Ease of doing business is an index devised by World Bank.  It is based upon 10 parameters stating how easy it is to start and run a business in a nation. The top rankings indicate that the regulatory environment in those nations is conducive for business operations. The index averages a country’s percentile ranking on its component ease of doing business. The nations are ranked from 1 to 189. The 10 parameters for doing business are:

 1. Starting a business. 2. Dealing with construction permits 3. Getting electricity   4. Registering property  5. Getting credit   6. Protecting investors   7. Paying taxes 8. Trading across borders   9. Enforcing contracts 10. Resolving insolvency

Nations will progress only if they create conducive atmosphere for starting and running businesses. The entrepreneurial growth is a must for a healthy economy to compete effectively in the modern global marketplace and for providing economic security for both people and places. New ideas and new products are always welcome by people across the globe. An effective economic development strategy will require two broad elements. First is cultivation of the fundamentals of a strong business climate that can support and drive a vibrant economy. Second is a well educated workforce and uncongested infrastructure that can support both commerce and recreation. Also, the tax burdens that are carefully balanced against the benefits received by the state as well as the entrepreneurs are equally important. Along the way, the nation must protect natural environment, as well as our cultural values. Amenities and quality of life considerations have become increasingly important to where people want to live and where good jobs are grown.

World Bank’s index of doing business with ease gives clarifications to the entrepreneurial world as to which countries are encouraging for starting or expanding their ventures across borders.

Starting a business: This parameter records all procedures officially required for starting a commercial or industrial business; it studies the time and cost to complete these procedures and the paid-in minimum capital requirement. This point studies all procedures for obtaining necessary licenses and permits and notifications, verifications or writings for the company and employees with relevant authorities. The ranking of ease of starting a business is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicator. The law of the country, detailed list of procedures, time and cost for completion of procedure, paid-in minimum capital required, support from local government bodies, legalities, and notaries to complete and verify data each of these points are checked.  It’s been observed the easier the procedures, the faster the growth. Too much of governance, too much of paper work complicates and frustrates the budding entrepreneurs in an economy.

Dealing with construction permits: These procedures include obtaining and submitting all relevant project-specific documents such as building plans, site maps and certificates of urbanism to the competent authorities; hiring external third-party supervisors, engineers or inspectors if necessary; obtaining all necessary clearances, licenses, permits and certificates, submitting all required notifications; and requesting and receiving all necessary inspections. Additional procedures include time and cost related to obtaining an electricity connection in the preconstruction stage, procedures necessary to register the property so that it can be used as collateral or transferred to another entity, time and cost to complete each procedure. The ranking on the ease of dealing with construction permits is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators.

Getting electricity: This topic tracks the procedures, time and cost required for a business to obtain a permanent electricity connection for a newly constructed factory, office, premise or warehouse. These procedures include applications and contracts with electricity utilities, all necessary inspections and clearances from the utility and other agencies and the external and final connection works. This topic checks the process of getting an electricity connection along with the time and cost to complete each procedure. The ranking on the ease of getting electricity is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators such as time, cost, deposit, site and inspection.

Registering property:This theme examines the steps, time and cost involved in registering property, assuming a standardized case of an entrepreneur who wants to purchase land and a building that is already registered and free of title dispute. The process starts with obtaining the necessary documents, such as a copy of the seller’s title, and ends when the buyer is registered as the new owner of the property. Every procedure required by law or necessary in practice is included, whether it is the responsibility of the seller or the buyer and even if it must be completed by a third party on their behalf. This parameter records the full sequence of procedures necessary for a business (buyer) to purchase a property from the seller and to transfer the property title to the buyer’s name so that the buyer can use the property for expanding its business, use the property as collateral in taking new loans or, if necessary, sell the property to another business. The process starts with obtaining the necessary documents, such as a copy of the seller’s title if necessary, and conducting due diligence if required. The transaction is considered complete when it can be used as collateral for a bank loan or resell it. The ranking on the ease of registering property is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators.

Getting credit: This indicator measures the legal rights of borrowers and lenders with respect to secured transactions through one set of pointers and the sharing of credit information through another. The first set of indicators measure whether certain features that facilitate lending exist within the applicable collateral and bankruptcy laws. The second set measures the coverage, scope and accessibility of credit information available through public credit registries and private credit bureaus. The ranking is based on the percentile rankings on the sum of its component indicators such as legal rights of borrowers and lenders, analysis of laws and regulations as well as public sources of information on collateral and bankruptcy laws.

It checks whether the law allows a business to grant a no possessory security right in substantially all its movable assets, without requiring a specific description of the collateral. It also checks what security rights are given in future or after-acquired assets and may extend automatically to the products, proceeds or replacements of the original assets.

Protecting investors: this indicator checks the strength of minority shareholders in protection against directors’ misuse of corporate assets for personal gain. The indicators distinguish 3 dimensions of investor protections: transparency of related-party transactions (extent of disclosure index), liability for self-dealing (extent of director liability index) and shareholders’ ability to sue officers and directors for misconduct (ease of shareholder suits index). The ranking of the strength of investor protection index is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators.

It also checks whether a publicly traded corporation is listed on the nation’s most important stock exchange. If the number of publicly traded companies listed on that exchange is less than 10, or if there is no stock exchange in the economy, it is assumed that Buyer is a large private company with multiple shareholders. It also checks whether a company has board of directors and a chief executive officer (CEO) who may legally act on behalf of shareholders; whether this is permitted, even if this is not specifically required by law. Further, this indicator studies whether a company has a supervisory board (applicable to economies with 2-tier board system) on which 60% of the shareholder-elected members have been appointed and whether it is a manufacturing company and has its own distribution network.

Paying taxes: this indicator records the taxes and mandatory contributions that a medium-size company must pay in a given year. It also measures the administrative burden of paying taxes and contributions. The project was developed and implemented in cooperation with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Taxes and contributions measured include the profit or corporate income tax, social contributions and labor taxes to be paid by the employer, property taxes, property transfer taxes, dividend tax, capital gains tax, financial transactions tax, waste collection taxes, vehicle and road taxes, and any other small taxes or fees.  The ranking on the ease of paying taxes is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators, with a threshold being applied to one of the component indicators – the total tax rate. The threshold is defined as the highest total tax rate among the top 15% of economies in the ranking on the total tax rate. It is calculated and adjusted on a yearly basis. All economies with a total tax rate below this threshold receive the same score as the economy at the threshold. The threshold is not based on any economic theory of an “optimal tax rate” that minimizes twist or maximizes efficiency in the tax system of an economy overall. Instead, it is mainly empirical in nature, set at the lower end of the distribution of tax rates levied on medium-size enterprises in the manufacturing sector as observed through the paying taxes indicators. This reduces the bias in the indicators toward economies that do not need to levy significant taxes on companies.

Trading across borders:

This indicator is based on importing a standardized cargo based on the time and cost of excluding tariffs associated with exporting and importing of goods by sea transport in a nation. The time and cost essential to complete every official procedure for exporting and importing the goods are recorded; however, the time and cost for sea transport are not included. All documents needed by the trader to export or import the goods across the border are also verified. For exporting goods, procedures range from packing the goods into the container at the warehouse till their departure from the port of exit. For importing goods, procedures range from the vessel’s arrival at the port of entry to the cargo’s delivery at the warehouse. For non-coastal economies, these include procedures at the inland border post, since the port is located in the transit economy. Payment is made by letter of credit, and the time, cost and documents required for the issuance or advising of a letter of credit are taken into account. The ranking on the ease of trading across borders is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its element indicators such as local freight forwarders, shipping lines, customs brokers, port officials and banks. These factors provide information on required documents and cost as well as the time to complete each procedure. To make the data comparable across economies, several assumptions about the business and the traded goods are used.

Enforcing contracts:This indicator measures the efficiency of the judicial system in resolving a commercial dispute. The methodology includes following the step-by-step evolution of a commercial sale dispute before local courts. The data is collected through study of the codes of civil procedure and other court regulations as well as questionnaires completed by local litigation lawyers and by judges. The ranking on the ease of enforcing contracts is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators. To indicate overall efficiency, one procedure is subtracted from the total number for economies that have specialized commercial courts, and one procedure for economies that allow electronic filing of the initial complaint in court cases. Some procedural steps that are part of others are not counted in the total number of procedures. Time is recorded in calendar days, counted from the moment the plaintiff decides to file the lawsuit in court until final result. Cost is recorded as a percentage of the claim, assumed to be equivalent to 200% of income per capita. No bribes are recorded. Three types of costs are recorded: court costs, enforcement costs and average attorney fees. And, court costs include all court costs that petitioner (Seller) must advance to the court. Enforcement costs are all costs that Seller (plaintiff) must advance to enforce the judgment through a public sale of Buyer’s movable assets, regardless of the final cost to Seller. Average attorney fees are the fees that Seller (plaintiff) must advance to a local attorney to represent Seller in the standardized case.

Resolving insolvency:  This indicator studies the time, cost and outcome of insolvency proceedings involving domestic entities. The data are derived from questionnaire responses by local insolvency practitioners and verified through a study of laws and regulations as well as public information on bankruptcy systems. The ranking on the ease of resolving insolvency is based on the recovery rate time for creditors to recover their credit which is recorded in calendar years. The period of time measured by Doing Business is from the company’s default until the payment of some or all of the money owed to the bank. Potential delay tactics by the parties, such as the filing of negligent appeals or requests for extension, are taken into consideration. The cost of the proceedings is recorded as a percentage of the value of the debtor’s estate. The cost is calculated on the basis of questionnaire responses and includes court fees and government levies; fees of insolvency administrators, auctioneers, assessors and lawyers; and all other fees and costs.

The Doing Business Report started since November 2001. The index is based on the study of laws and regulations, with the input and verification by more than 9,600 government officials, lawyers, business consultants, accountants and other professionals in 185 economies who routinely advise on or administer legal and regulatory requirements. In 2002 Simeon Djankov, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes and Andrei Shleifer published a paper on this topic in the Quarterly Journal of Economics titled “The Regulation of Entry”. The paper presented data on the regulation of entry of start-up firms in 85 countries covering the number of procedures, official time and official cost that a start-up must bear before it could operate legally. The main findings of the paper were that: countries with heavier regulation of entry have higher corruption and larger unendorsed economies. Such economies don’t bother about better quality of public or private goods. But, countries with more democratic and limited governments have lighter regulation of entry and these economies foster entrepreneurial culture. The paper got elated publicity because it provided quantitative evidence that entry regulation benefits politicians and bureaucrats without adding value to the private sector, or granting any additional protection.

 In June 2013 India stood at 134^th position out of 189 positions in ranking of economies by World Bank for doing business in a nation. Whereas Singapore ranks in number one position.

Competent lawyers are the courtroom heroes. Law is an integral part of nearly every area of our life – from the environment, trade, education, medicines, entertainment, marriage, childbirth, sports to death. When things go wrong in society we first think of lawyers. Be it a divorce, stealing, bribery, bankruptcy, IP theft, corporate slip-ups; when fundamentals and practicalities begin to crumble, lawyers swoop in like heroes to protect their clients against the offenders. Taking help of lawyer is a simple instantaneous action, born out of necessity. People call lawyers not because they wantto, but because itnecessitates to.

Can a lawyers’ role be narrowly defined as an antidote to conflict? Are they required only to avoid or manage disputes? The common most notion of a lawyer is – the one who is skilled at finding ‘loopholes’ in the system and help his/her client escape from a sticky situation. But this is our narrow-mindedness if we define their role in such tapered frame. And, we cannot deny that to one up the law one must know the law.

Law is the way society regulates its behavior. It creates rules of conduct that are widely understood and gives us parameters for resolving disputes and defining acceptable codes of conduct. Our centralized, state, and local laws regulate everything from how we do business with each other to how we behave in public places, our duties and responsibilities in society, how we keep our surrounding to where we can park our cars. Because law is considered a technical profession not easily comprehended by the untrained, individuals and companies hire professionals-lawyers-to help them realize it and conduct the procedures it defines. The role of lawyers cannot be limited or underrated. Lawyers have enormous power, which they use daily to effect change for their clients. Without law and order we cannot live peacefully in this world. In some or the other way we permanently depend on lawyers.

Law has been one of the popular career choices for youngsters. Those who come from families of lawyers usually opt to study law. Anyone can choose to study law as long as one has the passion for it. There are many areas of specialization in law these days. Maritime Law, Cyber Law, Business Law, Civil Rights Law, Entertainment Law, Environment Law, Immigration Law, Health Law, Intellectual Property Law, International Law, Labor Law, Taxation Law and many more. I listed just few of them. Today for every action and every activity we find a specialized lawyer. Traditionally, students could specialize in either civil or criminal laws.

People who enter this demanding and comprehensive profession do so for many reasons. It is a great paying career and it is a challenging career which requires lot of research and people skills. If you love it make a career in it. To be precise, lawyers can have a broad range of responsibilities depending on the specific area of law they practice. But if you think being a lawyer mainly involves making speeches and grilling witnesses in a courtroom, think again. Even trial lawyers-those who specialize in courtroom litigation spend surprisingly little time before a judge or jury. For every hour in the courtroom, many more are spent doing research, conducting interviews, or writing documents in preparation for proceedings. Many lawyers, in fact, never set foot in court. They work in the back office.

In broad terms, lawyers apply their interpretation of the law (the codified rules of their society) to advise their employer or client on completing transactions in compliance with the law or resolving disputes based on current understanding of the law. At its most basic level, a lawyer’s role is that of a supporter and adviser. Attorneys use specialized knowledge to research and interpret the intent of the law and apply it to whatever circumstances their clients face. It’s an imperfect practice, as the interpretations of the law may vary significantly based on the circumstances of the situation.

The legal profession can be divided into two major categories: litigation and transactions. Litigation, which concerns both civil and criminal law, is the process of arguing a dispute between two parties. Transactions relate to business and personal matters that usually do not require courtroom argumentation. For example, a lawyer may counsel a client in the transactions of preparing a will, contract, or lease; to help secure venture capital for a new company; or to prepare a patent for a new technology. However, if the will is contested or if the venture capitalists sue the business owner for fraud, that would then require an attorney with litigation skill.

Depending on the type of law they practice, lawyers will spend their time on paperwork; researching, preparing for, or participating in trials and advising clients. They spend hours in law libraries, online databases, and case studies for researching legal precedents. They prepare contracts, to the point note, and other documents, assembling boilerplate paragraphs (it is the sections of code that have to be included in many places with little or no alteration) or writing from scratch. They need a sharp mind, sharp focus and razor-sharp communication skills. Humor and wit is an added advantage as it can lighten the courtroom atmosphere.

They plan and conduct depositions or interviews with witnesses. In complicated cases, these can generate thousands of pages of testimony-all of which have to be read, analyzed, and refined into usable information. They present their evidence-the information they’ve gathered about a case and about the laws relevant to a case-in a court of law, arguing before a judge and/or jury. Alternatively, they may present their research findings to clients, advising them on business or other issues.

If you want to make a splendid career in law, you need to sharpen your analytical ability, attention to detail, logical reasoning, persuasiveness, sound judgment and of course writing ability.  I want to list here one of the most essential element for the career and that is of emotional intelligence. They need to empathies with their clients, they need to respect and honor their colleagues, and most important they need to be good listeners.  Impassive, unemotional and detached lawyers are never in demand. The market does not want a lawyer who is only half a person. They also need to be tech savvy and good in time management.

If you are interested in making a career in law – you can either do a three-year law course after graduation in any discipline or a 5 years’ course after 12th class. In fact, the 3 years’ course is now giving way to the 5 years’ one which is seen as a better option. In most cases, colleges run the 3 years’ course only for those whose main discipline in graduation is something other than law, or working professionals who want to do an LLB as an additional qualification. The five year course is meant for those who want to take up law as a career – be it as a litigator, or any other kind of legal professional. For the five years course the national law entrance exam, CLAT (Combined Law Admission Test) which basically tests the student’s general English, legal aptitude, general awareness, logical skills, etc needs to be cleared.

The LLB course is regulated by the Bar Council of India which sets rules and regulations regarding legal practice in the country. Any specialization is done at masters, M. Phil or PhD stage. A higher degree helps candidates in their career advancement. It is an honorable career.

Our nation needs competent and efficient lawyers for enhanced law and order. People like Mahtma Gandhi, Dr. Amedkar, Lokmanya Tilak, Abraham Lincoln, and Nelson Mandela were some great people who had donned the Lawyer’s coat sometimes in life.

Can you imagine a society in which arts and humanities do not exist; can you imagine your world without music, art or literature? If religion and philosophy would be absent, the study of history would be nullified, and intellectual debate would never happen. How dry our world would be without passion of humanities. We all give maximum importance to science, math, and technology and consider the arts as a lesser branch of study; we naively discount the value of the humanities and attempt to minimize their importance in education. But, the fact is they are so significant in our daily life.

The humanities are one of the academics disciplines  that study human culture, using techniques that are of significance; these techniques are mostly exploratory. Humanities have a significant historical element as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences. The humanities branch includes ancient civilization, literature, philosophy, history, anthropology, sociology, communication studies, cultural studies, law, linguistics, religion, visual and performing arts such as music and theatre. The humanities are also referred as social sciences.  Scholars in the humanities are described as humanists; this term also describes the philosophical position of humanism.

Humanities education gives insights into how their society is different

Humanities education gives students insights into how their society is different. The world consists of several religions, cultures and races. Educators also list several other benefits to the study of the humanities. Since the humanities involve the gaining of large amounts of information about the world and humanity, it requires that students develop critical thinking skills in order to process and analyze the information. This is a skill that translates into other realms of a student’s life, and it can provide benefits to other areas of study.

Research into the human experience adds to our knowledge about our world. Through the work of humanities scholars, we learn about the values of different cultures, about what goes into making a work of art, about how history is made. Their efforts preserve the great accomplishments of the past; help us understand the world we live in, and give us tools to imagine the future. This has given birth to Futures Studies which is also called futurology and futurism. It is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them.

Today, humanistic knowledge continues to provide the ideal foundation for exploring and understanding the human experience. Investigating a branch of philosophy might get us thinking about ethical questions. Learning another language helps us gain an appreciation for the similarities in different cultures. Contemplating a sculpture makes us think about how an artist’s life affected his/her creative decisions. Reading a book from another region of the world helps us think about the meaning of democracy and its importance for our survival. Listening to a history course helps us understand the past, while at the same time it offers us a clearer picture of the future.

A report commissioned by Oxford University’s Humanities Division found that numbers of Oxford graduates of English, History, Philosophy, Classics and Modern Languages are employed in key economic growth sectors of finance, media, legal services and management. This number rose substantially between 1960 and 1989. By the end of the period, 16-20% was employed in these sectors. It is believed to be the first report of its kind as it evaluates the contribution of the study of the humanities to boost the economy by looking at career paths and mid- and end-career destinations of graduates, rather than the three years immediately after graduation as used by the government’s Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

The research has involved using the University of Oxford alumni database to examine the employment history of 11,000 Oxford humanities graduates who matriculated between 1960 and 1989 to give full career paths to track, and has also involved focused in-depth interviews with 50 alumni, thereby engaging quantitative and qualitative measures of humanities graduates’ impact on the British economy and society. The head of humanities at the University of Oxford says that it is widely recognized that the humanities have intrinsic value as well as utility in the well-being of the world and it has a great impact and value in any economic crisis.

Mark Edmundson – a renowned Professor of English at University of Virginia says that serious thinkers opt for Humanities to broaden their minds and learn to how to live the rest of their lives. A serious thinker himself, Edmundson has felt firsthand the pressure on colleges to churn out a productive, high-caliber workforce for the future. Through his articles and paper presentations he reminds us that there is more to education than greater productivity. With prose exacting yet expansive, tough-minded yet optimistic, the liberal arts are more important today than ever. Titled as “Why Teach”?  Edmundson’s collected writings on the subject, including several pieces that are new and previously unpublished. What they show, collectively, is that higher learning is not a rut – some staid. It is a necessary remedy for our troubled times. Why Teach? is thus brimming with the wisdom and inspiration that make learning possible. When it comes to choosing a career, we all ask this common question – will humanities help me achieve a desired career in life? It depends on what that career is. Humanities will enable you to advance in writing skills, speaking skills and thinking. And, most importantly it will strengthen your ability to recognize further opportunities to learn. It will give you the ability of researching – to find information and ideas, and the ability to critically distinguish between various sources of ideas. It will help you structure your thoughts coherently and express yourself in ways that are appropriate to the occasion. It will help you build up reading skills which will further give you an ability to understand language and systems of meaning, whether they occur in literal texts, or in other forms. Humanities students learn to read images, culture, and a host of other things, besides written texts. It will make you adaptable – your ability to apply knowledge skills to vide variety of contexts.

And here’s another thing to keep in mind – the humanities today are not the humanities of the past. Sad, but the image that many people have of humanities is of a pursuit that has no relation to practical human concerns. The fact is humanities disciplines are involved in research projects of all sorts, with just about every discipline in the university. Philosophers work with scientists and engineers, historians work with medical professionals, creative writers work with digital media engineers. The fact is every technical and scientific discipline, at some point or other, must help the humanity and hence becomes a humanities discipline! Every scientific advance is an advance for humans, and is meaningful in our history, for the betterment of our lives. Every invention happens within the context of human meaning. Every business trades on human narratives and human desires as expressed through language and symbol. The humanities matter everywhere. This discipline of studies therefore is far from being marginal. It is central to all human life.

In the words of Terry Eagleton – a prominent British literary theorist and critic “The humanities should constitute the core of any university worth the name.” So, guys stop underrating importance of Humanities.