Give out the major sources of terror funding in India and the 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.

Sources of terror funding in India

Terror networks draw on a mix of traditional and emerging channels:

• Hawala/informal value-transfer systems and Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) pushed across borders.
• Narco-terrorism — proceeds of drug trafficking, especially along the western border and the “golden crescent” route.
• Misuse of charities, NGOs and shell companies to route and launder funds; extortion and organised crime.
• New technologies — cryptocurrency, online crowdfunding, prepaid instruments and dark-web channels.
• State sponsorship and cross-border funnelling of money by hostile agencies.

Efforts to curtail them

• The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act — the 2019 amendment empowers the state to designate individuals as terrorists and attach their assets.
• The Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), enforced by the ED, with the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) tracking and analysing suspicious transactions.
• The NIA’s dedicated Terror Funding and Fake Currency cell, tighter FCRA scrutiny of foreign contributions, demonetisation-era currency redesign, and compliance with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards.
• Inter-agency coordination and international cooperation on tracing and freezing assets.

The ‘No Money for Terror’ Conference

India, through the Ministry of Home Affairs, hosted the Third Ministerial Conference on Counter-Terrorism Financing in New Delhi on 18–19 November 2022, following the Paris (2018) and Melbourne (2019) editions. Its aims and objectives were to build sustained global cooperation to choke terror finance, address emerging risks from cryptocurrency and new payment technologies, deny terrorists safe havens and funding channels, strengthen the international legal and institutional framework, and underline that terrorism in any form is unjustifiable.

Conclusion

Cutting off money — the lifeblood of terror networks — through rigorous domestic enforcement and coordinated global action such as NMFT is among the most effective and durable counter-terror strategies.