm-core low pressure system at the center called eye. It is often accompanied with strong gusty winds, torrential rains and storm surges which create great damage to life and property. The outer rain bands of the eye are made up of convective cells embedded in straight form rain. The horizontal shape of an outer rain band is generally prominent with equiangular spiral geometry but in the Bay of Bengal the eastern side band of the cyclone Sidr (2007) was a long, quasi-straight shape in the meridional direction that remained stationary relative to the cyclone center. In fact, the Bay of Bengal experiences many differences in forming tropical cyclone. The formation of TC is bimodal and the post-monsoon cyclone frequency is almost double than that of pre-monsoon cyclone. Again, pre-monsoon environments are more favorable for cyclogenesis. So, it is very important to improve the understanding of the cyclone characteristics and monitor their intensity in the Bay of Bengal.

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