SEAMAN HELP DESK ( Merchant Navy Guidance for newly candidate)

  Japanese submarine collides with Bulk Carrier while  in Pacific. Three crew members on the submarine slightly injured but no major damage reported. A Japanese submarine collided with a commercial ship as it attempted to surface off the country's Pacific coast on Monday, government officials said. The ship may have been the Ocean Artemis, a Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier, according to people with knowledge of the incident Three crew members from the Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine Soryu suffered minor injuries, and pictures from the Japanese Coast Guard showed it sustained damage to its fairwater planes, the winglike structures on its conning tower. The accident occurred off the main island of Shikoku in southern Japan. The Soryu, commissioned in 2009, is the first in its class of Japanese diesel electric-powered submarines. It displaces about 3,000 tons and has a crew of around 65. The Defense Ministry said communications equipment on the sub was also damaged, although...

 Recently, social media has been flooded with the cases of seafarers being conned for money by fake agents. Among such cases, there are also cases of unregistered agents recruiting seafarers using someone else's RPSL number, and they lure seafarers with false promises and eventually force them to work on unseaworthy vessels. In light of these incidents, we have decided to share a similar case handled by ISWAN and highlight the steps taken to provide support to the seafarers. Back in 2019, ISWAN received calls from three separate seafarers from the East UP region of India. They had completed their pre-sea training at a non-DG approved institute named ‘ SEALA*** MARITIME ACADEMY' which is situated in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. Seafarers were asked to pay sums ranging from 1.5 lakhs to 2 lakhs (by cash) to the academy to find a job at sea and were lured in the name of a good ship. The seafarers fell into their trap and raised money from different sources in order to pay the instit...