We’ve heard RR Patil tell the assembly that the Mumbai police were clueless (Tell us something new?) about MV Pavit before it ran aground and had received no information from the either the navy or coast guard.
Everest chadla aani morit padla. (He’s scaled the Everest but slipped in the bathroom) This favourite Marathi proverb never fails to make me laugh.
It has been on my mind a lot lately thanks to our new unwelcome visitor MV Pavit on Juhu beach.
We’ve heard home minister RR Patil tell the assembly that the Mumbai police were clueless (Tell us something new?) about MV Pavit before it ran aground and had received no information from the either the navy or coast guard.
This, by the way, is the same navy which makes our hearts swell with pride as it takes on pirates on the high seas to save other private merchant vessels in distress as far off as the Somalian coast.
Why can’t the men in white use some of that bravado to make us feel safe for a change? Perhaps someone in charge of overall security of the country’s 6,100 km coastline is just too good at math and realises that poor tax-paying citizens can rarely match the worth of the multi-crore, multinational shipping entities and their high value consignments on high seas.
How else could the Panama flagged vessel of this size been adrift all the way from the Oman coast for so long without being noticed?
“We will see in our inquiry why in the 100 hours the ship was in Indian waters, it was not detected,” Satish Agnihotri, director general, shipping, has said on Tuesday.
Just how much confidence that officialese inspires about anyone ever being held responsible for the security breach, is too obvious to be said.
Three days after the country’s worst terror attack on November 26, 2008, a cameraperson and I set off on a fishing boat from Satpati, a fishing village off Palghar, Thane and spent 40 hours going till the international waters and back with local fishermen.
While we shot visuals of international shipping liners and cargo vessels and piece-to-cameras, we ate freshly caught lobster and eel cooked Koli style with rice. We never once ran into, either the marine police, coast guard or the navy.
The only sense of authority came when we ran into another fishing boat where a fisherman who resisted the coast guard boat taking away his pomfret and kingfish catch had been beaten black and blue.
That was soon after terror had come and struck. Now we’ve had 13/7 and then this security breach. Clearly the more things change, the more they stay the same.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}