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.

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)

Long before the coronavirus pandemic, college costs had already entered unprecedented territory. According to a study by Broke Scholar, the average cost of tuition and fees — in inflation-adjusted dollars — at both private and public schools has more than tripled from the academic year 1971-72 to 2019-2020.

• In 1971-72, average tuition and fees at a private nonprofit four-year institution cost $11,540 in 2019 dollars. For the 2019-20 academic year, the current average cost is $36,880 for tuition and fees: an increase of 220%.
• In 1971-72, average tuition and fees at a public four-year institution cost $2,710 in 2019 dollars. For the 2019-20 academic year, the current average cost is $7,730: an increase of 285%, which means it nearly quadrupled.

Thus, the costs associated with attending a college or university were already moving in an unfavourable direction for the average American household. But throwing the COVID-19 pandemic into the equation is now presenting a multitude of issues that could accelerate this trend or send it off into erratic directions. On the other side of the equation, the colleges are facing troubling financial straits due to the disruption in tuition, fees and on-campus life.

“When it comes to higher education institutions, the pandemic has had — and will continue to have — a drastic financial impact. Institutions are suffering from lost revenue to partial tuition refunds, room and board, fees, etc.,” said Michael Hansen, CEO of Cengage. “For example, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which oversees 14 universities, including the first HBCU (historically black college and university) of Cheyney University, and 17,000-student West Chester University, is projecting a $100 million loss from room and board and other fees. And the University of Wisconsin at Madison is estimating a $100 million loss due to COVID-19 impacts, which does not include potential lost revenue from lower enrolment in the fall. While a select few institutions have large endowments to help them navigate through this unprecedented period, the majority do not.”

PARENTS FROM DIFFERENT STATES MOVES SC SEEKING MORATORIUM ON SCHOOL FEES FOR LOCKDOWN PERIOD

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court by the parents of children from different States seeking declaration of moratorium or deferment of payment of school fees during the COVID-19 induced lockdown.

The plea also seeks direction to Centre and all the States for directing all the private unaided/aided schools to only charge the proportionate fees based on actual expenditure towards the conduct of the online virtual classes and no other fees from the students since April 1 till the commencement of physical classes.

“The Petitioners belonging to different states of the country have come together being constrained to approach this Court seeking inter alia the protection of fundamental right to life as well as education guaranteed under the Constitution of India, 1950 which the children & students enrolled up to the Class XII of various Indian states are being deprived of due to supervening factors namely, the ongoing pandemic- COVID-19 period,” the plea said.

It said that due to COVID-19 induced lockdown, financially incapacitated parents have to bear the brunt of the fees of the children, even after being faced with constant financial and emotional hardships which may leave a few of them with no option but to withdraw their children or students from seeking institutional/school education for an unforeseeable period of time.

“The Petitioners are also aggrieved apart from other issues as raised in the present petition by the unorganised and adversely influencing education imparted in the name of online classes, without addressing the supervening factors of incapacity of 25 per cent EWS category students, adverse impact of education of children of unregulated online education for students of Standard Nursery to 5th and for other students as well,” the plea said.

The parents through the petition filed through advocate Mayank Kshirsagar and drawn by advocate Pankhuri said that they are highlighting various factors leading to creation of hostile discrimination of children and parents of various states in India as some protection may be available for children or students in some states and the same may not be available in other states.

Parents of the school going children who have moved the top court hail from Rajasthan, Odisha, Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Maharashtra.

In their plea they said that considering the adverse impact of online education, ban has been imposed by Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh while other States have not considered its impact.

It said that after COVID-19 disease was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization, on March 25, 2020, a country wide lockdown was announced whereby all the activities including the educational sector were shut down completely having a catastrophic effect over the economy of the country with many people losing their jobs or getting a deducted or nil income and facing immense sufferings in their daily life.

“The school going children and students were unable to attend the physical classes at their respective schools. Some of the private aided/unaided schools made arrangements for online classes in April, 2020 however the same has not been universally made available and even cases where no online classes are being conducted the schools are charging normal fees and rather some schools have hiked the fees,” the plea said.

It added that many of the schools hiked their fees and/or started harassing the students’ parents to pay the entire quarterly fees in advance despite the non-functioning of the schools and the students not availing any of the services provided by the schools.

The petition said that despite circulars issued by various States asking private aided/unaided schools ought not to hike their fees in the times of the pandemic, no substantial relief in the form of waiver of fees, or reduced fees, or proportionate fees as per actual expenditure etc. was granted to the students in most of the states, leaving their parents with a huge financial burden to bear, impliedly resulting in the student’s right to life and education getting infringed and violated.

“It is further noteworthy that no specific provision/direction was issued by various states as mentioned with regard to the 25 per cent economically and socially backward/weaker students under the RTE Act, 2009,” it said.

The plea sought directions to Centre and all the States for directing all the private unaided/aided schools to not charge any fees whatsoever from the enrolled students of such schools for a period of three months starting from April 1 till July 1 or till the commencement of offline/physical school classes.

It also sought directions to Centre and all the States for directing schools to only charge the proportionate fees based on actual expenditure towards the conduct of the online virtual classes and no other fees whatsoever from the enrolled students of such schools since April 1 till the commencement of offline/physical school classes.

The petition said that direction be issued to schools to only charge the ‘tuition fees’ and no other fees whatsoever from the enrolled students since April 1 till physical classes resumes.

IMPACT OF THE SCHOOL FEE PAYMENT PROBLEM ON TEACHING STAFF

However, while there is uninterrupted dissemination of education services provided by our valiant teaching staff despite awaiting their dues, their sacrifices along with the non-teaching staff must be appreciated.

It must also be noted that these teachers who are going beyond the call of duty are solely dependent on their salaries for their livelihood.

There are an approximate 5 Crore teaching and non-teaching staff employed in over two Lakh schools across India who are hoping that parents come forward at the time of crisis so that salaries can be paid to the staffers.

Here, the government and parents should ensure teachers’ concerns are considered by releasing adequate funds as an immediate resort which will help reduce the financial strain on them.

The government, state bodies, education boards, financial and educational institutions, and parents should jointly formulate a mechanism to make sure that academics and institutions don’t come to a grinding halt or a closure due to paucity of funds.

 

HERE ARE THREE THINGS THAT CAN BE DONE TO SOLVE THE SCHOOL FEE PAYMENT ISSUE DURING LOCKDOWN

1. Providing interest-free loans to parents to pay fees as education is a part of the priority lending sector

This will ensure that no pillar of India’s growth will be compromised due to dearth of funds.

While RBI has on numerous occasions infused stimulus packages in our economy, this would be the first time the Central Bank can issue loans with zero interest and also provide relaxation in payment tenure for schools and higher education fees.

2. Interest-free loans should be extended to schools to pay salaries

The past decade has witnessed many sectors benefiting from the Finance Ministry and Reserve Bank of India to prevent collapse of business and these sops have helped these sectors revive their growth story.

While education is part of a priority lending sector, granting them interest-free loans to pay fees for crore of teaching and non-teaching staff would immensely help them and also reduce the burden of the parents who are obligated to pay timely fees.

This would also help conduct urgent repairs in schools to prepare them for the resumption of the academic year post-pandemic.

3. Provide subsidies for school bus operators due to drop in oil prices

The world has witnessed a slump in the oil market and while it is important for India to adjust costs owing to the pandemic by keeping a check on the excise rates and taxes on petroleum products.

Citing the present state of affairs, the government should also look into certain tax breaks or subsidies to aid these operators. This will have a direct bearing on the economics of every parent who are sending their children to school.

In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. It typically involves keeping a certain distance from others (the distance specified may differ from time to time and country to country) and avoiding gathering together in large groups.

By reducing the probability that a given uninfected person will come into physical contact with an infected person, the disease transmission can be suppressed, resulting in fewer deaths. The measures are used in combination with good respiratory hygiene, face masks and hand washing by a population. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested favouring the term “physical distancing” as opposed to “social distancing”, in keeping with the fact that it is a physical distance which prevents transmission; people can remain socially connected via technology. To slow down the spread of infectious diseases and avoid overburdening healthcare systems, particularly during a pandemic, several social-distancing measures are used, including the closing of schools and workplaces, isolation, quarantine, restricting the movement of people and the cancellation of mass gatherings.

 Although the term was introduced only in the 21st century, social-distancing measures date back to at least the 5th century BC. The Bible contains one of the earliest known references to the practice in the Book of Leviticus 13:46: “And the leper in whom the plague is… he shall dwell alone; [outside] the camp shall his habitation be.” During the Plague of Justinian of 541 to 542, Emperor Justinian enforced an ineffective quarantine on the Byzantine Empire, including dumping bodies into the sea; he predominantly blamed the widespread outbreak on “Jews, Samaritans, pagans, heretics, Arians, Montanists and homosexuals“.In modern times, social distancing measures have been successfully implemented in several epidemics. In St. Louis, shortly after the first cases of influenza were detected in the city during the 1918 flu pandemic, authorities implemented school closures, bans on public gatherings and other social-distancing interventions. The influenza fatality rates in St. Louis were much less than in Philadelphia, which had fewer cases of influenza but allowed a mass parade to continue and did not introduce social distancing until more than two weeks after its first cases. Authorities have encouraged or mandated social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social distancing measures are most effective when the infectious disease spreads via one or more of the following methods:

• droplet contact (coughing or sneezing)
• direct physical contact (including sexual contact)
• indirect physical contact (such as by touching a contaminated surface)
• airborne transmission (if the microorganism can survive in the air for long periods); the efficacy of social distancing to contain airborne viruses compared to other measures, such as widespread mask usage, is disputed

The measures are less effective when an infection is transmitted primarily via contaminated water or food or by vectors such as mosquitoes or other insect.

Drawbacks of social distancing can include loneliness, reduced productivity and the loss of other benefits associated with human interaction.

HISTORY

Leper colonies and lazarettos were established as a means of preventing the spread of leprosy and other contagious diseases through social distancing, until transmission was understood and effective treatments invented.

1916 New York City polio epidemic

During the 1916 New York City polio epidemic, when there were more than 27,000 cases and more than 6,000 deaths due to polio in the United States, with more than 2,000 deaths in New York City alone, movie theatres were closed, meetings were cancelled, public gatherings were almost non-existent, and children were warned not to drink from water fountains, and told to avoid amusement parks, swimming pools and beaches.

Influenza, 1918 to present

During the influenza pandemic of 1918, Philadelphia saw its first cases of influenza on 17 September. The city continued with its planned parade and gathering of more than 200000 people on 28 September and over the subsequent three days, the city’s 31 hospitals became fully occupied. During the week ending 16 October, over 4500 people died. Social distancing measures were introduced on 3 October, on the orders of St. Louis physician Max C. Starkloff, more than two weeks after the first case. Unlike Philadelphia, St. Louis experienced its first cases of influenza on 5 October and the city took two days to implement several social distancing measures, including closing schools, theatres, and other places where people get together. It banned public gatherings, including funerals. The actions slowed the spread of influenza in St. Louis and a spike in cases and deaths, as had happened in Philadelphia, did not occur. The final death rate in St. Louis increased following a second wave of cases, but remained overall less than in other cities. Bootsma and Ferguson analyzed social distancing interventions in sixteen U.S. cities during the 1918 epidemic and found that time-limited interventions reduced total mortality only moderately (perhaps 10–30%), and that the impact was often very limited because the interventions were introduced too late and lifted too early. It was observed that several cities experienced a second epidemic peak after social distancing controls were lifted, because susceptible individuals who had been protected were now exposed.

 School closures were shown to reduce morbidity from the Asian flu by 90% during the 1957–1958 pandemic, and up to 50% in controlling influenza in the U.S., 2004–2008. Similarly, mandatory school closures and other social distancing measures were associated with a 29% to 37% reduction in influenza transmission rates during the 2009 flu epidemic in Mexico.

During the swine flu outbreak in 2009 in the UK, in an article titled “Closure of schools during an influenza pandemic” published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, a group of epidemiologists endorsed the closure of schools to interrupt the course of the infection, slow the further spread and buy time to research and produce a vaccine. Having studied previous influenza pandemics including the 1918 flu pandemic, the influenza pandemic of 1957 and the 1968 flu pandemic, they reported on the economic and workforce effect school closure would have, particularly with a large percentage of doctors and nurses being women, of whom half had children under the age of 16. They also looked at the dynamics of the spread of influenza in France during French school holidays and noted that cases of flu dropped when schools closed and re-emerged when they re-opened. They noted that when teachers in Israel went on strike during the flu season of 1999–2000, visits to doctors and the number of respiratory infections dropped by more than a fifth and more than two fifths respectively.

SARS 2003

During the SARS outbreak of 2003, social distancing measures such as banning large gatherings, closing schools and theaters, and other public places, supplemented public health measures such as finding and isolating affected people, quarantining their close contacts, and infection control procedures. This was combined with wearing masks for certain people. During this time in Canada, “community quarantine” was used to reduce transmission of the disease with moderate success.

COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and related measures are emphasized by several governments as alternatives to an enforced quarantine of heavily affected areas. According to UNESCO monitoring, more than a hundred countries have implemented nationwide school closures in response to COVID-19, impacting over half the world’s student population. In the United Kingdom, the government advised the public to avoid public spaces, and cinemas and theatres voluntarily closed to encourage the government’s message.

With many people disbelieving that COVID-19 is any worse than the seasonal flu, it has been difficult to convince the public—especially teens and young adults—to voluntarily adopt social distancing practices. In Belgium, media reported a rave was attended by at least 300 before it was broken up by local authorities. In France teens making nonessential trips are fined up to US$150. Beaches were closed in Florida and Alabama to disperse partygoers during spring break. Weddings were broken up in New Jersey and an 8 p.m. Curfew was imposed in Newark. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania were the first states to adopt coordinated social distancing policies which closed down non-essential businesses and restricted large gatherings. Shelter in place orders in California were extended to the entire state on 19 March. On the same day Texas declared a public disaster and imposed state wide restrictions.

These preventive measures such as social-distancing and self-isolation prompted the widespread closure of primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools in more than 120 countries. As of 23 March 2020, more than 1.2 billion learners were out of school due to school closures in response to COVID-19. Given low rates of COVID-19 symptoms among children, the effectiveness of school closures has been called into question. Even when school closures are temporary, it carries high social and economic costs. However, the significance of children in spreading COVID-19 is unclear. While the full impact of school closures during the corona virus pandemic are not yet known, UNESCO advises that school closures have negative impacts on local economies and on learning outcomes for students.

In early March 2020, the sentiment “Stay The Fuck Home” was coined by Florian Reifschneider, a German engineer and was quickly echoed by notable celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Busy Philipps in hopes of reducing and delaying the peak of the outbreak. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram also joined the campaign with similar hashtags, stickers and filters under #staythefhome, #stayhome began trending across social media. The website claims to have reached about two million people online and says the text has been translated into 17 languages.

 Drawbacks

There are concerns that social distancing can have adverse affects on participants’ mental health. It may lead to stress, anxiety, depression or panic, especially for individuals with pre existing conditions such as anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, and paranoia. Widespread media coverage about a pandemic, its impact on economy, and resulting hardships may create anxiety. Change in daily circumstances and uncertainty about the future may add onto the mental stress of being away from other people.

Effectivenes

An empirical study published in July 2020 in the The BMJ (British Medical Journal) analyzed data from 149 countries, and reported an average of 13% reduction in COVID-19 incidence after the implementation of social distancing policies.

 What is Black Money

Black money is funds earned illegally on which income and other taxes have not been paid. The unaccounted money hoarded illegally and concealed from the tax authorities is also called black money. So, it is essential that one does not keep any unaccounted or undeclared money, jewellery or any kind of wealth. In the event of such non-declaration, the chances of the income tax authorities conducting a raid on the taxpayer will be quite high. Therefore, the taxpayer also needs to safeguard himself while possessing someone else’s money ensuring that those are accounted for.

When does a raid happen?

An income tax raid, technically known as the process of Search and Seizure, is one of the crucial weapons that the Income-tax department possesses to check black money. It is a measure that is known to be constitutionally valid too. A raid gets triggered under any of the following circumstances:

• Credible information of tax evasion; for instance, any evasion coming out of reports received from the Intelligence Wing of the Income tax department.
• Information coming from government departments.
• Information procured from assessment records of taxpayers.
• Information received with regard to spending being disproportionate to income of the taxpayer i.e. an instance of lavish spending without corresponding income to match the same.
• Manipulation of books of accounts, vouchers, invoices etc.
• Illegal investment in real estate.
• Unexplained cash credits, share transactions etc.

Who can conduct a raid?

According to Section 132(1) of the Income Tax Act, the :

• Principal Director General or Director-General or
• Principal Director or Director or
• Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner or
• Principal Commissioner or Commissioner

They can authorize:-

• Additional Director or
• Additional Commissioner or
• Joint Director or
• Joint Commissioner or
• Assistant Director or
• Deputy Director or
• Assistant Commissioner or
• Deputy Commissioner  or
• Income-tax Officer to conduct a tax raid. The authorizing officer will do so, if he has a “reason to believe” that :

• A taxpayer has failed to comply with any summons or notices sent to him by the Department or
• He has in his possession money and secondly, such money represents either wholly or partly income or property which has not been disclosed.

It has been held by various courts that the taxpayer being searched ideally does not have the right to get access to information based on which the search has been initiated by the department considering that this would hamper the department’s investigation process. Only High Courts and the Supreme Court have the right to do so.

Powers of tax authorities during a raid

The officer authorized to carry out the raid can:

1. Enter and search any building, place, etc. where he has a reason to suspect that the books of account, other documents, money, bullion, jewellery or other valuable article or thing representing undisclosed income is kept.
2. Break open the locks, where the keys are unavailable.
3. Carry out personal search of a person who is suspected to have secreted some item as mentioned in (1) above.
4. Seize the items as mentioned in (1) above.
5. Place marks of identification and take extracts or copies of the books of account and other documents.
6. Make a note or inventory of the valuables found during the search.

Assets that can be seized.

The authorized officials can seize the following types of assets:

1. Undeclared cash, jewellery
2. Books of accounts, challan, diaries, etc.
3. Computer chips and other data storage devices
4. Documents relating to property, deed of conveyances, etc.

Assets that cannot be seized

The authorized officials cannot seize the following types of assets:

1. Stock-in-trade (except cash) of a business
2. Assets or cash which are disclosed before the Income Tax and Wealth Tax Department
3. Assets declared in books of account
4. Cash which are duly explained
5. Jewellery provided in wealth tax return
6. Gold up to 500 gm for each married lady and 250 gm for each unmarried woman and 100gm per male member

 Rights of a person during a tax raid

• To insist on personal search of ladies being taken only by a lady, with strict regard to decency
• To have at least two respectable and independent residents of the locality as witnesses
• A lady occupying an apartment being searched has a right to withdraw before the search party enters, if, according to custom, she does not appear in public
• To call a medical practitioner in case of emergency
• To allow the children to go to school, after checking their bags
• To have the facility of having meals, etc. at the normal time
• To inspect the seals placed on various receptacles, sealed in course of search and subsequently at the time of reopening of the seals
• To have a copy of the panchanama together with all the annexure
• To have a copy of any statement that is used against him by the Department
• To have inspection of the seized books of account, etc., or to take extracts there from in the presence of any of the authorised officers or any other person empowered by him.

 Rights of a person after a tax raid

The person from whose custody any books of account or other documents are seized may make copies thereof or take extracts there from in the presence of any of the authorized officers or any other person empowered by him.

An aggrieved person can file a writ petition before the High Court challenging the raid, if he feels that the action of the department was unfair. He can also challenge the assessment and file an appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeal).

 Duties of a person during a raid

i. To allow free and unhindered ingress into the premises 

ii. To identify all receptacles in which assets or books of account and documents are kept and to hand over keys to such receptacles to the authorised officer 

iii. To identify and explain the ownership of the assets, books of account and documents found in the premises 

iv. To identify every individual in the premises and to explain their relationship to the person being searched. He should not mislead by impersonation. If he cheats by pretending to be some other person or knowingly substitutes one person for another, it is an offence punishable under section 416 of the Indian Penal Code.

v. Not to allow or encourage the entry of any unauthorised person into the premises.

vi. Not to remove any article from its place without notice or knowledge of the authorised officer. If he destroys any document with the intention of preventing the same from being produced or used as evidence before the court or public servant, he shall be punishable with imprisonment or fine or both, in accordance with section 204 of the Indian Penal Code.

vii. To answer all queries truthfully and to the best of his knowledge. He should not allow any third party to either interfere or prompt, while his statement is being recorded by the authorised officer.

viii. Being legally bound by an oath or affirmation to state the truth. If he makes a false statement, he shall be punishable with imprisonment or fine or both under section 181 of the Indian Penal Code.

ix. Similarly, if he provides evidence which is false and which he knows or believes to be false, he is liable to be punished under section 191 of the Indian Penal Code.

x. To affix his signature on the recorded statement, inventories and the panchanama.

xi. To ensure that peace is maintained throughout the search process, and to cooperate with the search party in all respects so that the search action is concluded at the earliest and in a peaceful manner.

xii. Similar co-operation should be extended even after the search action is over, so as to enable the authorised officer to complete necessary follow-up investigations at the earliest.

How can one prevent raid?

One can lawfully avoid a tax raid by being compliant in terms of responding to summons and notices sent to him by the department and also refrain from keeping money, property undeclared.