How much experience is required to become a public notary?
Pervin Malhotra
Q. I am interested in becoming a public notary but I have heard that one requires at least 10 years of work experience. Is this true? I am a practising woman lawyer with six years of experience.
— Sudha Mahajan
A.As you must have observed in the course of your legal practice, notaries draft, verify, and attest various deeds and documents both judicial and non-judicial such as conveyances and power of attorney concerning real estate, factories etc. Notaries often bear witness to and certifying signatures on legal documents and of course you will be called upon to prepare a person’s last Will and testament that we so often see hotly contested on TV soap operas. Sometimes the courts direct notaries to exercise the function of Pro Tem Judge (Temporary), Magistrate, Commissioner or Arbitrator.
Appointment of a notary is a statutory appointment, which is done under the Notaries Act and the Rules. To answer your first question, the eligibility for becoming a public notary is as follows: Advocates (civil/criminal/taxation/revenue) who’ve been practicing for the last 10 years and enrolled with the Bar Council of India and with an NoC (No-objection Certificate) from the concerned Bar Council are invited by the Judicial Branch of the State government. However, if I’m not mistaken, SC, ST, OBC and women candidates need only seven years of legal practice.
Scope in home science
Q.I have home science as one of my subjects in school and I find it very interesting. Does it make sense to pursue it at the bachelor’s level as well? What kind of jobs does it offer?
— Payal Mehta
A. No longer considered just another ‘soft option’ for girls, home science covers a wide ambit: food and nutrition, clothing and textiles, interior design and furnishing, merchandising, child development, marriage and family relationship, rural development, community health & hygiene, community resources management and adult education. Other subjects include physiology and economics. So, depending upon your interests and aptitude, there are a multitude of career options to choose from. If you’re a ‘people’ person and enjoy sales and marketing you can look at promotion of food, healthcare and wellness products. Similarly, if you have flair for management and supervision the hotel industry also offers opportunities in housekeeping departments at resorts, hotels, spas, restaurants etc.
You can also branch out into the field of fashion, textile, accessory or interior design and let those creative juices flow. Globally, healthcare is a mega trillion dollar industry, now making big in waves in India with an explosion of employment opportunities.
So you can specialise in dietetics or food and nutrition or opt for child-care or resource management work in NGOS and other welfare agencies.
If you’re academically inclined you can always opt for teaching or take up research work.
What are the career options in linguistics?
Q.After completing BA (Hon) in English, I did a certificate course in phonetics. I’m interested in linguistics. What are my career options?
— Parul Garg
A.Linguistics explores the cognitive and social aspects of human language. The field is divided into areas that focus on aspects of the linguistic signal, such as syntax (the study of the rules that govern the structure of sentences), semantics (the study of meaning), morphology (the study of the structure of words), phonetics (the study of speech sounds) and phonology (the study of the abstract sound system). Pursuing a course in linguistics will give you an insight into the structure and function of natural languages as a system of cognition and communication. You will also be exposed to other disciplines such as economics, sociology, history, and philosophy that will widen your horizon and equip you with basic quantitative and analytical skills. Explore a range of career options from academics & research in social sciences to journalism and language training as well as computational linguistics.
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