Zoo

The world is a huge place to see. It consists of so many living organisms that it is impossible to see each and every one of them. Especially for human beings, who are fascinated very much by animals. For the same reasons, zoos were created so that humans can interact better with animals. In other words, a zoo is a facility that has animals, birds, and reptiles of all kinds. They are confined to space where they are given food and medical facilities. The government has given strict guidelines to maintain a zoo. This is done keeping in mind the animal’s safety. In addition, zoos are made breeding grounds for animals to protect their species.

Benefits of Zoo

Zoos were made to bring wildlife closer to humans. It gave humans a better and up-close view of them. This allows various researchers and scientists to note the behavioral pattern of the animals. It helps them in their studies and discover new things. In addition, zoos are a great source of entertainment for kids. They love visiting zoos and interacting with animals. This helps them learn practical knowledge about the animal. It also gives them exposure to wildlife and widens their knowledge. Furthermore, zoos give us easy access to rare animals. Had it not been for zoos, we would have never been able to see what some animals looked like. We enjoy their behavior and it also creates awareness about the extinction of the rare species. Similarly, zoos are a safe breeding ground for animals. They ensure the animal breeds so they never go extinct. This helps in creating a good balance. Moreover, the zoos ensure the animals get all the nutrition in their bodies to lead a healthy life. This is beneficial as the animal may not get guaranteed meals in the forests.

Disadvantages of Zoo

While the zoo is a great place for entertainment, it is also very exploitive. It takes advantage of the poor animals to make a profit off them. The zoos keep animals in very bad conditions. It takes unethical methods just to create revenue.

Furthermore, zoos are very unfair to animals. They take the animals out of their natural habitats just for the sake of human entertainment. Why would the animals be put into cages as humans want them to? They are voiceless creatures who are being forced to live in poor conditions. Imagine putting humans into cages so animals could come to see them. It sounds inhumane the other way around but not when we do the same to animals.

Most importantly, zoos do not take proper care of exotic animals. They bring them over in their facility despite knowing that they cannot survive in that climate. Some zoos do not take enough precautionary measures to keep the animals safe. This has resulted in so many deaths of animals that it seems cruel.

In short, though zoos are very helpful to humans and animals to an extent. They must be monitored constantly to ensure the animals are safe. The unethical zoos must be shut down at once to prevent any further loss of animals.

Social media: a bane or boon

Vaishali Singh

Social media is creating a sense of competence in people’s mind, and this competition is making people ungrounded, it’s becoming the major reason of mental crisis these days, amidst this pandemic COVID- 19 outbreak people are not engaged in more productive tasks and in order to utilize their energy and satisfy the curiosity of exploring life they prefer to log in to the social media applications and wasting all their time scrolling their mobile phone’s screens endlessly, but have you thought of the consequences of using of these useless mobile applications which are distracting you from doing the necessary tasks and making you lazy and feel unproductive. The way social media is affecting your mindset is horrible, the moment you wake up, you take up your cell phone, and keep checking the notifications you’ve received overnight, which is highly unhealthy for your mental health, social media is making you more like a robot and your cell phones are becoming your masters, you just keep following the notifications you receive whole the day, the over usage of social media affects your sub conscious mind and your sub conscious plays the major role in shaping up your thoughts and mindset, which is directly proportional to the actions you take to acheive your dreams, but it’s over usage tires your brain and reduces your chances of executing the important work tasks. So, this is how your cell phones are becoming the reason behind your failure, but you’ve probably heard that every coin has two faces similarly it’s up to you that how you use something whether it’s your cell phone, the internet access you have or your social media account, if you use it to fulfil your purpose, to acknowledge yourself, to educate yourself, to fulfill your dreams then it can play the role of BOON in your life but if you use that same cell phone, that same social media just for passing the time, reading the memes, reacting on the posts endlessly, watching the comedy videos, in simple words, (seeking the temporary pleasure) instead of utilising your time in executing the important tasks, then it can become the BANE of your life. You won’t realise it today, you will notice the outcomes of your actions overtime and only then when you’ll notice your actions keenly. Now, while reading this blog post a question would definitely arise in your mind and that is, what can you do to prevent your life from getting controlled by the social media, the answer is very simple it’s impossible to change your life overnight, but the continuous efforts you put overtime can help you to change your life for better, now you have to make a proper schedule and would have to set a goal for yourself that will keep you motivated, just uninstall the unnecessary applications and data from your mobile phone, and start working on the path of your dreams right away.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/iphone-technology-iphone-6-plus-apple-17663/

Poor Public Works And Infrastructure

Imagine that you have to go to work but there are no roads to get you there. Or heavy rains have flooded your route and made it impossible. A lack of infrastructure – from roads, bridges, and wells, to cables for light, cell phones, and internet – can isolate communities living in rural areas. Living off the grid often means living without the ability to go to school, work, or the market to buy and sell goods. Travelling further distances to access basic services not only takes time, it costs money, keeping families in poverty.

Majority of poor people in the world live in rural areas where the level of public infrastructure especially roads
seems low. The inadequate roads and poor road access put high cost of transportation; reduce ability to use
access high quality inputs; limit the uses of local markets to the sales of their products, the purchase of consumer
goods and opportunities for off-farm employment. Poor road access has put nevertheless constraints for rural
poor people in terms of access to other social infrastructure such as education and health facilities. Therefore,
improvement of rural road seems to be a clear means by which large numbers of people might acquire the
opportunity to participate in the market economy and thereby raise themselves out of poverty.

Infrastructure is a key element of poverty alleviation. It often acts as a catalyst to development and enhances the
impact of interventions to improve the poor’s access to other assets, e.g., human, social, financial, and natural
assets. Its impact is felt both on the economic and social sectors. Without roads, the poor are not able to sell their
output on the market. In India, it has been shown that roads alone account for seven percent of the growth in
aggregate output of the rural areas. Without electricity, the industrialization process, which provides the poor an
important source of employment, is unlikely to take off. Many of the world’s poor people live in rural areas isolated by distance, terrain and poverty from employment and economic opportunities, markets, healthcare and education. Lack of basic infrastructure such paths, trails,bridges and roads and access to transport services makes it difficult for poor people to access markets and services.

Good transport infrastructure is a necessary condition for economic growth and poverty alleviation, but transport
investments alone cannot address the problems of the poorest households. The adequate supply of infrastructure services has long been viewed as essential for economic development and poverty reduction, both in the policy and academic realms. More recently, increasing attention has also been shifting to the impact of infrastructure on poverty and inequality.

Conclusion

The study aimed to explore lack of infrastructure; the impact on economic development. The findings of the study proved that lack of infrastructure holds back economic development raises unemployment and promotes poor standard living.

Bangladesh-origin CEO murdered in New York, corpse found in pieces in apartment

33 year old Fahim Saleh found dead in his NewYork apartment on Tuesday, He was a CEO of two companies based in Nigeria and Bangladesh. He was killed brutually in his own apartment. Pieces of his corpes were found scattered around different parts of the apartment. An Electric saw was recovered from the crime scene. It is suspected to be the weapon used to cut his body into pieces. Police is considering it to be a case of business rivalry.
According to The NewYork Times, Fahim’s Sister arrived at his apartment and found the corpse scattered around the house. Police suspects that the murderer was present in the house when she arrived because the Electric saw was found running near the corpse. However, the killer escaped from another gate. The head and body of the corpse were found in a polythene bag. His hands, legs, head and torso were all cut separated. Fahim’s sister told that she came to meet her brother because he was not answering her calls.
Fahim was the CEO of Nigeria based Riding and Delivery app company. He ran a similar company in Bangladesh named “Patho”. He was among the richest young entrepreneurs. The apartment he was murdered in is reported to be around $22 lakhs.
Police has found some CCTV footages. In one of the footages, Fahim was seen near the elevator along with a person wearing a black suit, mask and gloves. Police suspects the killer was someone known and close to Fahim. Police is linking the matter to business rivalry. According to sources from the police, the killer was a professional and knew every part of the apartment. He wished to take the pieces of the corpse with him but his plan was failed by fahim’s sister’s arrival.

The Cyber Threat

In the afternoon of 15th July an identical message tweeted by a series of high-profile verified Twitter accounts, asking people to donate Bitcoins, promising a double return.
The accounts were of U.S. presidential candidate of democrats Joe Biden, former U.S. President Barack Obama, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, reality television star Kim Kardashian, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, billionaire Elon Musk, and rapper Kanye West, among many others.
There have been hacks of prominent users before, including the infamous hack of Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, last year.

But the nature of this attack is one of the most pronounced security breaches on a social media site.
Jack Dorsey tweeted about the major breach that, “the company was diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened.” He called it a “tough day” at Twitter.
Cybersecurity experts have expressed their concern and warned that this type of breach, where influential accounts are taken over, could have devastating effects if used for something more dangerous than to take money from unsuspecting users. The consequences could be greater if it involved an account like Trump’s or spread misinformation on some type of global security threat.

Cyber law in India
Hacking is not the only offence related to the cyber world. In recent weeks you must have heard about some celebrities, complaining about rape and murder threats, they are getting on their social media accounts. After the death of young bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, on social media many of his fans blamed some of his contemporaries. And than a series of threat and abuse started pouring into these celebs’ social media accounts. All such type of bullying and threat comes under the cyber crime.

In year 2000 India had passed its first cyber-law, The Information Technology Act, 2000. The act deals with cyber-crime and electronic commerce. Some of the important sanctions of the law is defined here.

Hacking and Data Theft: Sections 43 and 66 of the IT Act penalise a number of activities ranging from hacking into a computer network, data theft, introducing and spreading viruses through computer networks, damaging computers or computer networks or computer programmes, disrupting any computer or computer system or computer network, denying an authorised person access to a computer or computer network, damaging or destroying information residing in a computer etc. The maximum punishment for the above offences is imprisonment of up to three years or a fine or Rupees five lac or both.
Tampering with computer, computer system, or computer network: Section 43(h) read with section 66 of the IT Act penalises an individual who charges the services availed of by a person to the account of another person by tampering with or manipulating any computer, computer system, or computer network. A person who tampers with the computer system of an electricity supplier and causes his neighbour to pay for his electricity consumption would fall under the aforesaid section 43(h) of the IT Act.
Tampering with computer source documents: Section 65 of the IT Act prescribes punishment for tampering with computer source documents which includes listing of programs, computer commands, design and layout and programme analysis of computer resource in any form. The punishment for this offence is imprisonment for up to three years or with a fine which may extend to Rupees three lac or with both.
Receipt of stolen property: Section 66B of the Act prescribes punishment for dishonestly receiving any stolen computer resource or communication device. The act should have been done dishonestly or should have reason to believe that it was stolen property. The punishment for this offence is imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of up to Rupees one lac or both.
Identity theft and cheating by personation: Section 66C of the IT Act prescribes punishment for identity theft and provides that anyone who fraudulently or dishonestly makes use of the electronic signature, password or any other unique identification feature of any other person shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to Rupees one lac.
Cheating by personation by using computer resource: Section 66D of the act prescribes the punishment for this crime and says that any person who by means of any communication device or computer resource cheats by personation, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to Rupees one lac.
Violation of privacy: Section 66E of the IT Act prescribes punishment for violation of privacy and provides that any person who intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or transmits the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine not exceeding Rupees two lac or with both.
Obscenity: Sections 67, 67A and 67B of the IT Act prescribe punishment for publishing or transmitting, in electronic form: (i) obscene material; (ii) material containing sexually explicit act, etc.; and (iii) material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc. respectively.
Cyber terrorism: Whoever, with intent to threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or to strike terror in the people or any section of the people, denies or causes the denial of access to any person authorized to access a computer resource, or attempts to penetrate or access a computer resource without authorisation or exceeding authorised access, or introduces or causes the introduction of any computer contaminant, and by means of such conduct causes or is likely to cause death or injuries to persons or damage to or destruction of property or disrupts or knowing that it is likely to cause damage or disruption of supplies or services essential to the life of the community or adversely affect critical information infrastructure, is guilty of ‘cyber terrorism’. Section 66F of the IT Act prescribes punishment for cyber terrorism the imprisonment may extend to imprisonment for life.

Complaint & Procedure

The very first step to file a cyber crime complaint is to register a written complaint with the cyber crime cell. According to the IT Act, 2000, a cyber crime comes under the purview of global jurisdiction. Means that a cyber crime complaint can be registered with any of the cyber cells in India, irrespective of the place where it was originally committed.

In some cities, online complaint can also be filed. But if one has no access to cyber cell than a first information report can be registered at the local police station. In case complaint is not accepted there, one can directly approach the Commissioner or the city’s Judicial Magistrate.

INCREASE IN CYBER CRIMES – TARGETING SOCIAL MEDIA USERS

Since the beginning of times, man has been always been inclined to have more advanced technologies and always work to make the existing technologies better and bigger. The advancement in technology has surely paved way for various inventions and developments in several other fields, leading to better health facilities, educational facilities, new and better transportation, good communication devices and methods, etc. However, these advancements has lead to an increase in crimes, especially the increase of cyber crimes among the people, extracting their personal information and using it to blackmail them.

Cyber crimes are the criminal activities that involve the use of internet and computers to hack into other people’s computers, steal confidential business information, gain access to government information and extract information out of them or disable the services provided to people. It is usually done by novice hackers who do it for their own gain by the selling the information to others or sometimes by companies to sabotage the work of their competitors and have a upper hand.

In India, the percentage of complaints in regard to cyber crimes is 32% which is higher in comparison to countries like USA and UK, where the percentage is about 11-15% of the complaints filed. The Indian Law does not provide a proper definition for the term cyber crime, but it has introduced an act i.e. Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act 2000), to tackle different types of cyber crimes. One of the main reasons for the increase in these crimes is the dependency of the people on the internet.

In today’s time, the main source of increased cyber crimes is on the social media platforms, as it attracts everyone on the internet either as a means to connect with their family and friends or to start and promote their businesses. In 2013, the stock market lost more than $130 Billion as the hackers gained control of the twitter account of the associated press and posted a fake story that a bomb had exploded in the White House that caused the dow to drop 150 points. This is just one of the many incidents that happen daily which harm the cyber safety of the people.

The youth of the country is the most inclines towards the use of social media as a platform to showcase their lifestyle, talents, startup a small business, or to earn money. They have to provide their data to set up their account and also provide some basic information so that they can attract a particular group of the society to their profile. The hackers then strategically extract personal information of the users, along with the list of their friends and family. One of the main reasons of the increase in crimes relating to social media is the idea of extracting revenge from one another. People hack into other peoples account and post malicious contents, send vulgar images and messages from the hacked account.

One of the most common type of Cyber Crime is Phishing.It is a fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information from the people such as their usernames, passwords, credit card details, bank details etc. Hackers send phishing emails to people by luring them with the offer that they have won a lottery and tempt them into paying the person thousands of rupees and eventually becoming a victim of the cyber crime. One of the most famous case of the Cyber Crime was the con artists of the Jamtara district of Jharkhand.

The crime was committed by the boys aged between 15-17 years. They would either pose themselves as the customer care executives of the banks or would call random people informing them that they have a jackpot and out of greed, people would provide with their bank details. Those boys would then use that information to rob the people out of the money that have been deposited in their bank accounts. This is just one of many incidents of the cyber crime that happen on a daily basis but there are several cases that are not even registered with the Police.

WAYS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM CYBER CRIMES

1. Never put your personal information out their for the public eye.

2. Always keep your software update and install an anti-virus software in your system to protect from unwanted virus attacks.

3. Always inform your child about the concerns that are with the internet and keep an eye on their activities online.

4. Always report any spam and malicious emails that you receive.

5. Be extra careful while visiting any site online and never click on any unwanted advertisements.

6. Always use a strong password that is a combination of numbers, special characters, small and capital letters.

Twitter accounts of many renowned personalities including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama hacked

• Accounts of Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, Famous Investor Warren Buffet are also hacked.
• Expert says if the hackers get access to Dm’s they can blackmail people.
Twitter accounts of several personalities and Companies including, Bill Gates Co-Founder of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon, Elon Musk CEO of Tesla, and Former President of USA Barack Obama were hacked on Wednesday. Companies like Apple and Uber were also targeted. Hackers resorted to big names for crypto currency fraud.
List of hacked accounts:
Bill Gates (Co-Founder, Microsoft)
Jeff Bezos (CEO, Amazon)
Warren Beff (Famous Investor)
Elon Musk (CEO, Tesla)
Barack Obama (Former US President)
Joe Biden (Former Vice President of America)
Kim Kardashian West (Media Celebrity)
Mike Bloomberg (Businessman, Politician)
Kanye West (Singer)
Apple (Iphone Company)
Uber (Cab Service)
Hackers intended a Crypto currency fraud in names of big personalities and companies. Hackers posted a message on the hacked twitter accounts promising to help people. They asked them to transfer bitcoins into their accounts and in return they will be transferring double dollar value of the bitcoins received.
According to blackchain.com, website that monitors crypto currency transactions, Bitcoins worth $1.16 lakh were already transferred to the fraud account whose link was shared through hacked accounts before they found out.
Theresa Payton, CEO of cyber security company Fortalis Solutions says, they’re not sure how much information is stolen. If the hackers get access to direct messages then they can blackmail people. They can also cause trouble in the upcoming elections or any other big Events this year. The follower counts of hacked accounts are in billions.
Jack Darcy, CEO Twitter tweeted, “Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened. We’re diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened…” Twitter has currently disabled all hacked accounts and removed fraud tweets.
Last year in August, Jack Darcy’s account was also hacked and hackers tried to spread racism and hate.

9 years of zindagi na milegi dobara:zoya Akhtar reminisce moments from the shoot along with Hrithik, Farhan and Abhay

Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara completed 9 years of its release on 15th July. On this occasion, film’s director Zoya Akhtar shared a post on her social media, recalling the moments from the making of the film.
In the photo Zoya shared, Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, and Abhay Deol are seen previewing a shot on the camera screen with Zoya. She captioned the photo, I think we got it. #znmd # 9yearstoday #besttimeever. “
The film was released on 15 July 2011 in direction of Zoya Akhtar Featuring Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif, Kalki Koechlin, and Naseeruddin Shah in lead roles. The storyline goes on the life of three friends, who go on a bachelor trip to different countries of the world. The music of the film was given by Shankar-Ahsan-Loy.
Abhay Deol was angry over Nepotism: After the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, He expressed his displeasure on social media referring to Zindagi Na Milegi Dobaara.
He had said, in almost all award functions, I and Farhan were ignored by the nominations as Lead actors and were nominated only for ‘supporting actors’. While Hrithik and Katrina were nominated for ‘Actors in Lead Role’.
That according to the logic of the industry, this film was only about a man and woman falling in love.

RDDBI, SARFAESI AND IBC

RDDBI 1993

Banks and financial institutions have been experiencing considerable difficulties in recovering loans and enforcement of securities charge with them. The procedure for recovery of debts due to the banks and financial institutions, which is being followed, has resulted in a significant portion of the funds being blocked.

The Committee on the Financial System has considered the setting up of the Special Tribunals with special powers for adjudication of such matters and speedy recovery as critical to the successful implementation of the financial sector reforms. An urgent need was, therefore, felt to work out a suitable mechanism through which the dues, to the banks and financial institutions could be realised. In 1981 a committee had examined the legal and other difficulties, faced by banks and financial institutions and suggested remedial measures including changes in law. This committee also suggested setting up of Special Tribunals for recovery of dues of the banks and financial institutions by following a summary procedure. Keeping in view the recommendations of the above Committees, the Recovery of Debts due to Bank and Financial Institutions Bill, 1993 was introduced in the Parliament.

THE RECOVERY OF DEBTS DUE TO BANKS AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS ACT, 1993

An Act to provide for the establishment of Tribunals for expeditious adjudication and recovery of debts due to banks and financial institutions and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

After a decade or working of the (RDDBI ACT) it was felt that RDDBI act was unable to achieve the desired result of efficiently recovering money from the borrower’s. This led to the enactment of the Securitization and reconstruction of final assets and enforcement of security interest act 2002.

SARFAESI 2002

The SARFAESI Act was passed on December 17, 2002, in order to lay down processes to help Indian lenders recover their dues quickly. The SARFAESI Act essentially empowers banks and other financial institutions to directly auction residential or commercial properties that have been pledged with them to recover loans from borrowers. Before this Act took effect, financial institutions had to take recourse to civil suits in the courts to recover their dues, which is a lengthy and time-consuming process.

As per the SARFAESI Act, if a borrower defaults on a loan financed by a bank against collateral, then the bank gets sweeping powers to recover its dues from the borrower. After giving a notice period of 60 days, the lender can take possession of the pledged assets of the borrower, take over the management of such assets, appoint any person to manage them or ask debtors of the borrower to pay their dues too, with respect to the asset. This recovery procedure saves banks and financial institutions a lot of time which otherwise would be long drawn out due to the intervention of courts.

With an attempt to revamp the slow pace of recovery of defaulting loans and mounting levels or non performing assets of banks and financial institutions. The SARFAESI act provides the secured creditor the right to enforce the security without the intervention of either court or tribunal by following procedure prescribed under section 13 of SARFEASI act. Thereafter the constitutional validity of SARFAESI act was challenged in Mardia chemicals Ltd V Union of India.

In the landmark judgement delivered in Mardia chemicals V Union of India the hon’ble supreme court held that provision of the securitization and reconstruction of financial assets and enforcement of security interest act 2002, SARFAESI ACT 2002, are valid except section 17 (2). Which is ultra vires of article 14 of the constitution of India.

It’s a new weapon to strengthen the hands of co-operative banks, but a small one still.

IBC 2016

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 offers a uniform comprehensive insolvency legislation to Corporations, Firms and Individuals (other than financial firms).

One of the fundamental features of the Code is that it allows creditors to assess the viability of a debtor as a business decision, and agree upon a plan for its revival or a speedy liquidation.

The IBC creates a new institutional framework, consisting of a regulator, insolvency professionals, information utilities and adjudicatory mechanisms, that will facilitate a formal and time bound insolvency resolution process and liquidation.

Insolvency and Bankruptcy code is a sound legal framework of bankruptcy law is required for achieving the following objectives:-

Improved handling of conflicts between creditors and the debtor It can provide procedural certainty about the process of negotiation, in such a way as to reduce problems of common property and reduce information asymmetry for all economic participants.

To consolidate and amend the laws relating to re-organization and insolvency resolution of corporate persons, partnership firms, and individuals. To fix time periods for execution of the law in a time-bound settlement of insolvency (i.e. 180 days).To maximize the value of assets of interested persons.

To establish higher levels of debt financing across a wide variety of debt instruments. To deal with cross-border insolvency .To resolve India’s bad debt problem by creating a database of defaulter list.

In short we can say that SARFAESI is upgraded version of RDDBI, and IBC is upgraded version of SARFAESI.

Online training Or Offline training in organisation: Which is the best choice…?

New people, new proceedings, new clients. The reasons why organizations undertake training processes are many and very diverse.

This is why we are certain that for the question: “What is the best option for my company: online training or offline training?” There’s only one answer: it depends.

Ok, that’s not the answer you were looking for. The truth is there are many variables to take into consideration regarding each particular case. Just to name a few:

Objectives: What does your organization want to achieve with the training process? For how long?
Budget: How much money do you count with?
Audience: Who will receive the courses? How old will they be? Are they going to be clients or employees?
Resources: Do you have your own training venue/classroom? Do you have a technical team or person assigned to your training project? When should the training start?
Results: How are you going to measure your success?

You need to have answers to all these questions before you start evaluating training options. Your organization needs and goals are your real guidelines to define what is better for you.

Once you know your organization objectives and what resources you count with, it is time to compare options. Here, we are going to help you compare online training vs traditional classroom training.

In order to make this comparison possible, we are going to focus on this five aspects: logistics, costs, audience, tradition and organizational culture & structure.

Logistics

Organizing a course or workshop for a group of people requires a logistics work, even if the group is small.

You need to find a date when the instructor, the venue, and the attendees are available. This is not always an easy task and in many cases, some might be disappointed. And of course, don’t forget about the coffee break: find some food everybody enjoys.

Learning through an eLearning platform is completely different. In this scenario, you only need to upload all your courses to your platform once and use them as it’s needed.

Therefore, assigning courses to students is easy. Meanwhile, students will be able to access the content anytime and anywhere.

What you need to know

These are the questions you need to find an answer regarding the logistics of your training program:

Quantity of people to be trained. Are they going to be tens, hundreds or thousands? Is this process going to repeat over time? Maybe right now you only need to train 10 people, but if you’re going to be doing it monthly, it changes the whole scenario.
Location of the people to be trained. Are all the people to be trained in the same city/building/office?
Schedules and work styles of the people to be trained. Is administrative or operational staff? Are they visiting clients constantly or are they more in-the-office people?

Costs

Lets know about a research that showed how virtual education has helped organizations save between 40% and 60% of training costs when they recur to online training.

Offline training is expensive because there are many factors added to the final bill: instructor fees, venue fees, transportation fees and so on. The worst of all is that you pay for this every single time you have people to train.

Additionally, you need to add to the list people’s opportunity cost. When people goes to the training session, they stop doing their job. So maybe a seller would have to delay a meeting with a potential client in order to assist the training.

On the other hand, the savings coming from an eLearning platform directly depends on of the resources you have and your needs.

For example, Moodle is a free and open-source software eLearning platform. Yes, it is really free. But there is a hidden cost. To make it work, you’re going to need a technically skilled person to manage the system.

Another option to create a distance learning program for your organization is a cloud LMS (Learning Management System). These systems don’t require an installation process and you only need to pay a monthly fee to keep them working.

What you need to know

If you think you can reduce costs of your training program with eLearning, think about this:

Does training repeat over time? For example: induction and onboarding, compliance and industry updates, etc.
Do you have a venue/classroom for the training sessions?
Instructors and students are located in the same city? Do you need to pay for transportation? Where are students located?
Do you count with an IT department/person to manage an online training system? Who would be in charge of working with the eLearning platform: someone technical skilled or someone more HR like?

Audience

We all know what to expect from a traditional classroom training: you go there, listen to the instructor for a few hours, maybe you make a comment or two, and you’re done. That’s easy.

The story is not the same for online training. Whichever choice you make people will have to learn how to use the eLearning platform.

Then, if people receiving the training is not used to digital environments, either by age or any other reason, maybe offline training is the best option for you.

Nevertheless, LMS platforms have evolved to be simple or easy to use for everyone: the ones managing the system, the ones creating courses and the ones taking courses. So, if these platforms help you achieve your training program objectives do not discard them at first sight, do a little research and find out how they work.

What you need to know

There’s only room for one question:

Who is going to receive the training? From this question, you can learn: how do these persons feel about technology? Are they going to be happy with their own virtual learning space?

Tradition

“This is how things have always been done”. That’s something that people working for a change hears a lot.

And yet, in this case, that phrase is very real. The word “always” goes beyond the learning process within the organization, classroom training is how learning is done in college, in school, etc. But that learning has been done in classrooms for the last century doesn’t mean that it is the best way to do it.

A review commissioned by the World Health Organization and carried out by the Imperial College of London showed that eLearning is as good as or better than traditional training in terms of acquiring new knowledge for health professionals.

Each one of the methods has its own benefits. It is true that live interaction is lost in an eLearning program, but people gains the ability to learn at their own pace and focus on what is most important for them.

Additionally, with eLearning people can revisit the lessons and courses every time they want. Have you ever seen people asking an instructor for their slides at the end of a course or workshop? Well, in an eLearning platform people don’t only have the slides, they have the whole course.

What you need to know

Tradition can be challenged with the right arguments. These questions are going to help you decide if eLearning is right for you:

Is there any training or practical exercise that is going to be diminished in a virtual environment?
How are going to be measured the training results? Is there any evaluation at the end of the training? Would you like to have a tool that allows you to evaluate and see people’s achievements?
Would it be easy for people to learn in a virtual environment?

Culture and Structure

As mentioned earlier in this post, the particular characteristics of your organization will have a great weight to determine where the balance is tilted.

If your organization is small, it is probable that the easiest way to train your people is the offline method. In this case, costs are not so high and by making people come together to learn something, you will create a place to exchange ideas.

On the other hand, if your organization is big or you have offices in different cities, an eLearning platform will offer you benefits regarding costs and logistics.

Online training environments are usually associated with isolation and lack of interaction. But, depending on how they’re used, they can be a source of inspiration for learning just for the pleasure of it.

What you need to know

Organizational culture is a very important aspect to take into account when deciding the best way of training for your organization:
Does your organization promote employee independence and proactivity?
Is people motivated to learn new things?
Does people has a high sense of responsibility and are motivated to achieve the goals set for them?
What size is your organization? (number of people, number of cities, etc.)

FINITE SECULARISM?

INTRODUCTION

The word ‘secular’ is derived from the Latin word ‘saeculum’ which means a generation or an age or span of a century. The term arose from the European context of politics and derived from the attempt to prohibit the State and its property from the control of Church. A religious element was embedded in the meaning of word secular. In the Europe and other regions, secularism was closely related to the theory of progress. Over time the meaning of secularism has evolved and now the term secular means being ‘separate’ from religion, or having no religious bias. For many years the word ‘secular’ or ‘secularism’ was nowhere to be found in India (even though all the religions co-existed in harmony since ancient times). The foundation of Indian morality has been core unity, forbearance and even inter-weaving of religion. It is a definite fact that large population of Indians is associated to diverse religion lived in compassion. Slogans like – “Hindu Muslim Sikh Isaai, aapas mein hai bhai bhai” (Hindus Muslims Sikhs and Christians all are brothers) are resonated down on the streets of India and binds us to moments of fraternity. This slogan expresses the essence of ‘secularism’. In year 1976 (after independence) the word ‘secular’ was added in the Preamble of the Constitution by 42^nd Amendment Act. When the hon’ble Supreme Court declared the preamble as the basic structure of the Constitution of India, the word ‘secularism’ acquired a whole new status. Hence the Indian constitution stands for a secular state (there is no official religion of our country).

What is Secularism?

Secularism is a normative doctrine which seeks to realise a secular society. It is free from inter-religious and intra religious domination. It promotes freedom to practice their religion and equality between religions as well as within religions. As secularism is opposed to all forms of institutionalized religious domination, it challenges not merely interreligious but also intra-religious domination. The idea of secularism possesses a normative doctrine which seeks to realise a secular society, i.e., one devoid of either inter-religious or intra-religious domination. Put positively, it promotes freedom within religions, and equality between, as well as within, religions.[1]

CONTEMPORARY SECULARISM

Secularism is something which is argued since past and persist. Due to its direct relation with religion it is prevalent, pervasive and persuasive in community and human life. Society and culture of country evolves creating new issues and

Current Situation in India

The idea of Secularism assumes an essential job in India. Secularism here binds every one of the nexus following religion. Indian secularism remarks the connotation of godly and devout sentiment in life of human. It expects and hopes that no other religion has the confining or constraining framework of reflective knowledge; it allows all religions to discharge their scope under their true words.

The Constitution of India explicitly recognized Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Parsis as different societies each with individual and free culture, pious activities and special laws. Treating the acknowledged religious societies as equals meant that they would enjoy more or less the same level of religious liberty. While religious practices and activities of religious societies were subject to few limits, it was said that the religious liberty of each of these societies would be equally conserved and defended.

India is known for its multiculturality as for its language and religion. The Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four major world religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism. According to reported 2011 census data, 79.80% of the population of India is Hindu, 14.23% Muslim, 2.30% Christian, 1.72% Sikh, 0.70% Buddhist, and 0.37% Jain.^[2] Hereby, Hindus (inclusive of Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists) establish the majority and Muslims create a minority.

IS SECULARISM LIMITED TO HINDU-MUSLIM!?

Hindu- Muslim fights has taken place during historic period in India and are still continuing (Communal riots due to Aurangzeb’s religious policy in 17th Century and now the riots and protests against Citizenship Ammendment Act). Some major ones such as Bombay riots of 1993 and Gujarat riots of 2002 has led to death of 1500+ people across the country.

Extensive issue between both the religions has always been Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, in 1992 which was claimed by Hindus that the mosque was erected over the birthplace of the archaic god Rama. Tens of Thousands people were evicted from their homes and there was tremendous annihilation of lives and casualties in the country due to this before the Supreme Court passed a neutral and satisfactory judgement in November 2019 in the case: M. Siddiq (D) Thr Lrs v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors.

Today, considerable controversy on secularism is Anti CAA protests and riots in several states of the country. This Act seeks to grant Indian Citizenship to persons affiliated to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities on the ground of religious minorities persecution in states of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. As these countries have Muslim majority, they weren’t given citizenship under the Act. The enactment of such law of government was criticised by many and led to bisection of society on the basis of religion. Also the protests have led to the deaths of quite a few rioters, casualty to protesters and police personnel, harm and loss to public and private property, the confinement of hundreds of people, and termination of local internet and phone connectivity in specified areas. The Central Government in a preliminary affidavit point by-point replied to the criticism against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and pronounced India is constitutionally secular, and also notified the Supreme Court that the CAA does not infringe any fundamental right and provisions of the constitution and therefore, the query of infringement of constitutional morality does not have to originate.

Both of these religions has been and are engaged in a vicious cycle of gaining advantage or predominance over the other. In other words, both Hindus and Muslims have developed animosity and hostility against each other which is leading to antagonistic behaviour of people. Therefore, in order to maintain better circumstances in the religion based society of ours, further steps are taken such as proscription of practices of both the religions (untouchability, triple talaq, beef ban, proselytization etc.) which is a hefty secular normative attack on both the religions.

Indian secularism has two distinct and conflicting aspects, one is complete detachment between government and religion and the other that strongly appeal government to treat each religion without discrimination. Rajeev Bhargava has explained what secularism in the Indian setting calls for is the maintenance of a “principled distance” between state and religion. This does not mean that the state cannot intervene in religion and its affairs, but that any intervention should be within the limitations prescribed by the Constitution. Sometimes this might even call for differential treatment across religions, which would be valid so long as such differentiation, as Mr. Bhargava explains, can be justified on the grounds that it “promotes freedom, equality, or any other value integral to secularism.” But Indian state i.e. government has total intervention into the matters of religion through communal politics. In other words, vote bank politics is followed by the government and the political parties in the race to form the government. Even this has led to inundation of discrete political bodies for Hindu and Muslim community, be it Bhartiya Janta Party, Aam Aadmi Party, Indian National Congress etc. whoever is instigating the idea of ‘hindutva’ and so on.

CONCLUSION

Indian secularism is the by-product of a whole civilization, as a senior literary figure, Nayantara Sahgal, remarked recently: “We are unique in the world that we are enriched by so many cultures, religions. Now they want to squash us into one culture. So it is a dangerous time. We do not want to lose our richness. We do not want to lose anything . . . all that Islam has brought us, what Christianity has brought us, what Sikhism has brought us. Why should we lose all this? We are not all Hindus but we are all Hindustani.” As mentioned above it is important for us to understand that we all are Indians and not just only a Hindu, Muslim or Christian. A sense of brotherhood is important to ensure development and growth of our country. Otherwise if religious violence continues then for sure our country will be doomed.

[1]https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/nayantara-sahgal-we-should-not-lose-our-hindustaniyat-5560427/

[1] https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-secular-condition/article22347527.ece

WORK FROM HOME; the New Reality

Work from home sounds familiar right? After all that’s what most of us have been up to for the past four months. Before this pandemic, work from home used to be a delight for many. It used almost feel like a day off. There was no need of waking up early, getting ready and most importantly travelling in the peak hour traffic. It was indeed a something that office goers looked forward to. Not anymore though. We have had enough in these four months that we don’t want to work from home for at least a year now. So many things that we took for granted during the normal times we realise now. Waking up early, having a routine, cursing the traffic on the way to and back from work, those hour long meetings, coffee breaks in between with your office gang, just waiting for Friday and making crazy weekend plans that would probably not happen. These are just a few things that we hated then but now we really miss these times. Working from home is not exciting anymore. We have lost a sense of routine and social life. And the workload seems to have multiplied a hundred times more. Working alone with no one that you could ask suggestions from or clear a doubt immediately. Of course we can text or call but having someone right next to you feels different. You feel that you’re not alone, there is someone right next to you going through something similar and handling the same kind of pressure, it gives you a sense of confidence. Also working from home does not provide you a favourable atmosphere. Office atmosphere makes you more productive and in the mood to get work done. But at home you tend to feel more lazy and unproductive. There are also a whole lot of distractions. You are also staring at the digital screens more which is not good for your eyes. Zoom call after zoom call, clearing your inbox, working around projects is just too much for your eyes to handle. And most of us go on social media for a break or watch a movie on Netflix. This is not healthy for us. For the name of it we are working from home and with our family but we are more distant from them.

However in these unprecedented times, not much is in our own hands now. We have to make the most of what we can. Try to have a daily routine; this really helps bring a sense of normalcy. Have a fixed sleep schedule. Make sure to follow a good and healthy diet. Don’t forget to exercise because keeping your body and mind fit is very important. Do give your eyes some break form the screens it will be of great help. Try to find hobbies that you like and pursue something instead of bingeing shows or going on social media. Try your best to make something productive and worthy of your free time and boredom. Finally, we might not get a chance like this in the future so make the most of what you’ve got folks.

HAPPINESS IS THE SECRET OF HEALTHY LIFE!!!!

“Happiness is the which means and the motive of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

Happiness is a broad term that describes the celebration of advantageous emotions, which include joy, peace, and satisfaction.

Emerging studies indicate that being happier doesn’t just make you feel higher — it certainly brings a bunch of capability fitness benefits.

This article explores how being glad may additionally make you healthier.

Health and Happiness

Studies display that a person’s health is one of the most powerful predictors of happiness. But the link between health and happiness is complex. Research suggests little correlation among a person’s objective health — as described by way of medical assessment — and happiness. It’s our subjective health — how we view our fitness — that affects our well-being. So is happiness all on your head?

Not necessarily. For example, adverse modifications in health do hurt happiness stages, at the least temporarily. Poor health can significantly affect almost every aspect of your lifestyles: your independence, your self-image, your non-public relationships, your ability to work and perform basic each day activities. So it is no surprise that once your fitness takes a hit, your happiness does as nicely.

But people are resilient. We turn out to be acquainted with new lifestyle circumstances, proper or bad. We adapt. Within a month or of an adverse health event, most people have gravitated again in the direction of the level of happiness they enjoyed before their fitness took a flip for the worse.

What You Can Do

Do all that you may to keep a healthy lifestyle and you’ll be properly on your manner to a long existence rich in happiness.

Be your healthiest and happiest by consuming a balanced weight loss plan with masses of fruit and veggies, maintaining strain stages to a minimum, getting regular checkups, wearing sunscreen, guffawing often, moderating alcohol intake, getting plenty of exercise, and now not smoking. Your RealAge Plan will offer extra personalized detail on this.

And if you think you will be living with a temper disorder, get it treated. An appropriate remedy can assist lessen your symptoms, grow your experience of nicely-being, and get you back on the right track to a happy lifestyle.

Social Side Up

Developing your social side is essential for properly-being. Studies show that socially active folks, who are compassionate, and who’re emotionally beneficiant have better levels of happiness and live longer than people who lead an extra solitary existence.

Research also suggests that human beings who have robust interpersonal abilities rank in the highest degrees of happiness, and people who are socially remoted have extensively decrease levels of properly-being.

Social skills are just one part of this happiness factor, even though. People who hold exact personal relationships additionally fare higher than folks who are socially inactive. Open, trusting, intimate relationships are important building blocks for a satisfied life.

And it isn’t the most effective receiving guide that makes us glad; it is being capable of giving a guide to others as nicely.

Happiness and the Meaningful Life

According to the founding father of effective psychology, Martin Seligman, a glad existence is one this is pleasurable, enticing, and significant. And the greater engaging and meaningful, the better. Seligman indicates that individuals who cognizance their energies on main an engaged and meaningful existence are extra a success at achieving lifelong happiness than individuals who awareness at the transitory sense-goods of pleasure.

What You Can Do

Spend greater time doing what you love. Engaging in activities which can be consistent with your values and pastimes can improve your experience of nicely-being. If you experience as though you’ve got lost contact with what the ones sports might be, think about what captivates you so entirely which you lose yourself within the moment and forget approximately your stress.

It’s possible to be something you’re desirable at that also presents you with a piece of an undertaking or a few sort of emotional reward. Some examples are probably gardening, writing, painting, surfing, cycling, volunteering, or playing a musical instrument.

As you focus on bringing meaning to your lifestyles, be sure to set realistic, attainable goals. People who do so file being happier than people who recognition on grandiose long-time period dreams. Being capable of realizing desires that reflect your values and interests can assist improve your sense of autonomy, cause, and achievement. This has been proven to contribute drastically to overall nicely-being.

criminal justice system

CHALLENGES OF INDIAN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
The country has been facing various loggerheads when it comes to the Indian justice system
in India. Sometimes, we can even see that peoples right of life and personal liberty which is
guaranteed by constitution is being deprived off. In enormous number of cases among which
recent one is Unnao rape case where we can see that how politicians has superseded existing
criminal law. The brief facts of this case are a teenage girl accused MLA of Unnao of raping
her year in 2017 she also tried to fire out herself outside la residence . the allegations also say
he had planned a accident which led which led death of her family members . so the judiciary
at various stages had come to the front and tried to solve the case and punish the accused by
having day to day hearing so we can see that how the executive is not able to implement the
criminal justice system properly. Various challenges of the current justice system which is
prevailing in India are as follows :
 Scarcity of judges: if we talk about data there are 19 judge per 10 lakh people in our
country which is less as compared to the other countries as in USA 127 judge per 1
million people are there. it’s a big challenge to our judiciary as 37% of the sanctioned
judge’s seat are vacant in the high courts of the country.
 Pendency of cases: the vidhi center for legal policy in its legal report has found that
nearly 70% of cases in Delhi high court has been decided by giving more than 3
adjournments which is against the provision of CRPC which says that a case it to be
decided in not more than three adjournments there are 43.55 lakhs case pending in
high court in which 8.5 lakhs are case which are 10-year-old. there are 1.59 lakhs case
pending in supreme court
 Lack of transparency: judiciary does not come under ambit of RTI act also there is no
transparency in appointment of judges
 Lack of synergy between police prosecution and judiciary: there is lack of
cooperation between the three elements without which one can’t attain an established
and fair judicial pattern of justice
 Hardships of under trail in India where are there is roughly 4.25 lakhs prisoners are
undertrials which is world largest number of undertrial prisoners that not because they
have been found guilty but they had been prosecuted in charges that are non- bailable
and also bail is tough task for them
 Lack of use of technology: a good technology helps to reduce the huge amount of
paper work involved there is need for better technology for recording the statement
and also CCTVs can be installed which can be used for recoveries and other related
process
 Lack of fund : the central government is not taking up seriously about the current
situation of the courts throughout the countries the courts are facing shortage of basic
things such as clean water electrification, sitting arrangements, waiting area etc.
NEED OF INQUISTORIAL SYSTEM
The years old adversarial system should must be replaced by the inquisitorial system. The old
British time system of delivering justice is still being followed the accused feels safer than
that of victim who has to prove himself the guilt of accused as the accused is to be presumed
an innocent person. in adversarial system truth is supposed to be emerge from respective
versions of facts presented by the prosecution and the defense before a neutral judge. parties

in the adversarial system enjoys freedom of proof widely. However, the system needs to be
changed according to the need of masses as it has many drawbacks:
It focuses on strict ignorance of procedural law which has created very less space for state to
be biased against the accused. It focuses and favors mainly to the accused and victim role is
limited of being a witness.
An inquisitorial system is an organised process where part of the court, if not the entire court,
is actively work in an inquiry of the findings of a case. It is different from an adversarial
system where the role of the court is to be an impartial third person who only observes , or
make decisions while listening to parties .
The trial judges become inquisitors who passionately take part in public inquiries by
questioning prosecutors, and defendants. These judges can even order specific items of
evidence be examined if they feel that the presentation by any party in the case is not up to
the mark . however there are advantages of adopting an inquisitorial system :

 4 It lowers the advantages of wealth inside the justice system.
in Indian societies there exist huge no of cases which are pending. This can be
ascertained to many factors. One such factor can be that there exist a huge gap
between the rich and poor. We’ve seen number of cases where rich gets bail easier as
they are able to afford good and expensive lawyers. This inquisitorial system will
eliminate such gap .
 It reduces decisions against people which are driven be emotions.
According to Pacific Standard Magazine report published in year 2013 , jurors who
faces moral outrage any level during a case are more likely to convict a defendant if
we tally to those who do not witness this emotional reaction. Under an adversarial
system of justice, the aim of the prosecutor is to elicit this response when they present
a case because it increases the likelihood of a successful results. With an this system
of justice, there is another line of defence against this emotional decision-making
process. The judge can help to determine the facts of a case so that decisions are
based on logical understandings instead of emotions.
 It lowers bias within the system of justice.
when many people are engaged in a legal proceedings various perspectives that are
bring down to review the situation that took place. Here chances of unintentional bias
is not present like adversarial system but in the inquisitorial system each of the parties
share and contribute their opinions and the facts decide what actually occurs instead
of biased opinion.
 It is a system which does not leave anyone.
in the inquisitorial system it aims that each person should be treated equally. This
system allows no exemptions same questions is asked to everyone when there is any
case presented. And the reality of each answer is then after verified through rigorous
work that what actually happened .
 It is a system which indicates independent review.
each wing will work upon each issues independently which is unique features itself .
there can be co-operation between the various individuals working a case, they are
separate teams working toward an outcome by themselves instead of together as a
4 Pros and cons of inquisitorial system available at: https://connectusfund.org/19-big-pros-and-cons-of-
inquisitorial-system

group. Some systems may needs full agreement in the results from all of the teams
working on a case before a case proceeds thereafter.
 It must resolve all factual uncertainties before coming to a resolution.
This is a mechanism of continuous investigation that is conducted firstly by police
then after magistrate or the judge who serves as the lead investigator in many
systems. Because the judge(s) are placed in this role, they are tasked by the
government to exhaust every effort to settle any factual uncertainties which may exist
in a case. There must be sufficient evidence of guilt to proceed. Although in some
cases this need may lead to pressure on the defendant to confess, this system seeks to
minimize manipulation to create specific outcomes.
 It allows the judicial system to play a substantial role in the proceedings.
One of the most important benefits s of the inquisitorial system is that the court
moves from being an impartial observer to an active participant. Instead of trying to
weigh the validity of both arguments or place the issue in the hands of a jury alone,
the focus is on achieving a justifiable outcome that fits the facts of the case. Even if
there are minor procedural errors which occur during the case, they can be ignored if
the purpose of achieving justice is the final outcome.
 It grants freedom to defendants to tell their story.
defendants in inquisitorial gets full right to represent their case and story as system
does not degrade character of the defendants as compared to the adversarial system

Fiscal federalism

Fiscal Federalism refers to the division of responsibilities with regards to public expenditure and taxation between the different levels of the government. The Government of India Act 1919 and 1935 formalized the tenets of fiscal federalism and revenue sharing between the Centre and the states. It allows the government to optimize their costs on economies. The Constitution has provided provisions which enable the Union and the States to work in coordination and to levy and collect these taxes through systematic arrangements, provisions like-

Taxes levied and collected by the Centre but assigned to the States.
Taxes levied by the Centre but collected and kept by the States.

Like in other countries, the fiscal dimensions of federalism are a reflection of the political federal structure in India. The traditional subjects of concern of fiscal federalism, such as the assignment of taxes and responsibilities as well as the correction of vertical and horizontal imbalances, continue to remain important in India. Devolution of taxes and duties still constitutes the most significant dimension of fiscal federalism in India (Krishna, 2004). Fiscal federalism in India unlike in many rich countries has to satisfy the competing demands to deliver a number of essential and basic socio-economic services. As a paramount objective, fiscal federalism is expected to enable the national and sub-national governments to operate in such a way that leads to efficiency in the use of resources – not only in terms of the quality of services provided by the various levels of government but also in terms of creating the environment in which all economic agents use resources efficiently. Political environment is important in determining contours of fiscal federalism. After Independence, there was a single and same party rule at the Centre and in almost all states for many decades. There are now telltale signs that India is moving away from an era of cooperative federalism towards competitive federalism, due to multi-party polity, and predominance of regional parties at the state level, and coalition governments at the centre. The existence of competition brings-in the importance of transaction cost of coordinating policies and their implementation
(a) vertically between different levels of government and (b) horizontally between different units within each of the levels.

Many challenges, therefore, lie ahead for fiscal federalism in the country. Bulk of literature on federalism in India had focused on economic aspects of fiscal federalism. There is a little work done in the area of environmental policy and its influence on intergovernmental financial relations in India. Within the context of Indian Federalism, what remains important is to take into account the social diversity in a general sense and the diverse ways in which each member state is able to relate to the federal system as a whole and to other member states (Thornton, 1995). The existing cultural, economic, social, environmental and political factors combining to produce asymmetrical variations in the country, if not handled properly, have the potential to affect harmony within the federal structure of the country.

EVOLUTION OF FISCAL FEDERALISM

The history of fiscal federalism in modern India goes back to the government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935. While the Act of 1919 provided for a separation of revenue heads between the Center and the provinces, the 1935 Act allowed for the sharing of Center’s revenues and for the provision of grants-in-aid to provinces. The salient features of Government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935.
After independence, the Indian Constitution that came into existence in 1950 is widely known as basically ‘federal’ in nature, but with striking ‘unitary’ features, owing to the circumstances of the times when ‘unity and integrity’ of the country was of prime concern (Basu, 1980). Fiscal relations in India had evolved over time through political, institutional and functional changes within the ambit of the provisions of Indian Constitution. The Finance Commission had played an important role in this evolving structure because resource sharing, based on constitutional division of functions and finances between the Centre and states, is a critical element in the Indian federal system (Rangarajan, 2004). The Indian Constitution has not only provided a frame work for social and political development but also established the national ideals and, laid down the manner in which they were to be pursued. The members of the Constituent Assembly “skillfully selected and modified the provisions they borrowed” and “applied to their task two concepts – ‘accommodation’ and ‘consensus’. Accommodation was applied to the principles to be embodied in the Constitution. Consensus was the aim of the decision making process, the single most important source of the constituent Assembly effectiveness” (Granville, 1966). While the spirit of accommodation has been evident not only in the finalization of the provisions of Constitution but also in the manner in which Indian union and the constituent states have discharged their responsibilities of serving an ever increasing population within the democratic framework of governance. The profile of Federal India has undergone significant changes over the last six decades, with the population increasing from 36.10 million 1951 to 1027 million in 2001, and with the number of states emerging in 1956 in a major way and at subsequent points of time in a minor way. What has been significant is the remarkable continuity even while political and institutional changes had taken place in India.
Division of functions and resource asymmetry The Indian Constitution has, under Article 246 and Seventh Schedule, distributed powers and allotted subjects to the Union and the states with a threefold classification of subjects: (i) List I invests the Union with all functions of national importance such as defence, external affairs, communications, constitution, organization of the supreme court and the High courts, elections etc

(ii) List II invests the states with a number of important functions touching on the life and welfare of the people such as public order, police, local government, public health, agriculture, water land etc.

(iii) List III is the Concurrent list, which includes administration of justice (excluding Supreme Court and High Courts), economic and social planning, trade and commerce, etc. It is of interest to note that higher education; forests and population control were all added to this list in 1977 during the emergency when it was felt that the states were not doing justice to these subjects of national importance. Accordingly, the Parliament has exclusive powers to make laws regarding matters enumerated in List I. On the other hand, the Legislature of any state has exclusive power to make laws for that state regarding any of the matters enumerated in List II, subject to other clauses of Article 246. With regard to List III, both the Parliament and State Legislature can make laws but in case of any conflict, the law made by Parliament will prevail (Article 254). The residuary functions, that is, those not included in either lists I or II, vest with the Union. The Union and State lists include the powers of taxation as well. The enumeration of taxation powers placed in the Union List includes: tax on income other than agricultural income, excise duties, customs and corporate tax. Recently service tax had been included in view of diminishing importance of customs. The State List contains land revenue, excise on alcoholic liquor, tax on agricultural income, estate duty, tax on sale or purchase of goods, tax on vehicles, tax on professions, luxuries, entertainment, stamp duties etc. However, due to political reasons, none of the states had imposed tax on agriculture income. The Concurrent List does not include any tax power. The distribution of revenues between the Union and the States and approaches for determining grants as per various Articles of the Indian Constitution is given at Box – 3.3. Distribution of resources between the Centre and the states together with the perceived mismatch between the functional responsibilities and revenue raising powers assigned by the Constitution to the two layers of Governments i.e., Centre and states, has been the subject of considerable discussion and debate in the relevant literature. Two points have been made in this regard: (i) that there is mismatch between the functions allocated to the centre and to the states, their powers of taxation and (ii) that the more buoyant tax areas have been assigned to the centre. But, it has also been pointed out that “the Constitution recognizes that the division of resources and functions between the Union and the states was such that there would be imbalance between them” and that “the Finance Commission periodically corrects the imbalance bringing about an alignment between them” A moot point is whether relative responsibilities of the Centre and states could be defined and worked out in financial terms. The Indian Constitution had given a workable solution that has been able to sustain the federal spirit and provide the framework for many years to come. Many scholars are of the view that in the context of the changes in a growing economy, it is good that they did not freeze the financial relations in a tight frame; they rather chose to provide an institutional mechanism like the Finance Commission to be appointed every five years with powers to make recommendations for statutory devolution and grants.

Vertical and horizontal imbalances

Adequacy and elasticity are the essential elements of federal finance. Adequacy implies sufficient resources for discharging constitutional responsibilities and elasticity implies an expansion of resources in response to the growing needs of Government. The practical effect of the division of tax powers has been to deny both these characteristics in the case of states in India . A vertical imbalance between the Centre and states is built into the Constitution by the provisions relating to powers of taxation. This arises, not out of any consideration of making the centre stronger, but out of the desire to build a common economic space in the country and out of an apprehension that with more powers the states may put up ‘barriers’ within this space. The vertical imbalance is further accentuated by the assignment of several responsibilities involving the public expenditure to the states on the grounds that tiers of government nearer to the people would be more sensitive to their needs and thus be better able to discharge such responsibilities. Since states differ in their resource endowments, levels of development and standards of delivery of public services, there are sharp horizontal imbalances among the states in India.

Inter-governmental transfers

In order to correct built-in vertical and horizontal imbalances for an even and equitable development of the entire country, the main instrument for achieving this is fiscal transfers from the Centre to states through different channels and the mechanisms as provided in the Constitution). Fiscal transfers to the third tier of government through subsequent Constitutional Amendments (73rd and 74th) had also been envisaged in India. Accordingly, there are both mandatory and enabling provisions facilitating a wide ranging transfer of resources from Union to states, arranged in a systematic manner as given in.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS FOR DISTRIBUTION OF REVENUES BETWEEN THE UNION AND THE STATES IN INDIA

Article 268: Duties levied by the Union but collected and appropriated by the States.
Article 268 (A): Taxes on services shall be levied by the GoI and such tax can be
collected and appropriated by GoI and the States. (88th Amendment) Article 269: Taxes levied and collected by the Union but assigned to the States. Article 270: Taxes levied and collected by the Union and distributed between the Union and the States.

Article 271: Surcharge on certain duties and taxes for purposes of the Union.

Article 272: Taxes which are levied and collected by the Union and may be distributed between the Union and the States.

Article 275: Grants from the Union to certain States. Article 276: Taxes on professions, trades, callings and employments.

APPROACHES FOR DETERMINING GRANTS

Article 280 (3) (b): Finance Commission to make recommendations as to the “principles” which should govern such grants in aid.

Article 275 (1): Specific “sums” to be paid to the states which are assessed to be in “need of assistance”.

The Indian Constitution, having provided for a certain division of the powers of taxation between the Union and states, also gives the states a share in the resources available to the Centre as contained in Articles in part XII of the Constitution. Any amendment to the List from which the Union and the states erive their power of taxation is covered by the proviso to Article 368. This requires ratification by the Legislatures of not less than one-half of the states. On the other hand, if any of provisions of part XII are to be amended, this can be done under Article 268(2) which requires the approval of only half of the members of each house of Parliament. This means that the share of the Union resources that the states are entitled to, can be altered by Parliament by its powers of amendment.

Mechanism of Transfers

Over the last six decades, an overarching institutional framework had emerged to deal with Centre-state financial relations in India. The main pillars of this frame work are:

(a) Finance Commission appointed periodically as per Article 280 of the Constitution of India, intended to address the vertical imbalance in financial resources between the centre and states and to address the horizontal distribution of resources among the states.
(b) Planning Commission set up by a Resolution of the Government of India dated 15th March 1950 to make an assessment of the material, capital and human resources of the country, and to formulate a plan for effective and balanced utilization of the country’s resources.

(c) National Development Council set up in August 1952 to strengthen and mobilize the effort and resources of the nation in support of the Five year plans. The financial provisions of the Constitution are in accordance with what experts would consider acceptable principles for a federal constitution and a desirable attribute of inter-governmental tax power assignment (Bagchi, 2001). However, it is the actual working of the scheme that has revealed deficiencies that seriously detract from much of its supposed merits. Bagchi (2001) cites the under utilization of Article 269 by the Union Government, the abridgement of the scope of Article 275, and, consequently, the extensive use of Article 282 by the Union to make extensive grants to the states as examples of the original constitutional scheme being distorted in actual practice over the years. It is the combination of all three agencies, namely, the Finance Commission, Planning Commission and the various Ministries of Government of India, that has taken, over several years, qualitatively significant and quantitatively demanding decisions resulting in an increasing level of transfer of resources from the Centre to states. Federal transfers to the states in India, are made in three streams, as (1) Devolution of states share in Central Taxes (2) Grants from Central to the states (classified as statutory or non statutory; and plan as well as non-plan) covering (i) Non-Plan grants, comprising – i. Statutory grants recommended by the Finance Commission to cover gap in revenue; ii. Assistance for relief measures after natural calamities (ii) Non Statutory grants, comprising – i. Plan grants- (a) State plan schemes
(b) Central plan schemes (c) Centrally sponsored schemes (d) Special schemes for North Eastern council etc (3) Loans from Centre a. Plan loans b. Non Plan loans including Ways and Means Advance.

So that was it about fiscal federalism.

Benefits of Zoo

Disadvantages of Zoo

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Logistics

What you need to know

Costs

What you need to know

Audience

What you need to know

Tradition

What you need to know

Culture and Structure

What you need to know

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this: