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Context

• The culture and diversities of indigenous people in India are remarkable.
• Regions such as Northeast India, Rajasthan, Odisha and West Bengal have large concentrations of such indigenous communities.
• The traditional knowledge, cultural expression, knowledge about local flora and fauna, medicine, agriculture, textile, and food of the indigenous people is immense.

According to a World Bank report, “Indigenous Peoples own, occupy, or use a quarter of the world’s surface area, they safeguard 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity.  They hold vital ancestral knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate, and reduce climate and disaster risks.”

[1] Adis of Arunachal Pradesh

• The literal meaning of “adi” is mountain top or hill.
• Adis are known to have migrated from further north and have settled in various districts of Arunachal Pradesh. They speak the Sino-Tibetan language.
• They are traditionally nature worshippers and follow the faith of Donyi-Polo.
• Adis are hence dependent on nature and are fully self-sufficient in their livelihood and lifestyle and all their resources come from the forests.
• Adis are famous for their age-old house-making skills, and they take just one or two days to build a house.
• Adi men are good craftsmen and have a unique way of building houses using different types of plant materials.
• The traditional houses are constructed with different types of bamboo, wood, canes, leaves, etc., and no nails are used in their construction.
• These are also collected based on the phase of the moon and the materials collected just before the new moon are free from insects, and last long.
• Once a house is complete, the Adis celebrate it with their traditional rice beer.

[2] Tangsas of Arunachal Pradesh

• The Tangsa community inhabits the Changlang district of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, located in the Patkai hills.
• The Tangsas have a rich cultural heritage and are well known for their traditional knowledge and skills of natural food processing and preservation, sustainable cooking, weaving, architecture and basketry.
• However, they are most famous for their indigenous bamboo tea-making.
• The Tangsas, along with the Singphos, are believed to be the original tea-makers in India, much before the British introduced it commercially.
• Tangsas process tea leaves following their traditional methodology which provides for the natural preservation of the roasted dry tea for many years.
• Tangsas believe that their indigenous tea has medicinal values.
• The staple diet and cuisine of Tangsas, consisting of rice, meat, and fish, are all cooked using bamboo.

[3] Kalbelias of Rajasthan

• Kalbelia is a unique nomadic community of snake-charmers and is also referred to as “ghoomantar”.
• In their language, Kal means ‘snake’ and Belia means ‘friendship’.
• Kalbelias are known for their “Kalbelia dance”.
• The knowledge of their cultural forms and practices is passed down through generations orally.
• The Kalbelia tradition is rich in indigenous music, songs, dance and handicrafts (embroidery and ethnic jewellery) all combined together to create a vibrant and colourful folk form.
• The men play music with their main instrument being the wind instrument called Pungi that is accompanied by percussion instruments, Dafli and to the beats and tunes of which the Kalbelia women dance.
• Kalbelia is inscribed in the UNESCO 2003 Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

[4] Rajbongshis of West Bengal

• Rajbongshi is an indigenous community residing in West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and other Northeast regions.
• The word Rajbongshi literally means “royal community” and is believed to have hailed from the ancient Koch kingdom.
• Rajbongshis are well known for art forms such as Bamboo and Dhokra crafts, performing arts like Gomira Dance (Mukha Nach) and the satirical folk drama, Khon.
• Gomira Dance locally known as Mukha Nacli, is a form of ritualistic dance practised by this community by putting on Gomira wooden masks of different forms of deities.
• Instruments include drums, dhak, shehnai and metal gong.
• Gomira mask makers reside in the Kushmandi block in Dakshin Dinajpur and Kaliagani block in Uttar Dinajpur.
• The Gomira dance festival is organised usually during the months of Chaitra and Ashad (April- July).
• Dhokra crafts or mat weaving is an indigenous tradition practised by the Rajbongshi women.
• Weaving is done on home-based back strap looms.
• Jute, which is grown locally, is hand processed and hand-woven to produce the natural fibre products, making the products highly sustainable.

Conclusion

• The indigenous communities have nurtured oral cultural traditions of songs, theatre, dance, and social customs to help them survive the test of time with faith and hope.
• When the world is struggling for solutions and success in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, there are hundreds of indigenous communities across the country which do not have any carbon footprint of their traditional ways of living and are mostly self-sufficient.

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Context

• Work from Home – which became a common feature for almost everyone during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, is here to stay.
• The Department of Commerce has notified an amendment to the 2006 Special Economic Zone rules, allowing up to 50 percent of total employees of IT and IT-enabled Services to work from home.

Why did the Centre intervene for WFH?

• The new rules came after there were calls from the industry to make a provision for a countrywide uniform WFH policy for all SEZs.
• Incidentally, the work from home rules come shortly after the Netherlands passed a law to establish home working as a legal right, in the process becoming one of the first countries to enshrine such flexibility in the law.

So what do the new rules say? Why is work from home in demand? And is it going to be the future? Let’s find:

What is Work from Home (WFH)?

• Employees work from home by using a dedicated laptop/PC connected to the internet and business applications to collaborate and communicate with their team members.
• While some employees work primarily from their homes, others work occasionally from home and travel to their office half of the time.
• WFH means employees can set up their workspace in their homes and manage their entire work right from inside their houses, without the need to necessarily go to the office.

What are the new guidelines?

• The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has released new guidelines under Rule 43A for work from home (WFH) for employees. 
• According to the notice issued by the Commerce Ministry, there is flexibility granted to the Development Commissioner (DC) of SEZs to approve a higher number of employees (more than 50%) for any bona-fide reason to be recorded in writing.
• Furthermore, this fresh rule provides a transition period of 90 days to SEZ units to seek approval, whose employees are already working from home.

Who all are covered under the new rule? 

The new rule 43A provides work from home for the following category of employees of a unit in SEZ:

1. Employees of IT/ITeS SEZ units
2. Employees, who are temporarily incapacitated
3. Employees, who are traveling
4. Employees, who are working offsite

Major challenges of working from home

[A] For employers

• Remote collaboration: Collaboration is one of the biggest work-from-home challenges for companies as employees no longer work from the same physical office space.
• Employees working from different locations and time zones: The big downside of this perk is that companies end up with a completely distributed workforce with employees working from different locations and time zones.
• Building and maintaining trust: When employees don’t have face-to-face interactions, there are some obvious trust issues that can arise because of it. Continuous mistrust from team members can often end up demotivating employees and making them feel left out.

[B] For employees

• Working too much:   With no excessive breaks or long commutes to the office, remote employees are 20-25 percent more productive than their office counterparts.  
• Loneliness and depression: With no informal social interactions with colleagues, employees can feel isolated and even develop communication issues with the rest of the team.
• A lack of community: When you only have face-to-face interactions with your team members on weekly or monthly video calls only, it can be rather challenging to create a sense of camaraderie and bonding within the team.

WFH benefits both employers and employees

Here is some work-from-home benefits for both employees and employers:

• Cost savings: When there are fewer employees coming to the office than usual, organizations need fewer equipment, desks, and space to accommodate them which will directly lead to lowered infrastructure and rental costs.  For employees too, working from home can lead to a lot of cost savings. No morning commute means no extra costs to travel to the office every day. Also, employees no longer need to pay high rents just to stay close to their offices.
• Flexible schedule and more freedom: When employees work from home, they get the freedom to create their own schedule, according to their productivity levels and personal commitments. They can work in the early mornings or through the nights if that’s when they feel most productive.
• Hire and retain global talent: Retaining talent becomes easier when companies offer work-from-home perks. For 83 percent of employees, the ability to work from home is a big deciding factor when they consider a new job offer. For companies, that means, allowing employees to work from home can make it easier for them to hire and retain top talent without any kind of location limitations.
• Better work-life balance: When employees work from home, they no longer have to spend hours driving in the traffic every day, chatting with coworkers near the watercooler, or organizing dinner parties with team members which directly saves them a lot of time that they can in turn use to spend with their friends, family, or just to do things that they like. With more downtime, enough rest, and better work-life balance, employees are able to better focus on the work which leads to higher efficiency and productivity.
• Positive employee experience: With more flexibility, no everyday bumper-to-bumper commute traffic, and better work-life balance, work from home ends up improving the overall employee experience within the organization. This in turn creates a company culture of high performance where employees want to perform at their best and continuously improve at work.
• Increase in productivity: When employees get the freedom to create their own work schedule and workspace, they feel more positive and productive. Moreover, with no excessive breaks or disruptions from co-workers, work-from-home employees end up being more productive than their in-office counterparts as well.

Conclusion

• Work from home is truly the future of work and it is here to stay.
• Even though there are some challenges to it, the pros of working from home easily outweigh the cons.
• Of course, incorporating a work-from-home strategy for the first time can be difficult, but it’s not impossible.

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Context

• Delivering its verdict on a batch of petitions concerning the interpretation of certain provisions of the Act, the SC bench opined that money laundering is a “heinous” crime.
• In this article, we will talk about the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Why in news?

• The verdict came on an extensive challenge raised against the amendments introduced in 2002 Act by way of Finance Acts.
• Also bail provisions in PMLA act were contested in the apex court.

Key observations by the Supreme Court

• Possessions of proceeds: Mere possession of proceeds of crime (without any integration, layering etc.) are sufficient to allege money laundering
• Preventing crucial crimes: PMLA not only affects the social and economic fabric of a nation but also tends to promote other serious offenses like terrorism and drug trafficking.
• Curbing illicit financing: The court noted that the law was enacted to address the urgent need for comprehensive legislation to prevent money laundering and prosecute those indulging in activities related to the proceeds of crime.
• Power of arrests are legible: The court also upheld the EDs powers relating to arrest, attachment of property involved in money laundering, search and seizure under the PMLA, which were challenged by multiple petitioners.
• Money laundering is no ordinary offence: It is, therefore, a separate class of offence requiring effective and stringent measures to combat the menace of money laundering,” the Court held.
• Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR): ECIR cannot be equated with FIR and ECIR is an internal document of the ED. Supply of ECIR to accuse is not mandatory and only disclosure of reasons during arrest is enough.
• Twin bail: On the issue of twin bail conditions under the PMLA, the court ruled that the stringent conditions for bail under the Act are legal and not arbitrary.
• Quantum of Punishment: The punishment provided for the offence is certainly one of the principles in deciding the gravity of the offence. However, it cannot be said that it is the sole factor in deciding the severity of offence as contended by the petitioners.
• Predicate offense: The court made it clear that the offence under Section 3 is dependent on illegal gain of property as a result of criminal activity relating to a scheduled offence. It relates to the process or activity connected with such property that constitutes the offence of money laundering.

What were the petitions?

• Petitions were filed against the amendments, which the challengers claimed would violate personal liberty, procedures of law and the constitutional mandate.
• The petitioners included many veteran politicians who all claimed that the “process itself was the punishment”.
• There were submissions that the accused’s right against self-incrimination suffered when the ED summoned them and made them sign statements on threats of arrest.
• But the court said these statements were recorded as part of an “inquiry” into the proceeds of crime.
• A person cannot claim right against self-incrimination at a summons stage.

What is Money Laundering?

• Section 3 of the Act defines money laundering.
• It initially read that anyone involved in any process or activity connected with the proceeds of crime including its “concealment, possession, acquisition or use” and projecting or claiming it as untainted property shall be guilty of the offense of money-laundering.
• In 2019, the government made a change to Section 3, adding “or” between the words “concealment”, “possession”, and “acquisition”.
• The petitioners before the top court, comprising politicians and industrialists, complained that the 2019 amendment enlarged the ambit of the principal section by including mere concealment or possession.

Explaining beyond legal terms

• Money laundering is the illegal process of making large amounts of money.
• This money is generated by a criminal activity but may appear to come from a legitimate source.
• Criminal activities include drug trafficking, terrorist funding, illegal arms sales, smuggling, prostitution rings, insider trading, bribery, and computer fraud schemes that produce large profits.

What are the different stages involved in money laundering?

Generally, money laundering is a three-stage process:

1. Placement: The crime money is injected into the formal financial system.
2. Layering: Money injected into the system is layered and spread over various transactions and book-keeping tricks to hide the source of origin.
3. Integration: Laundered money is withdrawn from the legitimate account to be used for criminal purposes. Now, money enters the financial system in such a way that the original association with the crime is disassociated. The money now can be used by the offender as legitimate money.

Note: All three sources may not be involved in money laundering. Some stages could be combined or repeated many times.

What are different methods of money laundering?

• Smurfing (the criminal breaks up large chunks of cash into multiple small deposits, often spreading them over many different accounts, to avoid detection.)
• Use of currency exchanges
• “Mules” (cash smugglers, who sneak large amounts of cash across borders and deposit them in foreign accounts, where money-laundering enforcement is less strict.)
• Investing in commodities such as gems and gold that can be moved easily to other jurisdictions
• Discreetly investing in and selling valuable assets such as real estate, cars, and boats;
• Gambling and laundering money at casinos;
• Counterfeiting
• Using shell companies (inactive companies or corporations that essentially exist on paper only).
• Hawala transactions

What are some of the national and global efforts to combat money laundering?

[A] Some of the national efforts are:

1. Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1976,
2. Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, and
3. Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), PMLA (Amendment) Act, 2012

Other than these efforts two important agencies/ units involved are-

1. Financial Intelligence Unit-IND: It is an independent body reporting directly to the Economic Intelligence Council (EIC) headed by the Finance Minister.
2. Enforcement Directorate (ED): It is a law enforcement agency and economic intelligence agency responsible for enforcing economic laws and fighting economic crime in India. Main function of ED is to Investigate offenses of money laundering under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002(PMLA).

Note: India is a full-fledged member of the FATF and follows its guidelines.

[B] Some of the global efforts are

• Vienna Convention,
• 1990 Council of Europe Convention
• International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO)
• Financial Action Task Force (It has been set up by the governments of the G-7 countries),
• IMF
• United Nations office on Drugs and Crime

Why prevent money laundering?

• Corruption in high offices: This is a major facilitator of money laundering.
• Worldwide nexus: Three “supra-national or transnational” crimes which have brought together the global community are narcotics, money laundering and terrorism.
• Existence of safe homes: People accused of money laundering run to small nations with no extradition treaty with India where they can buy citizenship.
• Preventing terrorism: Money laundering and terrorism financing activity in one country can have serious cross-border and even global adverse effects.
• Huge social costs: This include allowing drug traffickers, smugglers, and other criminals to expand operations and the transfer of economic power from the market, government, and citizens to criminals.

Critical view of the Judgment

• Lack of judicial standards: It is argued that the judgment falls short of judicial standards of reviewing legislative action.
• Downplay of FRs: It invokes legal framework for combating money-laundering so inviolable that possible violation of fundamental rights can be downplayed.
• Overemphasis on global pledge: The judgment repeatedly invokes the “international commitment” behind Parliament’s enactment of the law to curb the menace of laundering.
• Selective targeting is justified: The ED has also been manifestly selective in opening money-laundering probes, rendering any citizen vulnerable to search, seizure, and arrest at the whim of the executive.
• Self-incrimination and reverse burden of proof: This was violative of Article 20(3), which provided protection against self-incrimination.
• Obsolete arguments: The Court relied on Article 39 of the Constitution, part of the DPSP that mandates the State to prevent concentration of wealth, to uphold the stringent bail conditions under PMLA.
• Free hand to ED: The constitutionality of several provisions of the PMLA has been considered in the latest judgment and all of them have been upheld, the Court should have at least placed some additional safeguards on exercise of powers by the ED.

Is further Constitutional Challenge possible?

• The judgment may be reviewed further by a five or seven-judge bench but the likelihood of the same immediately is not high.
• As we have seen in the past, judgments of constitutional significance tend to be revisited (if at all) after several years when a situation arises which renders such interference absolutely necessary.
• But yes a larger bench is already considering the issue of whether amendments can be passed to PMLA under Finance Act like a money bill.
• It may be worth pointing out, however, that it can sometimes take years for a Constitution Bench (a five, seven or nine-judge bench of the top court) to arrive at a conclusion.

Way ahead

• The evolving threats of money laundering supported by the emerging technologies need to be addressed with the equally advanced Anti-Money Laundering mechanisms like big data and artificial intelligence.
• Both international and domestic stakeholders need to come together by strengthening data sharing mechanisms amongst them to effectively eliminate the problem of money laundering.
• Similarly, FRs do exist everywhere. And they cannot be used as brackets to prevent investigation agencies since the FRs of large section of population matters than any individual.

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