WHAT IS MUSIC?

The music of India includes multiple varieties of classical music, folk music, Filmy, Indian rock, and Indian pop. Indian pop and Indian rock are derived from western rock and roll. India‘s classical music tradition, including Hindustani music, Bhartiya music and Carnatic , has a history spanning millennia and developed over several areas. Music in India began as an integral part of socio-religious life.

Music is a way of expressing the feelings by the medium of rhythms and ragas the formation of both of these important elements makes the music beautiful. It expresses the situation you are feeling or someone else for whom the music is been created. The creation of music is an art it’s an beauty in itself the better the music plays or is created it gives a long lasting impact on the listeners. In India music is a heritage to the people of this country. Indian people have created music to express their feelings for the almighty god at first so that they can tell that how they feel about the god in a beautiful way. It helps to share the feelings in a short way and in a helpful way.

As we all know that India is a holy country a country full of devotees of almighty in every religion. So, the start of the music is also from the prayers or the story telling of almighty in India and then the other forms were discovered or created in Indian music.

BHAKTI MUSIC

Vedas (c. 1500 – c. 800 BCE Vedic period) document rituals with performing arts and play. For example, Shatapatha Brahmana (~800–700 BCE) has verses in chapter 13.2 written in the form of a play between two actors. Tala or taal is an ancient music concept traceable to Vedic era texts of Hinduism, such as the Samaveda and methods for singing the Vedic hymns. Smriti (500 BCE to 100 BCE ) post-vedic Hindu texts include Valmiki‘s Ramayana (500 BCE to 100 BCE) which mentions dance and music (dance by Apsaras such as Urvashi, Rambha, Menaka, Tilottama Panchāpsaras, and Ravana‘s wives excelling in nrityageetaor “singing and dancing” and nritavaditra or “playing musical instruments”), music and singing by Gandharvas, several string instruments(vina, tantri, vipanci and vallaki similar to veena), wind instruments (shankha, venu and venugana – likely a mouth organ made by tying several flutes together), raga (including kaushika such as raag kaushik dhwani), vocal registers (seven svara or sur, ana or ekashurtidrag note, murchana the regulated rise and fall of voice in matra and tripramana three-fold teen taal laya such as drut or quick, madhyaor middle, and vilambit or slow), poetry recitation in Bala Kanda and also in Uttara Kanda by Luv and Kusha in marga style.

Starting from the earliest known work Tholkappiyam (500 BCE), there are several references to music and Panns in the ancient pre-Sangam and Sangam literature starting from the earliest known work Tholkappiyam (500 BCE). Among Sangam literature, Mathuraikkanci refers to women singing sevvazhi pann to invoke the mercy of God during childbirth. In Tolkappiyam, the five landscapesof the Sangam literature had each an associated Pann, each describing the mood of the song associated with that landscape. Among the numerous panns that find mention in the ancient Tamil literature are, Ambal Pann, which is suitable to be played on the flute, sevvazhi pann on the Yazh (lute), Nottiram and Sevvazhi expressing pathos, the captivating Kurinji pann and the invigorating Murudappann.Pann(Tamil: பண்) is the melodic mode used by the Tamil people in their music since the ancient times. The ancient panns over centuries evolved first into a pentatonic scale and later into the seven note Carnatic Sargam. But from the earliest times, Tamil Music is heptatonicand known as Ezhisai (ஏழிசை).

Sanskrit saint-poet Jayadeva, who was the great composer and illustrious master of classical music, shaped Odra-Magadhi style music and had great influence on Odissi Sangita.

Sarṅgadeva composed Sangita-Ratnakara, one of the most important Sanskrit musicological texts from India, which is regarded as the definitive text in both Hindustani music and Carnatic music traditions of Indian classical music.

Assamese poet Madhava Kandali, writer of Saptakanda Ramayana, lists several instruments in his version of “Ramayana”, such as mardala, khumuchi, bhemachi, dagar, gratal, ramtal, tabal, jhajhar, jinjiri, bheri mahari, tokari, dosari, kendara, dotara, vina, rudra-vipanchi, etc. (meaning that these instruments existed since his time in 14th century or earlier). The Indian system of notation is perhaps the world’s oldest and most elaborate.

“In India music is now followed and aspired by the bollywood fashion which they have stated for the public to enjoy. Now we are discussing which change are there in the both types of music in the bollywood whether it is old or new and if they have followed any form or way from the Sufi music or the bhakti music it will be concluded later.”

OLD BOLLYWOOD MUSIC VS PRESENT BOLLYWOOD MUSIC

Hindi film songs are present in Hindi cinema right from the first sound film Alam Ara (1931) by Ardeshir Irani which featured seven songs. This was closely followed by Shirheen Farhad (1931) by Jamshedji Framji Madan, also by Madan, which had as many as 42 song sequences strung together in the manner of an opera, and later by Indra Sabha which had as many as 69 song sequences. However, the practice subsided and subsequent films usually featured between six and ten songs in each production.

Right from the advent of Indian cinema in 1931, musicals with song numbers have been a regular feature in Indian cinema. In 1934 Hindi film songs began to be recorded on gramophones and later, played on radio channels, giving rise to a new form of mass entertainment in India which was responsive to popular demand. Within the first few years itself, Hindi cinema had produced a variety of films which easily categorised into genres such as “historicals”, “mythologicals”, “devotional, “fantasy” etc. but each having songs embedded in them such that it is incorrect to classify them as “musicals”.

The Hindi song was such an integral features of Hindi mainstream cinema, besides other characteristics, that post-independence alternative cinema, of which the films of Satyajit Ray are an example, discarded the song and dance motif in its effort to stand apart from mainstream cinema.

The Hindi film song now began to make its presence felt as a predominating characteristic in the culture of the nation and began to assume roles beyond the limited purview of cinema. In multi-cultural India, as per film historian Partha Chatterjee, “the Hindi film song cut through all the language barriers in India, to engage in lively communication with the nation where more than twenty languages are spoken and … scores of dialects exist”. Bollywood music has drawn its inspiration from numerous traditional sources such as Ramleela, nautanki, tamasha and Parsi theatre, as well as from the West, Pakistan, and other Indic musical subcultures.

For over five decades, these songs formed the staple of popular music in South Asia and along with Hindi films, were an important cultural export to most countries around Asia and wherever the Indian Diaspora had spread. The spread was galvanised by the advent of cheap plastic tape cassettes which were produced in the millions till the industry crashed in 2000. Even today Hindi film songs are available on radio, on television, as live music by performers, and on media, both old and new such as cassette tapes, compact disks and DVDs and are easily available, both legally and illegally, on the internet.

GENRES

DANCE

Hindi dance music encompasses a wide range of songs predominantly featured in the Bollywood film industry with a growing worldwide attraction. The music became popular among overseas Indians in countries such as South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and eventually developed a global fan base.

DISCO

In the Indian subcontinent of South Asia, disco peaked in popularity in the early 1980s, when a South Asian disco scene arose, popularised by filmy Bollywood music, at a time when disco’s popularity had declined in North America. The South Asian disco scene was sparked by the success of Pakistani pop singer Nazia Hassan, working with Indian producer Biddu, with the hit Bollywood song “Aap Jaisa Koi” in 1980. Biddu himself previously had success in the Western world, where he was considered a pioneer, as one of the first successful disco producers in the early 1970s, with hits such as the hugely popular “Kung Fu Fighting” (1974), before the genre’s Western decline at the end of the 1970s led to him shifting his focus to Asia. The success of “Aap Jaisa Koi” in 1980 was followed by Nazia Hassan’s Disco Deewane, a 1981 album produced by Biddu, becoming Asia’s best-selling pop album at the time.

In parallel to the Euro disco scene at the time, the continued relevance of disco in South Asia and the increasing reliance on synthesizersled to experiments in electronic disco, often combined with elements of Indian music. Biddu had already used electronic equipment such as synthesizers in some of his earlier disco work, including “Bionic Boogie” from Rain Forest (1976), “Soul Coaxing” (1977), Eastern Man and Futuristic Journey (recorded from 1976 to 1977), and “Phantasm” (1979), before using synthesizers for his later work with Nazia Hassan, including “Aap Jaisa Koi” (1980), Disco Deewane (1981) and “Boom Boom” (1982). Bollywood disco producers who used electronic equipment such as synthesizers include R.D. Burman, on songs such as “Dhanno Ki Aankhon Mein” (Kitaab, 1977) and “Pyaar Karne Waale” (Shaan, 1980); Laxmikant-Pyarelal, on songs such as “Om Shanti Om” (Karz, 1980); and Bappi Lahari, on songs such as “Ramba Ho” (Armaan, 1981). They also experimented with minimalist, high-tempo, electronic disco, including Burman’s “Dil Lena Khel Hai Dildar Ka” (Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai, 1981), which had a “futuristic electro feel”, and Lahiri’s “Yaad Aa Raha Hai” (Disco Dancer, 1982).

Such experiments eventually culminated in the work of Charanjit Singh, whose 1982 record Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beatanticipated the sound of acid house music, years before the genre arose in the Chicago house scene of the late 1980s. Using the Roland TR-808 drum machine, TB-303 bass synthesizer, and Jupiter-8 synthesizer, Singh increased the disco tempo up to a “technowavelength” and made the sounds more minimalistic, while pairing them with “mystical, repetitive, instrumental Indian ragas“, to produce a new sound, which resembled acid house. According to Singh: “There was lots of disco music in films back in 1982. So I thought why not do something different using disco music only. I got an idea to play all the Indian ragas and give the beat a disco beat – and turn off the tabla. And I did it. And it turned out good.” The first track “Raga Bhairavi” also had a synthesised voice that says “Om Namah Shivaya” through a vocoder.

Along with experiments in electronic disco, another experimental trend in Indian disco music of the early 1980s was the fusion of disco and psychedelic music. Due to 1960s psychedelic rock, popularised by the Beatles‘ raga rock, borrowing heavily from Indian music, it began exerting a reverse influence and had blended with Bollywood music by the early 1970s. You can download these songs for free from various sources as well. This led to Bollywood producers exploring a middle-ground between disco and psychedelia in the early 1980s. Producers who experimented with disco-psychedelic fusion included Laxmikant-Pyarelal, on songs such as “Om Shanti Om” (Karz, 1980), and R. D. Burman, on songs such as “Pyaar Karne Waale” (Shaan, 1980), along with the use of synthesizers.

GHAZAL

Music directors like Madan Mohan composed notable film-ghazals extensively for Muslim socials in the 1960s and the 1970s. The filmi-ghazal style experienced a revival in the early 1990s, sparked by the success of Nadeem-Shravan‘s Aashiqui (1990). It had a big impact on Bollywood music at the time, ushering in ghazal-type romantic music that dominated the early 1990s, with soundtracks such as Dil, Saajan, Phool Aur Kaante and Deewana. A popular ghazal song from Aashiqui was “Dheere Dheere“, a cover version of which was later recorded by Yo Yo Honey Singh and released by T-Series in 2015.

QAWWALI

It represents a distinct subgenre of film music, although it is distinct from traditional qawwali, which is devotional Sufi music. One example of filmi qawwali is the song “Pardah Hai Pardah” sung by Mohammed Rafi, and composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, for the Indian film Amar Akbar Anthony (1977).

Within the subgenre of filmi qawwali, there exists a form of qawwali that is infused with modern and Western instruments, usually with techno beats, called techno-qawwali. An example of techno-qawwali is “Kajra Re“, a filmi song composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy. A newer variation of the techno-qawwali based on the more dance oriented tracks is known as the “club qawwali”. More tracks of this nature are being recorded and released.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and A.R. Rahman have composed filmi qawwalis in the style of traditional qawwali. Examples include “Tere Bin Nahin Jeena” (Kachche Dhaage), “Arziyan” (Delhi 6), “Khwaja Mere Khwaja” (Jodhaa Akbar)[43] and “Kun Faya Kun” (Rockstar).[44]

ROCK

Indian musicians began fusing rock with traditional Indian music from the mid-1960s onwards in filmy songs produced for popular Bollywood films. Some of the more well known early rock songs (including styles such as funk rock, pop rock, psychedelic rock, raga rock, and soft rock) from Bollywood films include Mohammed Rafi‘s “Jaan Pehechan Ho” in Gumnaam (1965), Kishore Kumar‘s “O Saathi Re” in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978), and Asha Bhosle songs such as “Dum Maro Dum” in Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971), “Ae Naujawan Hai Sab” in Apradh (1972), and “Yeh Mera Dil Pyar Ka Diwana” in Don (1978).

CONCLUSION

Songs nowadays have a soft spot in almost everyone’s heart. People listen different types of music be it a inspirational/motivational, sad, romantic, rocking, Gazal etc. I have been through the answers here some are saying old one’s have the meanings so are the best where as the new ones are shitty except few. Well this questions’ answer will definitely vary as it totally depends upon an individual’s perception.
I agree that old songs does have meanings but many don’t. Songs sung by legendary singers like Kishore Kumar, Gulshan Kumar, Lata Mangeskar etc. have been great no doubt, one of my favorite is zindagi ke safar mein this song is so much meaningful that one can relate it to one’s life. So there are many old ones which have meaning but not every as you all know.

Now coming to the new songs, who says new songs are not better than old one’s? Well many of you out there but let me tell you all, there are good numbers of new songs which have meanings like kal ho na ho, ashayein, muskurane ki wajah, roobaroo and many more. These songs have mesmerized many people. And if you are pointing towards Honey Singh’s songs then guys just tell me what’s wrong in it?  I mean I am not a huge fan of him but genuinely saying there’s nothing bad. His songs are heard just for fun or party. So i think it’s quite okay to enjoy in these kind of songs. Though it doesn’t have meanings at all but somehow it gives a good tune to listen. Not a big deal! Both old and new are best. It depends totally on you. And Indian songs have always been one of a kind because of our talented singers of our country. They have given so much hits and enlighten our mood as well. The ragas in these songs which are discussed in the above articles are a masterpiece of the mixture of the old classical and Sufi form of creating music.

HELLO! SPORTS

The history of sports extends as far back as the existence of people as purposive, sportive and active beings. It also shows how society has changed its beliefs and therefore how changes in the rules are brought. The history of sports in India dates back to the Vedic era. Chess, wrestling, polo, archery and hockey are some of the games believed to have originated in India. But somewhere between the historical lineage of sports and sports in the modern era there is a gap of enthusiasm and encouragement. Little importance is left for sports at grass root level in India with every school concentrating only on academics. Though there are various federations in India that provide sports facilities but apart from cricket, India is largely failing in every major event for sports such as Olympics. One of the main reasons for it is the lack of uniform regulation in India for sports. There is a need for a legislation that governs sports and brings the various authorities into one roof. Sports law has an unusually well developed pattern of globalized regulation and overlaps substantially with labor law, contract law, criminal law, public law, administrative law, antitrust law, competition law, intellectual property rights law, law of tort, media law, company law, human rights law etc. These laws have been applied to sporting context involving public order, drugs, safety, disciplinary measures, conduct and wider issues relating to restraint of trade, anti competitive behaviour, match fixing and the commercial exploitation of sports. Issues like defamation and privacy rights are also an integral aspect of sports law. In India sports figures in the State list of the Seventh Schedule (entry 33) of the Constitution.

ORGANIZATION OF SPORTS IN INDIA

In the field of sports, the club is the basic unit at the grass root level. At the top of the hierarchy are the international sports bodies for each sports made up of national bodies of different countries. The national sports bodies again consist of the provincial or state bodies of different countries. The provincial state bodies comprise the different districts or clubs. In India, national sports bodies field the national team representing the country for participation in international competitions where good performance is a matter of pride for the entire nation. They consider the players for participation Accordingly in the most countries including India, for enforcement of their public duties and obligations prerogative Constitutional Writs of High Courts lie against these private bodies like any public or Government Authority.  (Indian Olympic Association Vs Veeresh Malik and Ors MANU/DE/0108/2010) 

There is no national or state legislation for regulation of sports in India. The Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports was set up by the Govt. of India to create the infrastructure and promote capacity building for broad-basing sports as well as for achieving excellence in various competitive events at the national and international levels. Sports promotion is primarily the responsibility of the various National Sports Federations (NSFs) which are autonomous in nature. The Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs issues notifications and guidelines from time to time for the purpose of regulation of NSFs.

The Sports Law in India is governed and regulated by
• National Sports Policy
• Sports Law and Welfare Association of India
• Sports Authority of India
• The Sports Broadcasting Law in India.

NATIONAL SPORTS POLICY, 1984/2001 

A Resolution on the National Sports Policy was laid in both Houses of Parliament in August, 1984. The National Sports Policy, 1984 was formulated with the objective of raising the standard of Sports in the country. The National Sports Policy, 1984 provided inter-alia that the progress made in its implementation would be reviewed every five years to determine the further course of action, as may be necessary, following such review. Over the years, it has transpired that even as the National Sports Policy, 1984 encompasses various facets in respect of encouraging sports in the country, the implementation of the same is not complete. In order to reformulate the National Sports Policy 1984, National Sports Policy 2001, was drafted

The objective of the guidelines of National Sports Policy 2001 is three fold: 

• Firstly to define the areas of responsibility of the various agencies involved in the promotion and development of sports,
• Secondly, to identify National Sports Federations eligible for coverage under these guidelines, to set priorities, and to detail the procedures to be followed by the Federations, to avail of Government sponsorship and assistance. 
• Thirdly, to state the conditions for eligibility which the Government will insist upon while releasing grants to Sports Federations. 

In accordance with the provisions of the National Sports Policy, 2001, the Central Government pursues the objectives of “Broad-basing” of Sports and “Achieving Excellence in Sports at the National and International levels” in a combined effort with the State Government, the Olympic Association and the National Sports Federation. The Government of India and the Sports Authority of India, in association with the Indian Olympic Association and the National Sports Federations, are expected to focus specific attention on the objective of achieving excellence at the National and International levels. The National Sports Policy aims to pursue inclusion of “Sports” in the Concurrent List of the Constitution of India and introduction of appropriate legislation for guiding all matters involving national and inter-state jurisdiction. 

SPORTS LAW AND WELFARE ASSOCIATION OF INDIA

The Sports Law and Welfare Association of India is a national non-profit and professional organization which work with the common goal of understanding, advancement, and ethical practice of Sports Law in India for the promotion of Sports, by bringing Legal Practitioners and Sports persons together. The Association provides consultancy on various matters including regulation of sports governing bodies, general sport and law issues, intellectual property issues in sport, online advocating in legal disputes of sports in court on behalf of sports persons and sports bodies, etc. The Sports Law and Welfare Association of India aims to further the discussion of legal problems affecting sports and to promote the exchange of a variety of perspectives and positions of sports law and provide a forum for lawyers representing athletes, teams, leagues, conferences, civic recreational programs, educational institutions and other organizations involved in professional, collegiate, Olympic, physical education and amateur sports. 

SPORTS AUTHORITY OF INDIA 

The Sports Authority of India was established to fulfil the need of an apex body to coordinate various sports activities in India. The success of the IXth Asian Games at Delhi has raised sports consciousness and enthusiasm in India which in turn, motivated the Government of India to focus on sports development to encourage physical fitness among youth and to direct their energy towards excellence. The Sports Authority of India has gradually, extended its operations to promote broad base sports. The other thrust areas of SAI include provision of strengthening of inputs for excellence and various supportive programmes, such as Academic Programmes, Coaching and Physical Education Awareness Programmes and Scholarship Schemes as incentives to sportspersons. The Sports Authority of India operates various Schemes at sub-junior, junior and senior level and endeavours to broad base sports and develop excellence by upgrading the skills of Indian sports persons. 

THE SPORTS BROADCASTING LAW IN INDIA

The Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act was passed in 2007 with an objective to provide access to the largest number of listeners and viewers, on a free to air basis, of sporting events of national importance through mandatory sharing of sports broadcasting signals with Prasar Bharati and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. The Act provides that any content right owner or holder television or radio broadcasting service provider shall not carry a live television broadcast on any cable or Direct-to-Home network or radio commentary broadcast in India of sporting events of national importance, unless it simultaneously shares the live broadcasting signal, without its advertisements, with the Prasar Bharati to enable them to re-transmit the same on its terrestrial networks and Direct-to-Home networks in such manner and on such terms and conditions as may be specified. 

SPORTS AND COMPETITION LAW

Two teams playing against each other are like two corporate firms producing a single product. The product is the game, weighted by the revenues derived from its play. In one sense, the teams compete; in another, they combine in a single firm in which the success of each branch requires efficiency. Unequally distributed playing talent can produce “competitive imbalance”. Remuneration of the team members largely depends on the level of competition between the teams in the particular sports. sport is generally organized in a kind of a ‘pyramid’ structure, with a single governing body controlling most regulatory and commercial aspects of each sport, the governing body appears to be de facto ‘dominant’ and therefore claims relating to the abuse of monopoly. 

Sports governing bodies such as BCCI, often attempt to preserve for themselves the sole ability to regulate the sport and to organize events. In order to prevent the development of rival organizations, they have sought to tie players in by prohibiting them from competing in other events, on pain of exclusion from ‘official’ events, and such rules have been the subject of challenge under competition law. 

When the Zee launched Indian Cricket League, the BCCI sacked Kapil Dev as chairman of the National Cricket Academy for aligning with ICL and barred all the 44 defecting players from playing for India or at the domestic level. It made clear that any cricketer who aligns with ICL will be banned for life from playing for India. Such practice on part of the BCCI may attract liability under the provisions of the Competition Act, 2002. As per Section 4(2)(c) of the Act if any enterprise “indulges in practice or practices resulting in denial of market access in any manner”, then it shall be liable for abuse of dominant position. Thus, such practice of banning players from domestic tournaments on account of joining the rival leagues may prove expensive for the BCCI, which may face a challenge on grounds of abuse of dominant position. 

The denial of stadiums by the BCCI can attract liability for abuse of dominant position under s.4(2)(c) of the Competition Act, 2002 as by denying the use of essential facility under its control it raises the barriers to entry in the market for its competitors, resulting effectively in denial of market access. Operating from just one stadium in Panchkula (in Haryana near Chandigarh), the ICL clearly missed out on one of the integral aspects of leagues sports i.e. a fan base, since it is unable to capture home crowds for matches on account of non-access to the stadiums in the club’s cities. 

SPORTS LAW AND ARBITRATION

Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, wherein the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons (the “arbitrators”, “arbiters” or “arbitral tribunal”), by whose decision (the “award”) they agree to be bound. It is a settlement technique in which a third party reviews the case and imposes a decision that is legally binding for both sides. Other forms of ADR include mediation (a form of settlement negotiation facilitated by a neutral third party) and non-binding resolution by experts. Arbitration in India is governed by the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 (“Indian Arbitration Act”), which is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law. The Indian Arbitration Act is broadly divided into two parts. Part I applies to arbitrations held in India, whether domestic or international, and Part II applies to arbitrations held outside India. Part II, incorporates the rules related to international arbitrations governed by the New York or Geneva Conventions. In sports, the disputes are first referred to the federations that govern a particular sport and subsequently the international authorities that govern the sport. e.g. in hockey disputes are referred to the Indian Hockey Federation and after that the International Hockey Federation. 

At a time when sports are becoming more professional and the stakes are becoming higher than ever, dispute resolution takes on an increasingly important role. In many respects arbitration offers the most suitable solutions with regards to the rapidity, diversity, incontestability and professionalism of the decisions rendered. With regular increase in the number of sports-related disputes in the country, India requires an independent authority that specializes in sports-related problems and that is authorised to pronounce binding decisions. The disputes when referred to courts take a long time to come up with the final decision since the Indian courts are already piled up with a number of pending cases. There is a need to have an authority for sports that offers flexible, quick and inexpensive method of resolution of disputes. With the inauguration of India’s first arbitration centre in Delhi in 2009, India is recognizing the necessity of arbitration for quicker disposal of cases. The increasing use of arbitration in sport over the last decade has challenged the legal framework in which arbitration disputes are addressed in many jurisdictions.

Court of Arbitration for Sport

Arbitration exists in international sport through the Court of Arbitration for Sport. All international disputes relating to sports are referred to it. The most prominent sports dispute resolution forum is the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which has its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The CAS was created by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1983. It also has two permanent outposts in Sydney, Australia and New York, USA. It has a minimum of 150 arbitrators from 37 countries, who are specialists in arbitrations and sports law. They are appointed by the International Council of Arbitration for Sports (ICAS) for a four year renewable term and need to sign a ‘letter of independence’. The CAS also has a permanent President who is also the President of ICAS. 

The body was originally conceived by International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch to deal with disputes arising during the Olympics. It was established as part of the IOC in 1984. However in a case decided by the CAS, an appealed was made to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, challenging CAS impartiality. The Swiss court ruled that the CAS was a true court of arbitration, but drew attention to the numerous links which existed between the CAS and the IOC. The biggest change resulting from this reform was the creation of an “International Council of Arbitration for Sport” (ICAS) to look after the running and financing of the CAS, thereby taking the place of the IOC. CAS is placed under the administrative and financial authority of the International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS). 

Almost all international sports federations or associations which are part of the Olympic Games require sports disputes arising between themselves and sportspersons to be decided by the CAS. Sporting federations whose sports are not part of the Olympics such as Formula I where the FIA which is the governing body of motor sports has its own dispute settlement tribunal. Even some sports which are included in the Olympics have their tribunals like football where its governing body FIFA has its own tribunal. For example, in 1993, a claim of bringing Formula I into disrepute was brought against former FI champion Alain Prost and the Williams Renault Team. The matter was however, satisfactorily resolved by the FIA resulting in Prost escaping a possible ban from competing in the remaining FI races of that particular season. 

A dispute may be submitted to the CAS only if there is an arbitration agreement between the parties which specifies recourse to the CAS. The language for the CAS is either French or English. In principle, two types of dispute may be submitted to the CAS:

1. those of a commercial nature, and 
2. those of a disciplinary nature. 

Commercial: 

The first category essentially involves disputes relating to the execution of contracts, such as those relating to sponsorship, the sale of television rights, the staging of sports events, player transfers and relations between players or coaches and clubs and/or agents (employment contracts and agency contracts). Disputes relating to civil liability issues also come under this category (e.g. an accident to an athlete during a sports competition). These so-called commercial disputes are handled by the CAS acting as a court of sole instance. 

Disciplinary: 

Disciplinary cases represent the second group of disputes submitted to the CAS, of which a large number are doping-related. In addition to doping cases, the CAS is called upon to rule on various disciplinary cases (violence on the field of play, abuse of a referee). Such disciplinary cases are generally dealt with in the first instance by the competent sports authorities, and subsequently become the subject of an appeal to the CAS, which then acts as a court of last instance. 

The CAS is governed by its own Statutes and Rules of Procedure namely the Statutes of the Bodies Working for the Settlement of Sports Related Disputes, Code of Sports Related Arbitration and Mediation Rules. According to Articles S12, S20, R27 and R47 of the Code, the Appeals Arbitration Procedure is open for the appeal against every decision rendered by a federation or club and not limited to disciplinary matters, especially doping cases. In addition, Article R57 empowers the CAS Panels not only to annul a certain decision, but also to replace a decision by a decision by a decision of the arbitrators, or to refer the case back to the issuing body. Moreover, Article R58 authorises the Panel to apply the ‘rule of law’ it deems most appropriate for the case. Thus the Panels may deviate from the laws of the country in which the federation is domiciled and reach a decision on the basis of laws of another country or other rules of law, such as general principles of law.

The CAS acquires its jurisdiction in a particular case only through the mutual consent of the parties involved. Currently, all Olympic International Federations and many National Olympic Committees have recognised the jurisdiction of the CAS and included in their statutes an arbitration clause referring disputes to it. The CAS hears approximately 200 cases per year. While it was the international response to the rise in the use of performance-enhancing drugs and the resulting doping cases that fueled the creation of the CAS, the Court is called upon to assist in a wide range of sport conflicts, including sponsorship disputes, the eligibility of a particular athlete in accordance with a sport’s constitution, as well as the resolution of disagreements concerning competition results. The determination of issues arising in doping cases remains a significant portion of the CAS caseload.

CAS and Mediation

In addition to arbitration CAS also offers mediation services to any requesting parties of a sports dispute. Unlike arbitration, the mediation process is not binding—the mediator will provide recommendations, with solutions suggested, but these are not imposed as a result as in the case of arbitration. Mediations are designed to permit the adverse parties an opportunity to air their grievances in an atmosphere aimed at conciliation of the dispute.

Advantages for referring cases to CAS

• Expertise in sports-related disciplines (there are more than 300 arbitrators from 87 countries qualified to hear CAS disputes) whereas a typical civil judge will not likely possess such sports-specific knowledge.
• Its arbitrators are all high level jurists and it is generally held in high regard in the international sports community.
• Procedure is flexible and informal.
• Expeditious proceeding as cases are heard and determined within a few months from the date of reference. During the Olympics, awards are required to be made within 24 hours.
• Lower legal cost to the participants
• Also provides mediation services
• CAS is a private procedure and therefore is conducted without the public or media interference. The arbitrators and CAS staff are obligated not to disclose any information connected with the dispute.

Important CAS rulings 

• In 2003, Canadian cross country skier Becky Scott successfully appealed to the CAS with respect to her claim that she be awarded the 2002 Olympic gold medal in the 5-km pursuit event. Russian skiers Olga Danilova and Larissa Lazutina finished first and second respectively in the competition, with Scott in third place, and each athlete passed their post-event doping test. Danilova and Lazutina each failed a subsequent doping test administered in relation to another Olympic cross-country event, when the presence of a prohibited blood doping agent, darbepoetin, was detected in each skier’s sample. Scott appealed her 5-km race result on the basis that both Russian skiers were engaged in ongoing doping practices. The Scott ruling was the first time in Olympic history that a gold medal had been awarded to an athlete as a result of a CAS ruling.
• In 2005, the CAS arbitration panel ruled that American sprinter Tim Montgomery be banned from international competition for two years as a result of doping, in spite of the fact that Montgomery had never failed a doping test. The CAS ruled that it could find a doping violation on the basis of the third party evidence called against Montgomery, most of which connected Montgomery to the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) athlete steroid scandal that had arisen in the United States in 2003.
• In February 2010 Five-time Olympic speedskating champion Claudia Pechstein lost her appeal against a two-year ban for blood doping. CAS dismissed the German’s appeal against a ban imposed by the International Skating Union.

Setting aside proceedings against CAS arbitral awards may only be filed with the Swiss Supreme Court due to the seat of CAS tribunals being in Lausanne. 

PROPOSAL AND CONCLUSION

The Indian Sports industry has progressed by leaps and bounds. Sports have assumed a corporate form with the number of commercial interests involved. With increasing market maturity and the need for clear and comprehensive legal documentation, sport issues are slowly becoming a major focus as contracts must be able to clarify parties’ expectations and commitments, must protect the athlete’s and the brand’s big-picture interests and must factor in regulatory, legal and other risks inherent in the industry. The country has reached a stage where India needs a legislation that deals with sports law. India’s failure in all the international sports events is an indication of poor infrastructure and corruption which exists within the federations. In order to meet the increasing demands of the changing scenario, national as well as international, it is important that a uniform code for sports be promoted.

WHAT IS JOB ?

A job, employment, work or occupation, is a person‘s role in society. More specifically, a job is an activity, often regular and often performed in exchange for payment (“for a living”). Many people have multiple jobs (e.g., parent, homemaker, and employee). A person can begin a job by becoming an employee, volunteering, starting a business, or becoming a parent. The duration of a job may range from temporary (e.g., hourly odd jobs) to a lifetime (e.g., judges).

An activity that requires a person’s mental or physical effort is work (as in “a day’s work”). If a person is trained for a certain type of job, they may have a profession. Typically, a job would be a subset of someone’s career. The two may differ in that one usually retires from their career, versus resignation or termination from a job.

GOVERNMENT JOBS:-

These are those jobs which are allotted or occupied by a person with all job safety and happy livelihood. These jobs are especially allotted by the government to make work easy for the local public.

Some reasons to opt this job and to not are:-

Advantages :-

1. Flexibility: Many people have the misconception that timing for government jobs is rigid and switches are not really possible. However, in reality, the government has made provisions for alternative work schedules. Last year, RBI offered flexible work timings for their officers. This practice helps in maintaining a healthier work-life balance.

2. Holidays: Weekend holiday is what every working professional enjoys. Those who are working in government offices enjoy a lot of holidays. In India, there are a number of festivals and they cover up the maximum portion of holiday list of the yearly calendar in India. So, being a government officer, you will get these holidays so that you can spend quality time with family and friends.

3. Prestige: This is an additional perk given to government officers, may it be at the state level or central level. In private sector you may go to a certain level of rank or position and earn prestige and reputation.

4. Low pressure: This is an advantage if you are committed to your job. However, if you are negligent and too lazy to carry out your responsibilities, you can feel the burden on your shoulders all the time. Otherwise the pressure levels are comparatively low in government sector.

Disadvantages:-

The disadvantages of working in government sector are as follows:

1. Work Environment: Many people complained about lazy work environment in government offices. According to them only a handful of people work diligently and complete their task within the schedule time.

2. Appraisals: You work hard; you expect appraisals for your hard work. It is a universal truth both in private and government sector. However critiques said that in government office, people who are working hard may often go unnoticed.

3. Control levels: In a government office, levels of controls are quite low. Government jobs give you a liberty to work freely, but in a restricted space.

4. Selection process: Although you will find thousand of government jobs in India but getting a government job is tough. Plus the selection process is quite lengthy and cumbersome. Even you are placed in the merit list; still you may have to wait for a long period of time before you actually join the office. Worse thing is that, if you are not selected, you have wasted a couple of days (or even months) and you may feel like you are in the middle of the sea. Carrying yourself from there and shifting to the private sector or to another opportunity in the government offices will take even more time.

PRIVATE JOBS:-

These are those jobs which do not have any government interference and are controlled or operated by an individual or some group of individuals. Reasons to opt for this kind of job and to not are below.

Advantages :-

1. Work Style: Private sector jobs ensure that the employees should complete the given task in a given time frame. So, you can be sure that the work style here is fast paced and efficient. You need to be on your toes every time you take up a responsibility and can be sure that your hard work will be appreciated.

2. Work and Growth: In a private sector, work and growth are directly related. Better you work, higher will be your growth and vice versa. You can be sure that if you are dedicated and have skills to work up to the next level, your potentials will be noticed and you will be promoted to the next level. This is an added advantage of working in a private sector.

3. Job satisfaction: Private sector jobs are not similar to traditional jobs where you have to work for fixed and limited working hours. Here, you can be sure that you are working for late hours but when you move out of your office, you will be satisfied that you have learnt something new today. Given your best to the company. Your hard work is/will be appreciated.

4. Higher pay: Yes, this is what people are mostly attracted to. In the real world, money is the biggest source of motivation and private sector offers you scope to earn incentives or perks for hard work.

Disadvantages:-

1. Pension: People are attracted towards government jobs because they know that when they retire from their job, they will be blessed with a pension plan which will be available to them for the rest of their lives. This facility is not available for those working in the private sector. Private jobs may give you higher pay currently, but once you are out of the organization, you may enjoy the post-retirement benefits. However the scenario has changed since there are many private companies who also have started monetary benefits for their retired employees.

2. Job security: This is a point you can never rule out. Imagine a situation. You are a normal employee in a private organization. Recession hits the economy. You may be terminated from your job. However, this possibility is minimal if you are a government employee. Even if a private sector company is suffering loss, then also your job may be at stake.

3. Holidays: Private sectors work on deadlines and holidays are limited in this sector. If work deadlines are not meet, you may also have to work for long hours and even during public holidays.

4. Competition: Employers of private sector appreciate hard work of employees and appraisals are prompt for the employees, depending on their performance and abilities. However, it also promotes fierce competition amongst colleagues.

CONCLUSION:-

To sum up you, you must consider both the advantages and disadvantages of working in both sectors and then take your decision accordingly. There are, of course, certain jobs that allow you to be “Self-employed” — such as running your own business, or taking up teaching as a private or online tutor. These jobs, especially the teaching ones, hardly depend on how old we get, or how much we can travel. Such things are usually decided upon by the tutor himself/herself, as per convenience. The same can be true for business. However, the ‘job security’ factor is said to be stronger in case of tutors, because it all depends mostly on how they prefer to teach, how many students they wish to teach, when, where, how and for how much. In case of businesses, things might not be the same, as a businessman has to depend on a larger number of factors and make an investment, first. Whichever profession you choose, our best wishes are there for you. Do share any story or advice on this subject, so that others can benefit from your observations, too.

WHAT IS DEPRESSION?

Depression is classified as a mood disorder. It may be described as feelings of sadness, loss, or anger that interfere with a person’s everyday activities.

It’s also fairly common. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Trusted Source estimates that 8.1 percent of American adults ages 20 and over had depression in any given 2-week period from 2013 to 2016.

People experience depression in different ways. It may interfere with your daily work, resulting in lost time and lower productivity. It can also influence relationships and some chronic health conditions.

Conditions that can get worse due to depression include:

• arthritis
• asthma
• cardiovascular disease
• cancer
• diabetes
• obesity

It’s important to realize that feeling down at times is a normal part of life. Sad and upsetting events happen to everyone. But, if you’re feeling down or hopeless on a regular basis, you could be dealing with depression.

Depression is considered a serious medical condition that can get worse without proper treatment. Those who seek treatment often see improvements in symptoms in just a few weeks.

DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS

Depression can be more than a constant state of sadness or feeling “blue.”

Major depression can cause a variety of symptoms. Some affect your mood, and others affect your body. Symptoms may also be ongoing, or come and go.

The symptoms of depression can be experienced differently among men, women, and children differently.

Men may experience symptoms related to their:

• Mood, such as anger, aggressiveness, irritability, anxiousness, restlessness
• Emotional well-being, such as feeling empty, sad, hopeless
• Behaviour, such as loss of interest, no longer finding pleasure in favourite activities, feeling tired easily, thoughts of suicide, drinking excessively, using drugs, engaging in high-risk activities
• Sexual interest, such as reduced sexual desire, lack of sexual performance
• Cognitive abilities, such as inability to concentrate, difficulty completing tasks, delayed responses during conversations
• Sleep patterns, such as insomnia, restless sleep, excessive sleepiness, not sleeping through the night
• Physical well-being, such as fatigue, pains, headache, digestive problems

REASONS FOR DEPRESSION

Lots of things influence whether a person gets depressed. Some of it is biology — things like our genes, brain chemistry, and hormones. Some is environment, including daylight and seasons, or social and family situations we face. And some is personality, like how we react to life events or the support systems we create for ourselves. All these things can help shape whether or not a person becomes depressed.    

Genes

Research shows that depression runs in families. Some people inherit genes that contribute to depression. But not everyone who has a family member with depression will develop it too. And many people with no family history of depression still get depressed. So genes are one factor, but they aren’t the only reason for depression.

 

Brain Chemistry

Chemicals called neurotransmitters (pronounced: nur-oh-TRANZ-mit-urs) help send messages between nerve cells in the brain. Some neurotransmitters regulate mood. When a person is depressed, these neurotransmitters might be in low supply or not effective enough.

Genes and brain chemistry can be connected: Having the genes for depression may make a person more likely to have the neurotransmitter problem that is part of depression.

 

Stress, Health, and Hormones

Things like stress, using alcohol or drugs, and hormone changes also affect the brain’s delicate chemistry and mood.

Some health conditions may cause depression-like symptoms. For example, hypothyroidism is known to cause a depressed mood in some people. Mono can drain a person’s energy. When health conditions are diagnosed and treated by a doctor, the depression-like symptoms usually disappear.

Getting enough sleep and regular exercise often has a positive effect on neurotransmitter activity and mood.

 

Daylight and Seasons

Daylight affects how the brain produces melatonin and serotonin. These neurotransmitters help regulate a person’s sleep–wake cycles, energy, and mood. When there is less daylight, the brain produces more melatonin. When there is more daylight, the brain makes more serotonin.

Shorter days and longer hours of darkness in fall and winter may lead the body to have more melatonin and less serotonin. This imbalance is what creates the conditions for depression in some people — a condition known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Exposure to light can help improve mood for people affected by SAD.

 

Life Events

The death of a family member, friend, or pet sometimes goes beyond normal grief and leads to depression. Other difficult life events — such as when parents divorce, separate, or remarry — can trigger depression.

Whether or not difficult life situations lead to depression can depend a lot on how well a person is able to cope, stay positive, and receive support.

 

Family and Social Environment

For some people, a negative, stressful, or unhappy family atmosphere can lead to depression. Other high-stress living situations — such as poverty, homelessness, or violence — can contribute, too. Dealing with bullying, harassment, or peer pressure leaves some people feeling isolated, victimized, or insecure.

Situations like these don’t necessarily lead to depression, but facing them without relief or support can make it easier to become depressed.

 

Reacting to Life Situations

Life is full of ups and downs. Stress, hassles, and setbacks happen (but hopefully not too often). How we react to life’s struggles matters a lot. A person’s outlook can contribute to depression — or it can help guard against it.

Research shows that a positive outlook acts as a protection against depression, even for people who have the genes, brain chemistry, or life situations that put them at risk for developing it. The opposite is also true: People who tend to think more negatively may be more at risk for developing depression.

We can’t control our genes, brain chemistry, or some of the other things that contribute to depression. But we do have control over how we see situations and how we cope.

Making an effort to think positively — like believing there’s a way around any problem — helps ward off depression. So does developing coping skills and a support system of positive relationships. These things help build resilience (the quality that helps people bounce back and do well, even in difficult situations).

Here are three ways to build resilience:

1. Try thinking of change as a challenging and normal part of life. When a problem crops up, take action to solve it.
2. Remind yourself that setbacks and problems are temporary and solvable. Nothing lasts forever.
3. Build a support system. Ask friends and family for help (or just a shoulder to cry on) when you need it. Offer to help when they need it. This kind of give and take creates strong relationships that help people weather life’s storms.

Being positive and resilient isn’t a magic shield that automatically protects us from depression. But these qualities can help offset the other factors that might lead to trouble.

TREATMENT FOR DEPRESSION

Living with depression can be difficult, but treatment can help improve your quality of life. Talk to your healthcare provider about possible options.

You may successfully manage symptoms with one form of treatment, or you may find that a combination of treatments works best.

It’s common to combine medical treatments and lifestyle therapies, including the following:

MEDICATIONS

Your healthcare provider may prescribe:

• Antidepressants
• Antianxiety
• Antipsychotic medications

Each type of medication that’s used to treat depression has benefits and potential risks.

PSYCHOTHERAPY

Speaking with a therapist can help you learn skills to cope with negative feelings. You may also benefit from family or group therapy sessions.

LIGHT THERAPY

Exposure to doses of white light can help regulate your mood and improve symptoms of depression. Light therapy is commonly used in seasonal affective disorder, which is now called major depressive disorder with seasonal pattern.

ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES

Ask your healthcare provider about acupuncture or meditation. Some herbal supplements are also used to treat depression, like St. John’s wort, SAMe, and fish oil.

Talk with your healthcare provider before taking a supplement or combining a supplement with prescription medication because some supplements can react with certain medications. Some supplements may also worsen depression or reduce the effectiveness of medication.

EXERCISE

Aim for 30 minutes of physical activity 3 to 5 days a week. Exercise can increase your body’s production of endorphins, which are hormones that improve your mood.

AVOID ALCOHOL AND DRUGS

Drinking or misusing drugs may make you feel better for a little bit. But in the long run, these substances can make depression and anxiety symptoms worse.

LEARN HOW TO SAY NO

Feeling overwhelmed can worsen anxiety and depression symptoms. Setting boundaries in your professional and personal life can help you feel better.

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

You can also improve symptoms of depression by taking care of yourself. This includes getting plenty of sleep, eating a healthy diet, avoiding negative people, and participating in enjoyable activities.

Sometimes depression doesn’t respond to medication. Your healthcare provider may recommend other treatment options if your symptoms don’t improve.

These include electroconvulsive therapy (ECT),or repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (RTMS) to treat depression and improve your mood.

Traditional depression treatment uses a combination of prescription medication and counseling. But there are also alternative or complementary treatments you can try.

It’s important to remember that many of these natural treatments have few studies showing their effects on depression, good or bad.

Likewise, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t approve many of the dietary supplements on the market in the United States, so you want to make sure you’re buying products from a trustworthy brand.

Talk to your healthcare provider before adding supplements to your treatment plan.

 SUPPLEMENTS

Several types of supplements are thought to have some positive effect on depression symptoms.

St. John’s wort

Studies are mixed, but this natural treatment is used in Europe as an antidepressant medication. In the United States, it hasn’t received the same approval.

S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe)

This compound has shown in limited studies to possibly ease symptoms of depression. The effects were best seen in people taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a type of traditional antidepressant.

5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP)

5-HTP may raise serotonin levels in the brain, which could ease symptoms. Your body makes this chemical when you consume tryptophan, a protein building block.

Omega-3 fatty acids

These essential fats are important to neurological development and brain health. Adding omega-3 supplements to your diet may help reduce depression symptoms.

ESSENTIAL OILS

Essential oils are a popular natural remedy for many conditions, but research into their effects on depression is limited.

People with depression may find symptom relief with the following essential oils:

• Wild ginger: inhaling this strong scent may activate serotonin receptors in your brain. This may slow the release of stress-inducing hormones.
• Bergamot: this citrusy essential oil has been shown to reduce anxiety in patients awaiting surgery. The same benefit may help individuals who experience anxiety as a result of depression, but there’s no research to support that claim.

Other oils, such as chamomile or rose oil, may have a calming effect when they’re inhaled. Those oils may be beneficial during short-term use.

VITAMINS

Vitamins are important to many bodily functions. Research suggests two vitamins are especially useful for easing symptoms of depression:

• Vitamin B: B-12 and B-6 are vital to brain health. When your vitamin B levels are low, your risk for developing depression may be higher.
• Vitamin D: Sometimes called the sunshine vitamin because exposure to the sun supplies it to your body, Vitamin D is important for brain, heart, and bone health. People who are depressed are more likely to have low levels of this vitamin.

Many herbs, supplements, and vitamins claim to help ease symptoms of depression, but most haven’t shown themselves to be effective in clinical research.

–By Shivam Pathak

Victoria Memorial, an iconic substantial marble building in the middle of modern day Calcutta still epitomizes British Raj in India and resurrects the tumultuous decades of India’s struggle against British forces to retrieve freedom for their motherland. It was constructed in glory of Queen Victoria’s twenty-five years of reign in India. Her reign was ended with her death in 1901, preconizing Edward seventh as the new emperor of India. Queen Victoria took the grand title of the Empress of India in 1876 after the control of India came under British Paramountcy following the fierce revolt of 1857. It was under her rule that the British Empire advanced in India and touched its zenith. After the demise of Queen Victoria in 1901, the then viceroy of India, Lord Curzon ordered to erect a mausoleum befitting the magnificence and splendor of her majesty Queen Victoria. On the 4th of January 1906 the then Prince of Wales, George fifth, laid the cornerstone of the memorial. It was after fifteen long years that the gates of the mausoleum were opened to the general public in 1921. It is believed that the memorial was intended to match up to the glory of Taj Mahal of Agra; sometimes as a matter of fact the Victoria Memorial is characterized as a Taj of British Raj in India. Very few are aquatinted with the fact that before the Memorial was build up the same place was served to house the presidency jail. The jail was built here in 1778. In due course of time the prsidency jail was moved to Alipore in West Bengal in 1906, and the bygone structure was demolished to pave the way for Memorial. Up till this day the Memorial stands tall with all its grandeur in the heart of Calcutta city. Victoria Memorial museum is one of the most renowned museums in the country. Every year thousands of locals and tourists come to cast a glance on the baffling history of India’s fight for freedom. The museum has a collection of 28,000 antiquity exhibited across 25 galleries that capsulate the history of the subcontinent during British Raj. The focal point of the museum is a wide-range of paintings, painted by the most celebrated duo artists- Thomas and William Daniel. Though there are some other memorials of Queen Victoria existed in India, in cities like Lucknow, Chennai, and even Allahabad, but it was one in Calcutta that truly stands out. It is a Prodigy of great Indo-Saracenic revivalist architecture in the city. Therefore, Queen Victoria never set foot on the land of India, but she left behind to the people of India, who were kept down by unjust use of authority, her mausoleum in the subcontinent which will serve as the memory of pain of the freedom fighters who were once crushed by the cruelties of Britishers by the mandate of Queen herself.

Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as beyond normal experience or scientific explanation.

Proposals regarding the paranormal are different from scientific hypotheses or speculations extrapolated from scientific evidence because scientific ideas are grounded in empirical observations and experimental data gained through the scientific method. In contrast, those who argue for the existence of the paranormal explicitly do not base their arguments on empirical evidence but rather on anecdote, testimony, and suspicion. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perception (for example, telepathy), spiritualism and the pseudoscience’s of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology.

PARANORMAL RESEARCH

Approaching the paranormal from a research perspective is often difficult because of the lack of acceptable physical evidence from most of the purported phenomena. By definition, the paranormal does not conform to conventional expectations of nature. Therefore, a phenomenon cannot be confirmed as paranormal using the scientific method because, if it could be, it would no longer fit the definition. (However, confirmation would result in the phenomenon being reclassified as part of science.) Despite this problem, studies on the paranormal are periodically conducted by researchers from various disciplines. Some researchers simply study the beliefs in the paranormal regardless of whether the phenomena are considered to objectively exist. This section deals with various approaches to the paranormal: anecdotal, experimental, and participant-observer approaches and the skeptical investigation approach.

ANECDOTAL APPROACH

Charles Fort, 1920. Fort is perhaps the most widely known collector of paranormal stories. An anecdotal approach to the paranormal involves the collection of stories told about the paranormal. Charles Fort (1874–1932) is perhaps the best-known collector of paranormal anecdotes. Fort is said to have compiled as many as 40,000 notes on unexplained paranormal experiences, though there was no doubt many more. These notes came from what he called “the orthodox conventionality of Science”, which were odd events originally reported in magazines and newspapers such as The Times and scientific journals such as Scientific American, Nature and Science. From this research Fort wrote seven books, though only four survive: The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932); one book was written between New Lands and Lo!, but it was abandoned and absorbed into Lo!

Reported events that he collected include teleportation (a term Fort is generally credited with coining); poltergeist events; falls of frogs, fishes, and inorganic materials of an amazing range; crop circles; unaccountable noises and explosions; spontaneous fires; levitation; ball lightning (a term explicitly used by Fort); unidentified flying objects; mysterious appearances and disappearances; giant wheels of light in the oceans; and animals found outside their normal ranges (see phantom cat). He offered many reports of OOP Arts, the abbreviation for “out of place” artefacts: strange items found in unlikely locations. He is perhaps the first person to explain strange human appearances and disappearances by the hypothesis of alien abduction and was an early proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Fort is considered by many as the father of modern paranormalism, which is the study of the paranormal.

The magazine Fortean Times continues Charles Fort’s approach, regularly reporting anecdotal accounts of the paranormal.

Such anecdotal collections, lacking the reproducibility of empirical evidence, are not amenable to scientific investigation. The anecdotal approach is not a scientific approach to the paranormal because it leaves verification dependent on the credibility of the party presenting the evidence. Nevertheless, it is a common approach to investigating paranormal phenomena.

PARAPSYCHOLOGY

Participant of a Ganzfeld experiment which proponents say may show evidence of telepathy. Experimental investigation of the paranormal has been conducted by parapsychologists. J. B. Rhine popularized the now famous methodology of using card-guessing and dice-rolling experiments in a laboratory in the hopes of finding evidence of extrasensory perception. However, it was revealed that Rhine’s experiments contained methodological flaws and procedural errors.

In 1957, the Parapsychological Association was formed as the preeminent society for parapsychologists. In 1969, they became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Criticisms of the field were focused in the creation (in 1976) of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (now called the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) and its periodical, the Skeptical Inquirer. Eventually, more mainstream scientists became critical of parapsychology as an endeavour, and statements by the National Academies of Science and the National Science Foundation cast a pall on the claims of evidence for parapsychology. Today, many cite parapsychology as an example of a pseudoscience. Parapsychology has been criticized for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide convincing evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research.

By the 2000s, the status of paranormal research in the United States had greatly declined from its height in the 1970s, with the majority of work being privately funded and only a small amount of research being carried out in university laboratories. In 2007, Britain had a number of privately funded laboratories in university psychology departments. Publication remained limited to a small number of niche journals, and to date there have been no experimental results that have gained wide acceptance in the scientific community as valid evidence of the paranormal.

PARTICIPANT-OBSERVER APPROACH

A ghost hunter taking an EMF reading (Electro Magnetic Field), which proponents claim may be connected to paranormal activity.

While parapsychologists look for quantitative evidence of the paranormal in laboratories, a great number of people immerse themselves in qualitative research through participant-observer approaches to the paranormal. Participant-observer methodologies have overlaps with other essentially qualitative approaches as well, including phenomenological research that seeks largely to describe subjects as they are experienced, rather than to explain them.

Participant-observation suggests that by immersing oneself in the subject being studied, a researcher is presumed to gain understanding of the subject. Criticisms of participant-observation as a data-gathering technique are similar to criticisms of other approaches to the paranormal, but also include an increased threat to the objectivity of the researcher, unsystematic gathering of data, reliance on subjective measurement, and possible observer effects (observation may distort the observed behaviour). Specific data gathering methods, such as recording EMF readings at haunted locations have their own criticisms beyond those attributed to the participant-observation approach itself.

The participant-observer approach to the paranormal has gained increased visibility and popularity through reality television programs like Ghost Hunters, and the formation of independent ghost hunting groups that advocate immersive research at alleged paranormal locations. One popular website for ghost hunting enthusiasts lists over 300 of these organizations throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.

SKEPTICAL SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION

James Randi is a well-known investigator of paranormal claims. Scientific skeptics advocate critical investigation of claims of paranormal phenomena: applying the scientific method to reach a rational, scientific explanation of the phenomena to account for the paranormal claims, taking into account that alleged paranormal abilities and occurrences are sometimes hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. A way of summarizing this method is by the application of Occam’s razor, which suggests that the simpler solution is usually the correct one. The standard scientific models give the explanation that what appears to be paranormal phenomena is usually a misinterpretation, misunderstanding, or anomalous variation of natural phenomena, rather than an actual paranormal phenomenon.

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is an organization that aims to publicize the scientific, skeptical approach. It carries out investigations aimed at understanding paranormal reports in terms of scientific understanding, and publishes its results in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

CSI’s Richard Wiseman draws attention to possible alternative explanations for perceived paranormal activity in his article, The Haunted Brain. While he recognizes that approximately 15% of people believe they have experienced an encounter with a ghost, he reports that only 1% report seeing a full-fledged ghost while the rest report strange sensory stimuli, such as seeing fleeting shadows or wisps of smoke, or the sensation of hearing footsteps or feeling a presence. Wiseman makes the claim that, rather than experiencing paranormal activity, it is activity within our own brains that creates these strange sensations.

Michael Persinger proposed that ghostly experiences could be explained by stimulating the brain with weak magnetic fields. Swedish psychologist Pehr Granqvist and his team, attempting to replicate Persinger’s research, determined that the paranormal sensations experienced by Persinger’s subjects were merely the result of suggestion, and that brain stimulation with magnetic fields did not result in ghostly experiences.

Oxford University Justin Barrett has theorized that “agency”—being able to figure out why people do what they do—is so important in everyday life, that it is natural for our brains to work too hard at it, thereby detecting human or ghost-like behaviour in everyday meaningless stimuli.

James Randi, an investigator with a background in illusion, feels that the simplest explanation for those claiming paranormal abilities is often trickery, illustrated by demonstrating that the spoon bending abilities of psychic Uri Geller can easily be duplicated by trained stage magicians. He is also the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation and its million dollar challenge that offered a prize of US$1,000,000 to anyone who could demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. Despite many declarations of supernatural ability, the prize was never claimed.

PSYCHOLOGY

In “anomalistic psychology”, paranormal phenomena have naturalistic explanations resulting from psychological and physical factors which have sometimes given the impression of paranormal activity to some people, in fact, where there have been none. The psychologist David Marks wrote that paranormal phenomena can be explained by magical thinking, mental imagery, subjective validation, coincidence, hidden causes, and fraud. According to studies some people tend to hold paranormal beliefs because they possess psychological traits that make them more likely to misattribute paranormal causation to normal experiences. Research has also discovered that cognitive bias is a factor underlying paranormal belief.

Chris French founder of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit. Many studies have found a link between personality and psychopathology variables correlating with paranormal belief. Some studies have also shown that fantasy pronenesscorrelates positively with paranormal belief.

Bainbridge (1978) and Wuthnow (1976) found that the most susceptible people to paranormal belief are those who are poorly educated, unemployed or have roles that rank low among social values. The alienation of these people due to their status in society is said to encourage them to appeal to paranormal or magical beliefs.

Research has associated paranormal belief with low cognitive ability, low IQ and a lack of science education. Intelligent and highly educated participants involved in surveys have proven to have less paranormal belief. Tobacyk (1984) and Messer and Griggs (1989) discovered that college students with better grades have less belief in the paranormal.

In a case study (Gow, 2004) involving 167 participants the findings revealed that psychological absorption and dissociation were higher for believers in the paranormal. Another study involving 100 students had revealed a positive correlation between paranormal belief and proneness to dissociation. A study (Williams et al. 2007) discovered that “neuroticism is fundamental to individual differences in paranormal belief, while paranormal belief is independent of extraversion and psychoticism“. A correlation has been found between paranormal belief and irrational thinking.

In an experiment Wierzbicki (1985) reported a significant correlation between paranormal belief and the number of errors made on a syllogistic reasoning task, suggesting that believers in the paranormal have lower cognitive ability. A relationship between narcissistic personality and paranormal belief was discovered in a study involving the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale.

De Boer and Bierman wrote:

In his article ‘Creative or Defective’ Radin (2005) asserts that many academics explain the belief in the paranormal by using one of the three following hypotheses: Ignorance, deprivation or deficiency. ‘The ignorance hypothesis asserts that people believe in the paranormal because they’re uneducated or stupid. The deprivation hypothesis proposes that these beliefs exist to provide a way to cope in the face of psychological uncertainties and physical stressors. The deficiency hypothesis asserts that such beliefs arise because people are mentally defective in some way, ranging from low intelligence or poor critical thinking ability to a full-blown psychosis’ (Radin). The deficiency hypothesis gets some support from the fact that the belief in the paranormal is an aspect of a schizotypical personality (Pizzagalli, Lehman and Brugger, 2001).

A psychological study involving 174 members of the Society for Psychical Research completed a delusional ideation questionnaire and a deductive reasoning task. As predicted, the study showed that “individuals who reported a strong belief in the paranormal made more errors and displayed more delusional ideation than skeptical individuals”. There was also a reasoning bias which was limited to people who reported a belief in, rather than experience of, paranormal phenomena. The results suggested that reasoning abnormalities may have a causal role in the formation of paranormal belief.

Research has shown that people reporting contact with aliens have higher levels of absorption, dissociativity, fantasy proneness and tendency to hallucinate.

Findings have shown in specific cases that paranormal belief acts as a psychodynamic coping function and serves as a mechanism for coping with stress. Survivors from childhood sexual abuse, violent and unsettled home environments have reported to have higher levels of paranormal belief. A study of a random sample of 502 adults revealed paranormal experiences were common in the population which were linked to a history of childhood trauma and dissociative symptoms. Research has also suggested that people who perceive themselves as having little control over their lives may develop paranormal beliefs to help provide an enhanced sense of control.

Gender differences in surveys on paranormal belief have reported women scoring higher than men overall and men having greater belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials. Surveys have also investigated the relationship between ethnicity and paranormal belief. In a sample of American university students (Tobacyk et al. 1988) it was found that people of African descent have a higher level of belief in superstitions and witchcraft while belief in extraterrestrial life forms was stronger among people of European descent.[74] Otis and Kuo (1984) surveyed Singapore university students and found Chinese, Indian and Malay students to differ in their paranormal beliefs, with the Chinese students showing greater skepticism.

According to American surveys analysed by (Bader et al. 2011) African Americans have the highest belief in the paranormal and while the findings are not uniform the “general trend is for whites to show lesser belief in most paranormal subjects”.

Polls show that about fifty percent of the United States population believe in the paranormal. Robert L. Park says a lot of people believe in it because they “want it to be so”.

A 2013 study that utilized a biological motion perception task discovered a “relation between illusory pattern perception and supernatural and paranormal beliefs and suggest that paranormal beliefs are strongly related to agency detection biases”.

A 2014 study discovered that schizophrenic patients have more belief in psi than healthy adults.

NEUROSCIENCE

Some scientists have investigated possible neurocognitive processes underlying the formation of paranormal beliefs. In a study (Pizzagalli et al. 2000) data demonstrated that “subjects differing in their declared belief in and experience with paranormal phenomena as well as in their schizotypal ideation, as determined by a standardized instrument, displayed differential brain electric activity during resting periods.” Another study (Schulter and Papousek, 2008) wrote that paranormal belief can be explained by patterns of functional hemispheric asymmetry that may be related to perturbations during fetal development.

It was also realized that people with higher dopamine levels have the ability to find patterns and meanings where there aren’t any. This is why scientists have connected high dopamine levels with paranormal belief.

CRITICISM

Some scientists have criticised the media for promoting paranormal claims. In a report (Singer and Benassi, 1981) wrote that the media may account for much of the near universality of paranormal belief as the public are constantly exposed to films, newspapers, documentaries and books endorsing paranormal claims while critical coverage is largely absent. According to Paul Kurtz “In regard to the many talk shows that constantly deal with paranormal topics, the skeptical viewpoint is rarely heard; and when it is permitted to be expressed, it is usually sandbagged by the host or other guests.” Kurtz described the popularity of public belief in the paranormal as a “quasi-religious phenomenon”, a manifestation of a transcendental temptation, a tendency for people to seek a transcendental reality that cannot be known by using the methods of science. Kurtz compared this to a primitive form of magical thinking.

Terence Hines has written that on a personal level, paranormal claims could be considered a form of consumer fraud as people are “being induced through false claims to spend their money—often large sums—on paranormal claims that do not deliver what they promise” and uncritical acceptance of paranormal belief systems can be damaging to society.

BELIEF POLLS

While the validity of the existence of paranormal phenomena is controversial and debated passionately by both proponents of the paranormal and by skeptics, surveys are useful in determining the beliefs of people in regards to paranormal phenomena. These opinions, while not constituting scientific evidence for or against, may give an indication of the mindset of a certain portion of the population (at least among those who answered the polls). The number of people worldwide who believe in parapsychological powers has been estimated to be 3 to 4 billion.

A survey conducted in 2006 by researchers from Australia’s Monash University sought to determine what types of phenomena that people claim to have experienced and the effects these experiences have had on their lives. The study was conducted as an online survey with over 2,000 respondents from around the world participating. The results revealed that around 70% of the respondents believe to have had an unexplained paranormal event that changed their life, mostly in a positive way. About 70% also claimed to have seen, heard, or been touched by an animal or person that they knew was not there; 80% have reported having a premonition, and almost 50% stated they recalled a previous life.

Polls were conducted by Bryan Farha at Oklahoma City University and Gary Steward of the University of Central Oklahoma in 2006. They found fairly consistent results compared to the results of a Gallup poll in 2001.

The study discussed above makes it clear that all paranormal activities to the mind games or should be said some illusions related to the mind disorders of seeing someone close whose is dead it happens when you think allot about them and the affection of them create an image of them in your head which you are forced believe it that its true but in reality there is no one.

Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called dots and dashesor dits and dahs. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, an inventor of the telegraph.

The International Morse Code encodes the 26 English letters A through Z, some non-English letters, the Arabic numerals and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals (prosigns). There is no distinction between upper and lower case letters. Each Morse code symbol is formed by a sequence of dots and dashes. The dot duration is the basic unit of time measurement in Morse code transmission. The duration of a dash is three times the duration of a dot. Each dot or dash within a character is followed by period of signal absence, called a space, equal to the dot duration. The letters of a word are separated by a space of duration equal to three dots, and the words are separated by a space equal to seven dots. To increase the efficiency of encoding, Morse code was designed so that the length of each symbol is approximately inverse to the frequency of occurrence of the character that it represents in text of the English language. Thus the most common letter in English, the letter “E”, has the shortest code: a single dot. Because the Morse code elements are specified by proportion rather than specific time durations, the code is usually transmitted at the highest rate that the receiver is capable of decoding. The Morse code transmission rate (speed) is specified in groups per minute, commonly referred to as words per minute.

Morse code is usually transmitted by on-off keying of an information-carrying medium such as electric current, radio waves, visible light, or sound waves. The current or wave is present during the time period of the dot or dash and absent during the time between dots and dashes.

Morse code can be memorized, and Morse code signalling in a form perceptible to the human senses, such as sound waves or visible light, can be directly interpreted by persons trained in the skill.

SAMUEL MORSE

He was a successful businessman and a presidential portraitist. But above all else, Samuel F. B. Morse is best remembered for his eponymous Morse code, an elegant system that revolutionized communications back in the 1800s.

Even in the heyday of Silicon Valley and social media, there’s still a place for the well-worn code. (Just ask the U.S. Navy. It’s just one language cryptologic technicians learn while training at the Center for Information Dominance at Corry Station in Pensacola, Florida.) As the forerunner to email, texts and other near-instant messaging mediums, we think Morse code deserves a tip of the hat.

Parts of Samuel Morse’s backstory read like a tragic Hollywood screenplay. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts on April 27, 1791. A professional painter, Morse found himself working on a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette in 1825. The job had taken him to Washington, D.C. where he received a devastating letter. According to the dispatch, his young wife had died back at their home in New Haven, Connecticut.

Worse, by the time Morse got this message, it was too late for him to return in time for her funeral. She was laid to rest without him.

Such was the pace of most long-distance communications in those days. Morse was one of the entrepreneurs leading the way.

He was one of the developers of the first telegraphs built in the 1830s. To call any lone scientist or inventor the “father” of this technical breakthrough would be misleading. Morse was just one of the visionaries behind the telegraph’s early development.

Despite his limited scientific background, Morse had a real passion for electricity. In 1837, he showcased a prototypical telegraph that he’d built at a public demonstration. Like all telegraphs, his sent out pulses of electric current via wire. The pulses would make their way into a receiver — and this is where Samuel Morse’s famous code came into play.

THE FIRST MORSE CODE TRANSMISSION

Morse’s telegraph couldn’t transmit voices or written characters. Yet by capitalizing on those electric pulses, he devised a new way to send coded messages.

Documents show that the original Morse code was Morse’s brainchild — despite rumors to the contrary. That said, he had a brilliant partner by the name of Alfred Vail, who helped him refine and expand the system. Under the code, every letter in the English language — along with most punctuation marks and each number from zero through nine — was given a unique, corresponding set of short and long pulses.

“Long” pulses came to be known as “dashes” while the short ones were called “dots.” In this iteration of the code, not all dashes were created equal; some lasted longer than others. And the spaces between pulses varied widely (depending on the context).

Soon enough, Morse got to show off his electric cipher. In 1843, Congress handed him a $30,000 grant to build an experimental long-distance telegraph between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland.

The moment of truth came on May 24, 1844. Sitting in the U.S. Capitol’s Supreme Court chamber, Morse sent a coded message along to Vail, who was waiting in Baltimore at the other end of the line.

Morse knew just what to say. At the suggestion of a friend’s daughter, he transmitted a quote from the biblical book of Numbers: “What hath God wrought.”

MORSE CODE GOES GLOBAL

Long-distance telegraph lines spread like wildfire over the next few decades. So did Samuel Morse’s code. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln used it to keep abreast of battlefield developments. And speaking of Honest Abe, when Western Union completed the first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861, Lincoln received its first message — a dispatch sent all the way from San Francisco to D.C.

But as Morse code took hold in other countries, problems emerged. To address these, German telegraph inspector Friedrich Clemens Gerke simplified the system in 1848. Among other changes, he did away with the extra-long dashes and revised many of the individual number and letter codes.

After some additional tweaks were made, this new edition was dubbed “International Morse Code.” Meanwhile, the original version was retroactively labeled “American Morse Code.” Outside Civil War reenactments, the latter is all but extinct today.

Yet, International Morse code was in for a bright future.

LEARNING THE BASICS OF MORSE CODE

In the international code, a “dash” is three times longer than a “dot.” On paper, “-” is the symbol for a dash while every “.” represents a dot. “E” is a simple letter; it consists of just one “.” Other characters are a bit more intricate. For example, “-.-.” means “C.”

If you’re dealing with a letter that features multiple dots and/or dashes, there should be a pause equivalent to the length of one dot in between those components. The pauses that separate entire letters are longer, equal to three dots. And individual words should be divided by even longer pauses measuring seven dots long.

No Morse code phrase is more iconic than “SOS.” A universally recognized distress signal, SOS was first adopted as such by German telegraphers in the year 1905. Why’d they pick this letter combo? Because in International Morse Code, “S” is three dots and “O” is three dashes. See, “dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot” (…—…) is an easy sequence to remember — even when you’re in grave peril.

APPLICATIONS PAST AND PRESENT

Although it was explicitly designed for the telegraph, people found other ways to utilize Morse Code. With the dawn of radiotelegraph machines in the 1890s, coded messages could travel via radio waves. Likewise, some purely visual media have long histories with International Morse Code. Beginning in 1867, ships began using onboard blinker lights to flash signals at each other.

Then there’s the case of Jeremiah Denton, Jr. An American navy pilot (and future senator), he was captured during the Vietnam War. In a forced appearance on North Vietnamese television, Denton was coerced into saying that his captors were treating him well behind enemy lines. But his eyes told a different story. By blinking in sequence, he used Morse code to spell out the word “torture.”

Later in the 20th century, the code was largely phased out. The U.S. Coast Guard hasn’t used it in an official capacity since 1995 and modern ships are far more reliant on satellite communications systems. However, Uncle Sam‘s Navy is still training intelligence specialists to master the code. Another group that’s showing it some love is the International Morse Code Preservation Society — a coalition of amateur radio operators with thousands of members around the globe. So while the golden age of dots and dashes may be over, Morse code’s still hanging in there. No distress signal required.

A work-at-home scheme is a get-rich-quick scam in which a victim is lured by an offer to be employed at home, very often doing some simple task in a minimal amount of time with a large amount of income that far exceeds the market rate for the type of work. The true purpose of such an offer is for the perpetrator to extort money from the victim, either by charging a fee to join the scheme, or requiring the victim to invest in products whose resale value is misrepresented. Work-at-home schemes have been around for decades, with the classic “envelope stuffing” scam originating in the United States during the Depression in the 1920’s and 1930’s. In this scam, the worker is offered entry to a scheme where they can earn $2 for every envelope they fill. After paying a small $2 fee to join the scheme, the victim is sent a flyer template for the self-same work-from-home scheme, and instructed to post these advertisements around their local area – the victim is simply “stuffing envelopes” with flyer templates that perpetuate the scheme. Originally found as printed adverts in newspapers and magazines, variants of this scam have expanded into more modern media, such as television and radio adverts, and forum posts on the Internet.

In some countries, law enforcement agencies work to fight work-at-home schemes. In 2006, the United States Federal Trade Commission established Project False Hopes, a federal and state law enforcement sweep that targets bogus business opportunity and work at home scams. The crackdown involved more than 100 law enforcement actions by the FTC, the Department of Justice, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and law enforcement agencies in eleven states.

Legitimate home-based business and telecommuting opportunities do exist, and many people do their jobs in the comfort of their own homes, but anyone seeking such an employment opportunity can be scammed by accepting a home employment offer. A 2007 report in the United States suggested that about 97% of work-at-home offers were scams. Many legitimate jobs at home require some form of post-high-school education, such as a college degree or certificate, or trade school, and some experience in the field in an office or other supervised setting. Additionally, many legitimate at-home jobs are not like those in schemes are portrayed to be, as they are often performed at least some of the time in the company’s office, require more self discipline than a traditional job, and have a higher risk of firing.

In the wake of the novel corona virus pandemic, work at home schemes, as well as victims affected by such schemes, have become extremely common.

Some advertisements offer legitimate forms of work that really do exist, but exaggerate the salary and understate the effort that will have to be put into the job, or exaggerate the amount of work that will be available. Many such ads do not even specify the type of work that will be performed. Some similar schemes do not advertise work that would be performed at home, but may instead offer occasional, sporadic work away from home for large payments, paired with a lot of free time. Some common offers fitting this description are acting as extras, mystery shopping (which in reality requires hard work, is paid close to minimum wage, and most importantly, does not require an up-front fee to join) and working as a nanny.

DISADVANTAGES

 

1.A LACK OF COMMUNITY AND DIFFERENCES IN CULTURE

Working independently with just a computer screen to keep you company is vastly different from the hustle and bustle of an office. When you hire remote workers, you can’t just pull them into a quick meeting (which some would argue is a good thing, since meetings waste time), or stop by their desks to see how work is going. There’s going to be some loss in camaraderie since you won’t see your team face-to-face every day.

Not only is the lack of work culture a concern, there may be cultural barriers if you’re hiring a remote worker from another country. In some cultures, employees are expected to agree with everything their employer says. In other countries, different perspectives are encouraged.

I can use my own experience as an example for this. When I worked with a marketing agency in America, I was encouraged to voice my opinions, even if they went against our founder. When I consulted with businesses in the Philippines, a common complaint was about employees always saying “yes” to whatever their managers want (even if they couldn’t deliver).

Unique expectations arise with workers from different countries, ranging from standards for employee behaviour to communication preferences.

2. COMMUNICATION

Communication on a distributed team is a whole other ballgame. I never realized how much I took co-located colleagues for granted until there was no one beside me I could ask a quick question. Every question, every answer, every approval will be documented on a remote team. This makes for great records, but bulky loads of information to sort through.

Remote workers must balance various, almost overwhelming communication streams. There are instant messaging apps, video call software, project management tools, and of course the ever-present email. With so many channels to check, it makes sense that managers are worried about information slipping through the cracks.

3. LOW RELIABILITY AND RETENTION

Reliability is a problem for some co-located teams, but when you remove the manager’s presence things can turn catastrophic. What happens when you pay a remote worker a retainer and they never send you the work? How do you know your remote worker actually wrote that blog post instead of plagiarizing it off the Internet?

And even after you’ve taken the time to train remote workers so they are awesome, integral members of your team, what happens if they just stop answering your emails and disappear without a trace?

4. DIFFICULT TO MANAGE AND MAINTAIN ACCOUNTABILITY

The most obvious reasons distributed teams differ from co-located teams is because you cannot watch a distributed team in one physical space. That means all of the standard measures of management and performance, such as time in and out, go out the window.

Many strategies that worked for managers in the past will be impossible with a remote team. No more getting the team together after lunch for a project post-mortem, no more doing workarounds to make sure everyone is working, and no more being able to visit someone’s desk and demand their attention. Remote work could make much of traditional management practices useless.

In addition to being difficult to manage, it can be hard to keep remote workers accountable. With a completely virtual presence, it’s harder to establish ties, such as friendship and camaraderie, which encourage accountability.

5. ISSUES WITH PAYMENT AND LOGISTICS

Money, money, money. The root of a lot of headaches, from international transfers to confusing tax laws. Paying an international team is much more difficult than giving out checks or setting up direct deposit with a co-located team. You have to worry about how to send it, fees, the conversion rates of the day, and much more. What tax forms are you responsible for? How do you file benefits for international employees? A business may almost want to hire a person just to take care of processing payments for remote workers.

Then, there’re the time zones. It’s hard enough to keep track of the time in one location, so what will happen when you suddenly have to keep track of multiple time zones? What does it mean for scheduling? Don’t even get me started on deadline misinterpretation.

6. LOSS OF PRODUCTIVITY

With all the allure of a couch, mid-day naps, Netflix, virtual reality games, drum lessons, airline flight sale alerts, and whatever small distractions there is in a day, it’s no surprise that managers worry about work productivity for their employees out of the office. They are at the mercy of beckoning chores. A full pantry of things to snack on. “Quick” walks to the park, and so much more that can distract them from work. I can see how easy it would be for tasks to take longer. For example, a task that would take one hour in an office could take five hours with distractions. 

7. SECURITY CONCERNS

For remote workers and businesses that may employ them, the loss of a laptop is catastrophic. However, this is a very real concern, especially if your business deals with sensitive data. When you put something online, especially when it goes public, it’s almost impossible to take it all back. (Just ask Beyonce’s publicist, who requested this unflattering image be removed. It’s now a meme.)

Other causes of worry are data leaks and employees stealing data. Data theft by employees, both remote and co-located, may be more common than you think.

The fact is storing data and transferring money online exposes you to potential vulnerabilities. So, worrying about your data security is a good reason to want to stick to co-located offices.

ADVANTAGES

1. YOUR OFFICE CAN BE ANY KIND

You’ll probably work from home if you work remotely. But that doesn’t mean you have to have fill a corner of your living room with a clunky desk, a huge monitor, and an ugly rolling chair. You can fit your office wherever it fits in your life. I’ve heard about a remote worker who uses her kitchen breakfast bar as a standing desk (all those health benefits with no investment!) and one who converted part of her bedroom closet into a “hidden” office so she can just shut her work away at the end of the day.

2. YOUR OFFICE CAN BE ANYWHERE—AND I MEAN ANYWHERE!

And you’re not tied to your home, either. That doesn’t mean you’re only other location will be the coffee shop around the corner: You can take care of your job while travelling (passengers only if you’re in the car, please!), enjoying the great outdoors (thanks to long laptop battery life and tethering to your phone), or even listening to your favourite band at a live concert (a tested and true location of a remote customer service manager I know who’s a die-hard country music fan).

3. YOU’LL SAVE MONEY

Of course you’ll see an immediate difference in your bank account when you don’t need to bear the costs of commuting. But you’ll also find savings in other areas. You won’t have to force yourself into a suit and polished shoes anymore if that’s not your style—no more separate wardrobes for work and for the rest of your life! And you can also save on food costs since you’ll easily be able to whip up your own lunch and coffee if you work from home.

4. YOUR SCHEDULE CAN BE YOUR OWN

A lot of the work that can be done remotely nowadays can also be done on a flexible schedule. For example, if you’re a web developer or a content creator, you can most likely do your coding or writing whenever it suits you as long as you meet your deadlines. So, night owls, rejoice! You can still put in your eight hours without starting at 8 AM.

If you do need to work specific hours, you’re sure to still have some break time—time you can use however you’d like! Even if you have just 10 minutes, you can do something that just wouldn’t be possible in a traditional office: bust those samba moves, play a few tunes on your guitar, or take a refreshing power nap. You’re guaranteed to come back feeling more refreshed than you would after 10 minutes at your desk surfing Facebook.

5. YOU CAN LEARN MORE AND BECOME MORE INDEPENDENT

Because you don’t have colleagues just a few feet away or a tech team one floor down, you’ll find yourself developing the skill of looking for your own answers and becoming more proactive to find what you need on your own. Of course you can still ask questions and get help if you need to. But, a lot of the time, you can do a Google search download a free guide, or check out your company’s wiki to find the answer yourself just as quickly.

And you’ll also end up with some skills simply because you need them to work well remotely. For example, you’ll probably notice that you’re writing more clear and concise emails and being more sensitive to your team’s different schedules out of necessity once you’ve worked remotely for a while. Not bad things to be good at!

6. YOU CAN ACTUALLY HAVE ENJOYABLE AND EFFECTIVE MEETINGS

I bet you don’t know anyone who enjoys meetings. (No amount of free coffee and donuts can make up for having to sit in a stuffy conference room next to the pen-clicking guy from sales!) When you work remotely, you’ll not only be able to choose your breakfast and your seat, but you can also be much more effective. With just a few clicks, you can have 10 people on a video call that’ll probably last just 15 minutes instead of 45. And you can use the chat function in the video call to quickly share docs (forget making copies or having everyone search their emails) or to add important comments without interrupting anyone.

7. YOU CAN KEEP IN TOUCH MORE EASILY—AND MAYBE HAVE SOME FUN DOING IT!

Most people are afraid that they’ll be lonely or left out when they work remotely. But the opposite is usually true, as there’s a huge range of communication tools for remote workers available now. Some will even let you have a little fun together with features like emojis, chat room “bots,” or silly effects in video chats. With them, you can celebrate a colleague’s birthday by putting on a virtual top hat and monocle in your Google Hangout instead of suffering through an out-of-tune round of “Happy Birthday” and a grocery store cake!

A law firm is generally a partnership where two or more lawyers agree to work together and share profit, loss, and liability accordingly. It is important to understand the type or kind of law firm because it ascertains the amount of risk in a law firm and the revenue it can generate to partners and keep running the business. There are several law firms functioning in the country but not all are of the same calibre. Some functions exceptionally well while there are some who do not perform as well. Law firms can be categorized as top-notch, mid-category while there are others that are not up to the mark. For instance, a California FINRA lawyer typically operates within a specialized law firm focused on financial regulation and investor protection. But before we go on to categorize the law firms of India, let us understand the functions of a law firm in India. A law firm typically is a business entity that is formed by lawyers. The main function of the lawyers is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities. At the same time, the lawyers of the law firm represent clients in various criminal cases and business transactions. A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other matters in which legal advice and other assistance are sought.

TYPES OF LAW FIRMS:-

ON THE BASIS OF ARRANGEMENT 

This is based on the agreement between the partners for the kind of law firm they need to establish. The arrangement determines the overall sharing of all the profits, losses and liabilities:

·Sole Proprietorship 

In this, a single lawyer is wholly and solely responsible for profit, loss, and liability of the firm.

·General Partnership 

Where two or more lawyers of the firm work together sharing profit, loss, and liability altogether. 

·Professional Corporation

In this type of firm, stocks are provided to the lawyers. 

·Limited Liability Company 

In this, the lawyers-owners are members of the firm but are not directly liable to the third party creditors.

·Limited Liability Partnership

In this lawyers-owners are partners but no one is liable for any act of negligence of any other partner.

ON THE BASIS OF THE STRENGTH/SIZE OF LAW FIRM 

The size of a law firm determines the revenue a law firm will be able to generate. It is the principle of efficiency, more is the workforce, more is the amount of output produced in a given duration of time. The same can be inferred from the size of the law firm, the more the number of associates a law firm comprises, the more billable hours it charges and increases the output provided and therefore the strength of the firm increases the total revenue of the firm.

Boutique Law Firm 

These firms are limited to small cities and towns and are limited to conventional practice. Lawyers are specialized and practicing in only one kind of law. 

Virtual Law Firms 

Use of modern communication technologies to conduct business with no physical presence. This is yet to be developed in India.

Big Law Firms 

The law firms hire a large number of associates and charge more. These full-service law firms.

Full-Service firms 

These firms consist of lawyers specialized in different areas of law. 

Worldwide Firms 

The global presence of a law firm to represent a client at an international level.It should be kept in mind that the strength and arrangement of a law firm is only an initial plan of how a firm will function. A firm will always generate revenue with the quality of service it provides and the value it adds to a client’s interests. Therefore, it is better to diversify the portfolio of practice areas and specialize in every aspect to reach on top of the competition. 

RESTRICTIONS ON OWNERSHIP INTERESTS

In many countries, including the United States, there is a rule that only lawyers may have an ownership interest in, or be managers of, a law firm. Thus, law firms cannot quickly raise capital through initial public offerings on the stock market, like most corporations. They must either raise capital through additional capital contributions from existing or additional equity partners, or must take on debt, usually in the form of a line of credit secured by their accounts receivable.

In the United States this complete bar to non-lawyer ownership has been codified by the American Bar Association as paragraph (d) of Rule 5.4 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and has been adopted in one form or another in all U.S. jurisdictions, except the District of Columbia. However, D.C.’s rule is narrowly tailored to allow equity ownership only by those non-lawyer partners who actively assist the firm’s lawyers in providing legal services, and does not allow for the sale of ownership shares to mere passive non-lawyer investors. The U.K. had a similar rule barring non-lawyer ownership, but under reforms implemented by the Legal Services Act of 2007law firms have been able to take on a limited number of non-lawyer partners and lawyers have been allowed to enter into a wide variety of business relationships with non-lawyers and non-lawyer owned businesses. This has allowed, for example, grocery stores, banks and community organizations to hire lawyers to provide in-store and online basic legal services to customers.

MULTINATIONAL LAW FIRMS

Law firms operating in multiple countries often have complex structures involving multiple partnerships, particularly in jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and Japan which restrict partnerships between local and foreign lawyers. One structure largely unique to large multinational law firms is the Swiss Verein, pioneered by Baker & McKenzie in 2004 or as GRATA International, in which multiple national or regional partnerships form an association in which they share branding, administrative functions and various operating costs, but maintain separate revenue pools and often separate partner compensation structures. Other multinational law firms operate as single worldwide partnerships, such as British or American limited liability partnerships, in which partners also participate in local operating entities in various countries as required by local regulations.

FINANCIAL INDICATORS

Three financial statistics are typically used to measure and rank law firms’ performance:

• Profits per partner (PPP): Net operating income divided by number of equity partners. High PPP is often correlated with prestige of a firm and its attractiveness to potential equity partners. However, the indicator is prone to manipulation by re-classifying less profitable partners as non-equity partners.
• Revenue per lawyer (RPL): Gross revenue divided by number of lawyers. This statistic shows the revenue-generating ability of the firm’s lawyers in general, but does not factor in the firm’s expenses such as associate compensation and office overhead.
• Average compensation of partners (ACP): Total amount paid to equity and non equity partners (i.e., net operating income plus non equity partner compensation) divided by the total number of equity and non equity partners. This results in a more inclusive statistic than PPP, but remains prone to manipulation by changing expense policies and re-classifying less profitable partners as associates.

WORKING OF LAW FIRMS 

A conventional law firm diversifies the area of practice with time to increase its revenue, provide services in various fields of law and provide legal solutions. But recently, this practice has been changed. A law firm now in order to make credibility and generate leads which last long and create more impact, have started to engage in the areas of researching, legal products, and legal training too. These are explained below:

Legal Solutions 

What can be a better USP of a law firm which can resolve the problems of a client efficiently, effectively and as per the interests of its client? This involves client counselling, dispute resolution, legal arrangements, contracting drafting, compliance due diligence, etc. 

Researching 

Research involves policy-making, analyzing legislation, and in-depth study of law to contribute to the academia of legal. Research enables a law firm to create a lasting impact as their research can be referred to as a citation and thereby generating leads and prospective clients.

Legal Products

With the rapid change in technology, law firms are also indulging in research to improve and modernize the legal fraternity so that it can dispense justice efficiently and effectively. In 2017, CAM setup the CAM Innovation Lab to embrace the opportunities technology and use it to provide the best in class services to the clients.

Legal Training 

The major setback effectiveness and efficiency in the legal industry is the gap between the theoretical knowledge given in the institution and the lack of practical knowledge on the ground. To cover this up, a lot of law firms and lawyers engage in legal training by conducting lectures, seminars, workshops or internships. To improve the practical skill of lawyers and aspiring lawyers, the law firm improves its potential efficiency by improving the quality of the workforce and thereby increasing the revenue of the firm.

Apart from this, there are also new areas of law that a law firm should not ignore and indulge and specialize in them because there lie the potential business and revenue which a law firm will lose if it does not regard these areas of law.

NEW AREAS OF LAW WHICH ARE DEVELOPING AND PROFITABLE

Law is a dynamic subject if one needs to remain in the competition he needs to update and familiarize himself with various growing fields of law. With the advent of globalization and rapid development in technologies, the conventional fields are not the only place to increase revenue. In the competitive laissez-faire market, there are various organizations coming to a consensus to work together, or seeking efficient means to resolve their disputes, worried whether their online data is secure and what can be controlled, protection of the company’s brand and various other things. 

If a lawyer can resolve such difficulties, he will be earning a considerable more money than others in the market. A law firm earns a significant clientele by specializing in such fields and establishing its credentials. Some of the areas of law which are developing and profitable are mentioned below:

Mergers & Acquisitions

Every business aims to increase profits, increase clientele, generate more leads and reach the top of the competition. Therefore, every business looks for the opportunity to work with others, acquire other businesses and expand itself more in the market. 

Look at the deal feed of Legally India, daily millions of dollars of deals are made to expand the avenues of business. A law firm has to also deal with the Competition Commission and Security Exchange Board of India. A transaction of such type requires a lot of speculation, must adhere to compliance rules and it is not a simple and easy task. A lot of revenue can be earned if a law firm commands expertise and credibility in this field.

Intellectual Property Rights 

R&D is an important part of the development of new technologies. Billions of dollars are invested to develop new technology. The vast amount of time is invested by authors to produce novel intellectual creations. When these creations are introduced to the public it encourages others to further develop the innovation but at the same time, it is possible that their ideas might get stolen. Therefore, to protect their novel innovations and works, there exists trademark, patents, and copyright under the field of intellectual property rights which provides protection to business marks, novel innovations, and artistic works. 

The different areas in intellectual property include trademarks, patents, copyrights, and related rights, Industrial Designs, Layout Designs of Integrated Circuits, Plant Varieties, Information Technology and Cybercrimes, and Data Protection.

Arbitration 

It is said that it is good if a person does not get to visit three places in his life: Police Station, Hospital and Court. In India, the condition of the judiciary, in terms of faster dispute redressal is not good, the Supreme Court of India alone has 59,272 cases pending before it. It takes years through the court to resolve a dispute. There are a lot of business companies that need binding speedy dispute resolutions and do not want to waste their capital on lawyers dealing with a single dispute for years. In this scenario, arbitration provides an alternate dispute resolution to contending parties to sit together and come to a conclusion. In this way the outcome reached would be favorable to both the parties and therefore will be obliged by both of them. Earlier, people used to hesitate to go for arbitration and preferred to litigate but with the changing scenarios, a law firm that specializes in dispute resolution will have an ace against the other competitors.Technology Law 

This field is emerging rapidly with the pace of development in technology. There are various legal issues in this area from disputes in online trades and transactions to a simple click on the ‘I Agree’ button on terms and conditions of a website. To specialize in this area, a person should learn about the technical aspects of a business, its vulnerabilities, and various legal aspects involving the same. 

A law firm, which can provide specialized services like Software Licencing, Dispute Resolution in tech, agreements for cloud service, IT services, etc will definitely give more revenue as this field generates a value to support a global population of over 7 billion people and growing.

Media & Entertainment Law

As per a report by IBEF, this sector is expected to grow up to $37.55 billion by 2021 in India. A media company has to comply with broadcasting rules, advertising procedures, enter into a contract with various persons and logistics, resolve disputes, comply with cyber laws and many other areas. 

A law firm providing services in such a field can chunk out some revenue from this $37.77 billion.

NEW FIRMS WHICH ARE SUCCESSFUL

There are various law firms that specialize in these developing fields of law and are earning revenue by showcasing their skills and credibility to prospective clients. 

·Algo Legal

The firm has been specialized to serve the needs of investors and startups. The firm focuses on delivering the best in class service with the aid of technology for improved efficiency and effectiveness.

·Krida Legal  

Sports Law is also one of the emerging areas of law and this firm provides services of law with specialization in sports law. 

·Economics Law Practice 

This firm has been recognized as one of the leading Litigation, Arbitration, and Dispute Resolution firms in the country. 

ADVANTAGES OF WORKING IN LAW FIRMS

·Early growth

If a lawyer starts his solo practice or sets up his own law firm, it takes a lot of time, money and investment to grow. On the other hand, if a lawyer commands appropriate skill sets he can work at a law firm and earn a decent amount of money during the starting phase of his career. 

·Vast exposure in terms of clientele

A lawyer practicing solo will at least take 2.3 years to establish his name and credibility in the market. While at a law firm, already diverse clientele exists and there is no dearth of work. So, a lawyer does not need to worry about a lack of work while working at a law firm.

·Working with experts 

A solo practitioner is the boss of his own, he has to manage all the things which include improving and updating himself with the different areas of law and affairs surrounding it. While at a law firm, a lawyer gets to interact with various experts of the legal fraternity and even work with them. This opportunity provides enormous value to a lawyer and helps him to build his network even further.

·Steady Job 

In a solo practice, every day is a new day whereby a lawyer searches for work to earn money. While on the other hand, there is no dearth of work at a law firm. The lawyer needs to keep working and the money keeps coming every month. 

·Interest driven choice 

Working in a law firm is thrilling and adventures. It is the interest and passion of an individual law to choose to work in a law firm. When the choice is interest-driven, a person cannot be unsatisfied with his work and he is expected to grow immensely by the tremendous opportunities provided by firms to increase one’s potential.

CONCLUSION

Therefore, in this way a law firm makes money and by specializing in these developing areas of law, a law firm can grow further. It is important to diversify the practice areas and increase portfolios to earn more revenue. But, at the same time, the quality of service should not be compromised at any cost.

You have your very first court appearance. You’re nervous and you don’t know what the heck you are doing. For those who practice in less popular firms or in a solo practice, your first appearance in court is often by yourself. How do you avoid looking like a newbie?

Whether it’s a simple case management conference, a motion to compel, or a summary judgment hearing, here are our tips that you will help you to be prepared for your first court appearance.

And no, I’m not going to tell you to be on time, be respectful, or dress appropriately. Those are a given. If you screw those up, the ship may have already sailed on the whole “you-look-like-you-know-what-you-should-be-doing” thing.

THE DAY BEFORE THE HEARING:

1. Check the court calendar and/or tentative ruling.

Most courts have an online calendaring system that will show whether a hearing is still on calendar, whether a tentative ruling has been issued, and whether a hearing is required. Some courts will have a telephone option for tentative rulings.

For basic case management conferences, you just need to know that the matter is still on calendar. Generally, for other hearings, if a tentative ruling is issued, you must advise the court and opposing counsel if you plan to appear at the hearing, usually by 4 p.m. on the day before the hearing. If you don’t, and the other party does not appear, you will not be allowed to argue. If you don’t want to contest the tentative ruling, then you don’t have to appear unless opposing counsel advises they plan on appearing. If no one appears, then the tentative ruling is adopted. If the tentative says “hearing required,” you must appear.

2. Familiarize yourself with the local rules.

This goes hand in hand with the first tip. Every court is just a little bit different. So go online, check the local court rules, and make sure you follow the directions, especially with respect to tentative rulings.

3. Find out about the judge.

Just as every court is a little bit different, judges also have their own way of doing things. Ask the partners or more senior associates in your firm for any insight. Attorney list-serves are also a great resource.

4. Review the file.

Being prepared is a must. Take time the day before to review the file and familiarize yourself with the case and its details.

DUTY OF ADVOCATES:

An advocate is considered as an officer of the court, honoured member of the community, and a gentleman, thinking that to become a member of the bar he has to be lawful and moral not only in his professional capacity but also in his non professional capacity. An advocate has to courageously support the interest of his client and also have to follow the principles of ethics and etiquette both in correspondence.

Following are the duties of advocate towards to court:

1. An advocate while presenting his case should conduct himself with dignity and self respect
2. Respectful attitude must be maintained by the advocate. He has to keep in mind the dignity of the judge.
3. An advocate should not, by any improper means should influence the decision given by the court.
4. An advocate can make a complaint against the judicial officer but it has to be before proper authorities and there has to be serious offence done by the judicial officer.
5. It is the duty of the advocate to prevent his client from resorting to unfair practices and also the advocate himself should not do any of such acts.
6. Dress code has to be maintained by the advocate while appearing before the court.
7. An advocate should not take up any case of his family members and relatives.
8. No bands or gowns had to be worn by the advocate in the public places. It is only limited to the court premises.
9. An advocate cannot be as a surety for his client. An advocate shall not act or plead in any matter in which he has some kind of pecuniary interest.
10. It is the duty of the advocate to cooperate with the bench in the court.
11. It is the duty of the advocate to perform his functions in such a manner that due to his acts the honour, dignity and integrity of the courts shall not be affected.
12. An advocate should not laugh or speak loudly in the court room especially when the proceedings are going on.
13. When an advocate accepts a brief, he should attend all adjournments properly. If he has any other work in another court, he should first obtain the permission from the court concerned. Particularly in criminal cases, it is the first and foremost duty of an advocate to attend.
14. While the case is going on, the advocate cannot leave the court without court’s permission and without putting another man in charge, preferably his colleague or junior or friend advocate.

WHO IS AN ADVOCATE?

In India, the law relating to the Advocates is the Advocates Act, 1961 introduced and thought up by Ashoke Kumar Sen, the then law minister of India, which is a law passed by the Parliament and is administered and enforced by the Bar Council of India. Under the Act, the Bar Council of India is the supreme regulatory body to regulate the legal profession in India and also to ensure the compliance of the laws and maintenance of professional standards by the legal profession in the country.

Each State has a Bar Council of its own whose function is to enroll the Advocates willing to practice predominantly within the territorial confines of that State and to perform the functions of the Bar Council of India within the territory assigned to them. Therefore, each law degree holder must be enrolled with a (single) State Bar Council to practice in India. However, enrollment with any State Bar Council does not restrict the Advocate from appearing before any court in India, even though it is beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the State Bar Council which he is enrolled in.

The advantage of having the State Bar Councils is that the workload of the Bar Council of India can be divided into these various State Bar Councils and also that matters can be dealt with locally and in an expedited manner. However, for all practical and legal purposes, the Bar Council of India retains with it, the final power to take decisions in any and all matters related to the legal profession on the whole or with respect to any Advocate individually, as so provided under the Advocates Act, 1961.

The process of being entitled to practice in India is twofold. First, the applicant must be a holder of a law degree from a recognized institution in India (or from one of the four recognized Universities in the United Kingdom) and second, must pass the enrollment qualifications of the Bar Council of the state where he/she seeks to be enrolled. For this purpose, the Bar Council of India has an internal Committee whose function is to supervise and examine the various institutions conferring law degrees and to grant recognition to these institutions once they meet the required standards. In this manner, the Bar Council of India also ensures the standard of education required for practicing in India is met with. As regards the qualification for enrollment with the State Bar Council, while the actual formalities may vary from one State to another, yet predominately they ensure that the application has not been a bankrupt /criminal and is generally fit to practice before courts of India.

Enrollment with a Bar Council also means that the law degree holder is recognized as an Advocate and is required to maintain a standard of conduct and professional demeanor at all times, both on and off the profession. The Bar Council of India also prescribes “Rules of Conduct” to be observed by the Advocates in the courts, while interacting with clients and even otherwise.

All Advocates in India are at the same level and are recognized as such. Any distinction, if any, is made only on the basis of seniority, which implies the length of practice at the Bar. As a recognition of law practice and specialization in an area of law, there is a concept of conferral of Senior Advocate status. An Advocate may be recognized by the Judges of the High Court (in case of an Advocate practicing before that High Court) or by the Supreme Court (in case of the Advocate practicing before the Supreme Court). While the conferral of Senior Advocate status not only implies distinction and fame of the Advocate, it also requires the Senior Advocate to follow higher standards of conduct and some distinct rules. Also, a Senior Advocate is not allowed to interact directly with the clients. He can only take briefs from other Advocates and argue on the basis of the details given by them. From the year 2010 onward a mandatory rule is made for lawyers passing out from the year 2009-10 to sit for an evaluation test named AIBE (All India Bar Exam) for one to qualify as an advocate and practice in the courts. However, to practice law before the Supreme Court of India, Advocates must first appear for and qualify in the Supreme Court Advocate on Record Examination conducted by the Supreme Court.

Further, under the Constitutional structure, there is a provision for the elevation of Advocates as judges of High Courts and Supreme Court. The only requirement is the Advocate must have ten years standing before the High Court(/s) or before the Supreme Court to be eligible for such. (Article 217 and 124 of the Constitution of India for High Courts and Supreme Court respectively)