M Rezaul Karim Chowdhury

The history of the global economy is closely tied to the control of international trade routes, with maritime dominance playing a central role—evident in the supremacy of the Phoenicians, Arabs, and later European colonial powers. In the post-Cold War unipolar era, the USA has leveraged globalization through its maritime military hegemony. The Indian Ocean, particularly the Bay of Bengal (BoB), represents a critical hub for global sea trade and economic connectivity, intersecting with the South China Sea. Ensuring regional peace and stability is essential for sustaining international maritime trade and blue economic growth. This research introduces a novel Comprehensive Ocean Management Regime (COMR) tailored to the BOB maritime-littoral region to address these challenges and advance sustainable blue economic objectives. By critically analysing global coastal and ocean governance practices—such as Maritime Protected Areas and Integrated Coastal Zone Management—the study identifies policy, management, and operational challenges and proposes actionable solutions. Recognizing the limitations of aggregated sectoral data and the scarcity of precise quantitative insights, the study adopts a qualitative approach and employs the Delphi method to gather expert consensus through iterative analysis. The COMR framework provides a unique, actionable model that can guide sustainable maritime policy and management in the BOB region, contributing to the broader discourse on sustainable ocean governance.

The history of the global economy is the history of global international trade; whoever could command the oceans could control the wealth of that Era, e.g., Phoenicians and Arabs commanded the world before Europe’s colonial expeditions through seas. When the Cold War Bipolar Era ended, the USA has been enjoying the benefits of globalization through military presence and hegemony across oceans in the unipolar Era. The Indian Ocean is said to contain most of the significant sea trade routes of the world, and the Bay of Bengal in the Northeast does the same more precisely while interfacing with the South China sea. Regional peace and stability is a precondition for the sustainability of international maritime trade and other blue economic functions. Here, this research is to propose region specific COMR (comprehensive ocean management regime) model to achieve blue economic objectives sustainably for the BOB (Bay of Bengal) maritime-littoral region. This research examined coastal and ocean initiatives like Maritime Protected Areas and Integrated Coastal Zone Management for their challenges at policy, management and operation levels leading towards a conceivable solution, choosing to make a few insinuations to the nations and areas of the world. Sectoral data that has been aggregated might be confusing, and quantitative data lacks validity and precision. In an outcome, in the deficiency of quantitative data, the presentation is created qualitatively. Moreover, the study also uses the Delphi method to address the research objectives of this study because, to establish a consensus, the Delphi technique includes obtaining expert opinion through a series of progressive and iterative investigations.

In the domain of Marine Education and Training (MET), simulators have been utilized for the purpose of training seafarers in the norms for avoiding collisions or for developing the skill of ship manoeuvrability, and even the operation of machinery in the engine room, as well as for conducting research on the subject matter of ship structure, specialized vessel operation, working principle of equipment, and shipboard safety training. These tools are even more important when facing disruptive events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In MET institutions, full-mission bridge and engine room simulators have been utilized for teaching seafarers for more than a decade. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted to identify immersive and non-immersive simulator applications produced over the previous ten years to improve seafarers’ experiential teaching and learning, in the maritime domain. We retrieved 27 articles using the four stages of PRISMA paradigm: Identification, Screening, Eligibility, and Inclusion. The selected papers were read and analyzed according to the training type, the area of training, and the technologies used. The utilization of immersive and non-immersive simulators in the context of the MET domain has been identified and mapped. A few research studies (9 out of 27) compared immersive and non-immersive simulator-based training with conventional training. The quality and efficacy of immersive and non-immersive simulator training at MET institutions have been studied. A model from the learner’s perspective is essential and recommended for future research to assess efficiency and efficacy.