Give out the major sources of terror funding in India and efforts being made to curtail these sources. Also discuss the aim & objective of ‘ No Money for Terror’ Conference recently held at Delhi.

The question “Give out the major sources of terror funding in India and efforts being made to curtail these sources. In the light of this, also discuss the aim and objective of the ‘ No Money for Terror [NMFT]’ Conference recently held at New Delhi in November 2022." was asked in the Mains 2023 GS Paper 3. Let us look at the model answer to this question.

Answer: Terrorism is among the biggest threats to international peace and security. However, the financing of such activities is what keeps them alive. The NMFT is one such initiative which aims to curb their finances.

Major sources of terror funding in India:

• Unlawful Activities: Involvement in illegal activities such as drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and smuggling.
• Donations: Contributions from sympathetic individuals and organisations
• Proxy organisations: Funding from non-profit or charitable institutions which are put up as fronts.
• Organised crime: Partnership with criminal organisations engaged in drug trafficking, narcotics trade, and smuggling of weapons, etc.
• Fake Currency Network: Manufacturing counterfeit currency.
• Hawala Operations: charge a fees for transfer of funds through an informal systems
• Use of digital assets: Such as cryptocurrencies.

India's strategy against the financing of terrorism is based on these six pillars:

• Strengthening the Legislative and Technological Framework- Amendment of Unlawful activitie prevention act and strengthening National Intelligence Agency
• Creation of a Comprehensive Monitoring Framework with Intelligence and security agencies of Centre andStates.
• A Terror Funding and Fake Currency (TFFC) Cell has been constituted in National Investigation Agency (NIA)
• Actionable intelligence sharing mechanism and strengthening of the investigation and police operations like the Financial Intelligence Unit and Directorate of Revenue Monitoring
• Provision for confiscation of property under UAPA.
• Prevent misuse of legal entities and new technologies, such as through the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions and FATF recommendations.

The agenda for the NMFT 2022 includes:

• Discussion on preventing the use of virtual assets and crowdfunding platforms by terrorist entities, their use of the dark web,
• Disrupting the links between terror financing and legitimate economic activities, and payment intermediaries - misuse of non-profit organisations and non-financial businesses
• Focus on the challenges faced by investigation agencies while probing terror financing crimes, the sharing of information among financial intelligence units,

There is a need for cooperation among all such as intelligence agencies with strategies of Trace, Target and Terminate to be adopted to tackle economic crimes for better standardisation of structures to tackle the new terrorist. There should be no exceptions and excuses and India should move consistently to further build this paradigm for a safer world.