Sacrilegious Zoom-webinar held by International Maritime Federation with the Honorable Minister of Shipping as the Chief Guest exposing the Nation to

In perpetual tribute to the departed souls of Late Col. B Santosh Babu of the Bihar regiment, Havildar Palani and Sepoy Ojha and seventeen other soldiers who laid down their lives in Galwan Valley in Ladakh for securing the borders of India from the Chinese barbarians who used barbed wire studded clubs against our army men, the Citizens of India have unanimously avowed not to use any Chinese products, whereas all the repeated warnings contained in my trailing Email dated Wed 10-06-2020 14:48 notwithstanding and despite forwarding specific MHA Advisory against Zoom, a dubious organization like the so called International Maritime Federation has railroaded the  Honorable Minister of Shipping  and the learned Directorate General of Shipping into the perilous quagmire of Zoom, the lethal Chinese Videoconference Software, that has by now possibly downloaded all our Ministry’s data into their Beijing-based servers. It was a calamity that the Honorable Minister of Shipping did not pay heed to my well informed advice and did participate in the Webinar hosted by International Maritime Federation for their own vested interests on the weird Chinese Zoom technology, exposing the nation to the horrors of State-sponsored cyber-hacking, as the attached screenshots may throw light if you like. Of course, the Honorable Minister of Shipping is not aware Zoom directs all the user data of the conference participants to servers based in China, where it isn’t safe under their law, as China doesn’t enforce many laws protecting users’ privacy. But Sir, you were well informed well in time.

Pentagon bans Zoom

The platform on which the Videoconferencing was done was Zoom, the Chinese web-based Software. Pentagon has banned most versions of this popular video conferencing application for its personnel after reports surfaced revealing major security issues linked to China. Service members, civilians and contractors have been precluded from use of all the versions of Zoom in official and personal capacities. Earlier Zoom for Government had been issued a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) provisional authorization, which has now been withdrawn. The FBI said last week that it saw an increase in “Zoombombing,” the phenomenon of uninvited users infiltrating Zoom video conference sessions, in this case, between Pentagon personnel.

As a concerned netizen, I am inclined to take up the issue of this dubious ‘Federation’ initially with you and will continue in my stride until I get all the answers and situation remedied. I have seen the industry well represented by three well established, approved, competent and recognized trade bodies namely INSA, FOSMA and MASSA, all No-profit-Companies under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 2013. They worked sometimes as a part of DG Shipping supplementing the efforts of the government in framing recruitment rules, implementing STCW and developing new training courses, improving the safety guidelines and inspection regimes of the Directorate General of Shipping. They provided meeting venues, served in our committees without asking for any return benefit. At that point of time the so called International Maritime Federation, profit-making commercial company came into being to substitute, supplant and thrust itself as the vanguard of the other maritime entities like RPSL Companies, Maritime Training Institutes and medical centers, most of which were already affiliated with INSA, FOSMA and MASSA. Their capricious induction into the arena smashing the then existing citadel of power is a point of perplexity for all lesser mortals like me. One fails to understand how a body corporate can control the functioning of other body corporates using the stamp of assumed patronage of the Directorate General of Shipping with the tacit approval of some vested interests, but without performing any sanctified duties like auditing, quality control, rating or training or anything like that – INSA, FOSMA and MASSA do all these and more – and take huge membership fees or rather protection money as their avowed objectives notify in their website under the tab ‘Membership Benefits’. The name International Maritime Federation itself is a misnomer. If it were a Federation which are all the federating associations that have democratically chosen this International Maritime Federation as such. If it is International, why Indian Maritime Administration should approve it instead of the IMO? And wonder what terms and conditions, and under which criteria this fourth trade body was approved and recognized. Until recently, under a special dispensation given by the Directorate General of Shipping, for whatever considerations not gone into, the International Maritime Federation also issued Watchkeeping Certificates charging hefty fees, both receipted and un-receipted, both for Nautical and Engineering candidates, which meant they acted as a State Body under Article 12 of the Constitution, without any legal mandate as an instrumentality of the State. All the Art. 12 Instrumentalities who sign any government document, not a toll ticket, but a competency certificate do so under and in the name of President of India under the powers vested by a Statute or conferred under the Constitution itself. Can anyone say under which Article of the Constitution or Statute the International Maritime Federation was created or recognized. Mr. Honorable Minister – please answer this question. Whenever any RPSL Company got a show-cause notice, as screamed out in their website,  the International Maritime Federation drafted their replies, pulled strings, and represented in personal hearings and we did not go into things untold, which they did anyway. Not for nothing that they take huge protection moneys. The International Maritime Federation charged an enrolment fee of ?100,000 from each of its members and charged annual fees almost equivalent to that. How much share they remitted to the Directorate General of Shipping? Did the Directorate General of Shipping ever audit the International Maritime Federation. Any approving body has the statutory right and responsibility to audit the organization approved by it. Did you find how much money went to the coffers of the promoters and directors of the company, in the form of salary, perks and otherwise? Did you ever ask for the Audit report of International Maritime Federation, whom the Directorate General of Shipping approved as the fourth trade body with overlapping areas, job responsibilities, and extra Constitutional jurisdiction and authority? Their fee structure is nowhere published but in the membership application form there is a question. ‘Are you aware of the Fee Structure? – Yes or No. Out of about 700 RPSL Companies the International Maritime Federation has 34 as their members with seven Maritime Training Institutes and three Medical Examiners, which mean they have already pocketed about ?50,00,000 as Enrollment Fees and yearly subscription that went in crores. The genesis of this International Maritime Federation like the company bahadur of the erstwhile East India Company is in serious pangs that cause reasonable trepidations in the mind of ardent maritime followers. Unlike INSA, FOSMA and MASSA, the International Maritime Federation has veins and vertebrae firmly rooted in Directorate General of Shipping, whom they publicly claim to represent to chastise their non-paying members, those possible mutineers that refuse to toe their lines, like the friends of friends like the Cosa Nostra. Like a Robinhood that ‘protects the poor’ against the ‘repression ‘by the landlords, they claim to protect the ‘victimized’ RPSL Companies at the receiving end of all, like a capo regime that protects the ‘books’ in his domain, the International Maritime Federation is there everywhere, like a worm, virus as the ubiquitous godman, ready with their magic wand available to those who can afford protection money.

The recognition by the Directorate General of Shipping granted to International Maritime Federation is clouded in mystery. The questionable generosity of the Directorate General of Shipping in the facts and circumstances of the case before it, was seemingly to grant equality, secure administrative probity, transparency, objectivity and fairness in the matter of distribution of State largesse and public contracts. And it left all to the whirlwind of bigotry, chauvinism and sycophancy, delegating the State Powers to this Corporate Body, and allowed this Corporate Body to certify the ‘Watchkeeping’ Competence of some categories of seamen against payment of fees that went into the coffers of the International Maritime Federation. Did the Directorate General of Shipping obtain the approval of the Ministry of Finance before foregoing this revenue. No other ministry of the Central Government can forego Central Revenues.  Likewise, the delegation of Administrative Powers needs to be done by the President under the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961. Did the Directorate General of Shipping obtain the Presidential assent? Such decision, to reiterate, has become final and binding on the entire maritime industry and all its entities the lowest of them the seafarers at large, who all paid hefty sums to this newfangled “Federation” to which they owed their being and becoming. Everyone contributes to the coffers of the International Maritime Federation, with not a single scope to know where its payroll goes. As noted hereinabove, the Directorate General of Shipping is in flagrant defiance and disregard to the judicial mandate of the Art. 12 of the Constitution and Rule 21 of the GFRs, 2017, in the delegation of State Powers, without single promulgation. The Directorate General of Shipping did not place any Advertisement to augment the number of trade bodies that should take cudgels for the maritime entities, nor it made out and publish any Magna Carta for observance by such trade bodies. No sir, not for International Maritime Federation. Suddenly like a rishi ashram, the International Maritime Federation came into being with a carte blanche given by the Directorate General of Shipping with unrestricted power to act at their own discretion, unconditional authority over the lesser mortals. The Directorate General of Shipping arrogated to itself, by way of ipse dixit, the power of recognizing one more trade body and act on their own behalf and also on behalf of the State, abusing the powers and privilege granted by the International Maritime Organization under the STCW Convention & Code 2010 Manila Amendments  entitled in law to induct the new dealer of power without any  auction process being initiated, to the same jurisdiction and areas of responsibilities. The underlying objective in issuing the direction to determine and specify a trade body in the proximity of the existing ones was with the avowed purpose of avoiding confrontation and possible litigation and also to ensure smooth and uninhibited conduct of the regulatory functions as ROs or something like that.

Thus, empowered enfant terrible was not stopping here. Recently the International Maritime Federation has been circulating a message claiming to be the champion of the Maritime Industry in the Covids19 lockdown time and the authorised interface of the Hon. Shipping Minister, DG Shipping, MMD officials, IRS Senior Officials and RPSL companies, purporting to host a Webinar on Shipping on 13th June 2020, for repatriation of stranded seafarers – how much money they collected from each of them is one’s own imagination – as International Maritime Federation won’t disclose – in which the Hon. Shipping Minister, DG Shipping, MMD officials, IRS Senior Officials and RPSL companies would be participating. The videoconference did take place under the Zoom Platform, in which the all the participants downloaded the Zoom Software, which phished out all the information stored in the computer of the users and populated it online on Beijing based servers.

What needs to be emphasized is that the State and/or its agencies/instrumentalities cannot distribute its largesse to any person according to the sweet will and whims of the political entities and/or officers of the State. Every action/decision of the State and/or its agencies/instrumentalities to give largesse or confer benefit must be founded on a sound, transparent, discernible and well-defined policy, which shall be made known to the public by publication in the Official Gazette and other recognized modes of publicity and such policy must be implemented/executed by adopting a non-discriminatory and non-arbitrary method irrespective of the class or category of persons proposed to be benefited by the policy. The distribution of largesse like allotment of land, grant of quota, permit license, approvals and recognitions as State Authorities under Art. 12 by the State and its agencies/instrumentalities should always be done in a fair and equitable manner and the element of favoritism or nepotism shall not influence the exercise of discretion, if any, conferred upon the particular functionary or officer of the State. Thus, the unilateral decision of the Directorate General of Shipping to recognize International Maritime Federation as the arbiter for maritime community and confer on them the  largesse of approval with financial and parasitical powers over various maritime entities is vitiated, reprehensible, capricious, and bad in law.

The approval given to the International Maritime Federation by the Directorate General of Shipping is not equivalent to the liquor license being granted to various distillers. It involves the International tenets of laws of SOLAS and STCW’2010. What happened in the case of International Maritime Federation must open the eyes both Government as well as the maritime community at large. How an uncontrolled exercise of executive power to deal with the Conventional Rights and privileges and responsibilities granted by IMO could be indiscriminately bestowed on a commercial body corporate, namely International Maritime Federation  not even a Sec. 25 Company like the INSA, FOSMA, MASSA, by which the entire maritime  community's interest was sacrificed in the alter of fostering a Frankenstein namely International Maritime Federation so as to cause huge damage to the faith reposed on a maritime state by the IMO was sacrificed, the fees for various certification that would have accrued to the public exchequer. All these would have gone unnoticed but for the vigilante of the present Director General of Shipping namely Shri Amitabh Kumar, who scrapped the powers of the International Maritime Federation as a Certification Authority but could not clip its wings as one of the regulatory arbiters  who no doubt is not altruistic in its approach but its business interests that goaded one to expose the unsavory deal. Conceding that on weighty and valid considerations, there should have been notified norms  against which  the authority must be satisfied that such an offer if given in open would not be outmatched by the more competent non-profit organizations like CMMI or IMEI. In the absence of such satisfaction, acceptance of an offer secretly made and sought to be substantiated as the sole arbiter of maritime entities without the verification of their truth, wherewithal, representative ballots, or referenda which was not undertaken, would certainly amount to arbitrary action in the matter of distribution of State largesse which is impermissible. Like the company bahadur of yester years, the clandestine zamindars with servility under the East Indian Company, the International Maritime Federation has come to stay the emissary to stand in place of the Directorate General of Shipping to conduct its functions.

Data security training specialists mentioned that, in total, Zoom has 73 key management systems; of these, 5 are found in China and the remaining in the U.S. This is a worrying behavior because, given the laws under which technology companies operate in China, Zoom may be forced to share encryption keys with the authorities of the Asian country if they are generated on a server hosted in Chinese territory. If the Chinese government or any other threat actor tried to spy on a Zoom session, it would also require monitoring the target user’s Internet access or monitoring the Zoom cloud network. By collecting this information, the attack can be completed, decrypting the session audio and video.

The damage does not stop here. The International Maritime Federation, in their veiled attempt to serve their own interests but ostensibly as a moderator between the Honorable Minister of Shipping, DG Shipping and IRS on the one side and RPSL Companies on the other side is seeking to conduct a webinar on Shipping on Saturday, the 13th June 2020, ostensibly under the aegis of MOS, DGS and IRS. Any why not RINA, ABS, BV or any other RO who are on the same footing as IRS. Because they are not amenable. On no count it is felt that the DGS would have fallen prey to such jamboree as International Maritime Federation cannot be a trade interface under any set of regulations under any legitimate arrangements. International Maritime Federation cannot feign they are a trade interface between Indian Maritime Administration and Maritime Industry in general and RPS Companies in particular.  It is another story that the said Federation has been extorting lakhs of Rupees from various RPSL Companies that cannot be legitimately affiliated to this so-called Federation. A Federation is a Conglomeration of associations registered under the Societies Act, 1860. Of course, you cannot do anything about it. But at least you can stay away from the rackets and shall not implicate unwary entities like ours. Someone said behind every fortune there is a crime and there are winners and losers in every industry. Any opinions expressed by anyone in their website are those of the individuals concerned and hence cannot represent those of a government organization like MOS and DGS.

The International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) says that, since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the number of Zoom users rose from 10 million to 200 million, including individuals, academic institutions, private companies and government agencies. Social estrangement will continue for at least the next three months, so it is worth requiring the company to reveal more details about its data collection policies and ties with the Chinese government, as the millions of users who depend on it tool to continue your academic and professional activities deserve to know what protections your information can provide this platform.

How do you make amends is your option? The moral is one is known by the company he keeps. I understand the Honorable Minister of Shipping was not aware of the dangers his learned office was exposed to when he nodded his consent to participate in the webinar hosted by the International Maritime Federation. a bad action bequeaths bad results. Especially when one plays in the hands of ill-informed ‘Federations’ which are not worth their salt, he exposes himself and his country to International hackers the lot of whom are concentrated in one nation namely Peoples Democracy of china.

I can produce terabytes of cyber literature to substantiate my stand. And there are a million IT Experts at your disposal who will testify the maladies of the Chinese Technology the pariah of the IT world NIC is the best  In any case the faulty approval granted to International Maritime Federation is forever flawed, mired in controversies, corrupt, vitiated and against all rules of administrative propriety, final propriety and unconstitutional.

Still I humbly pray that better sense prevails upon all concerned to derecognize the wrongly recognized International Maritime Federation. And stay away from the dangerous technologies like Zoom that compromises the security of the Nation.