Advanced Centre for Research, Development and Training in Cyber Laws and Forensics [ACRDTCLF] was established at NLSIU, Bangalore on 25th October 2010 under the initial financial support of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications& Information Technology, Government of India.
The Centre spreads awareness and provides training to judicial officers, public prosecutors, judges, investigative agencies, cyber security personnel and others of cyber law with essential emphasis on the technical issues to prevent of misuse of the technology and better enforcement of related laws.
Centre Co-Directors: Rahul Hemrajani & Aparajita Lath
The Centre for Child and the Law (CCL) was established as a specialised multi-disciplinary Research Centre of NLSIU on April 1,1996.
The Centre integrates research, direct field action and teaching on child rights law; and uses law and socio-legal strategies as tools for transformative social change in order to enable children to live with dignity. The specific aim of CCL is to ensure social justice, human rights and quality of life for all children in India, with special focus on equitable quality education, care, protection and justice for marginalised and excluded children.
Centre Co-Directors: Shreya Shree and Nikita Ahalyan
The Centre for Environmental Law Education, Research and Advocacy (CEERA) established in 1997 is a research centre that focuses on research and policy advocacy in the field of environmental law. Building an environmental law database, effectively networking among all stakeholders, undertaking training and capacity development exercises, providing consultancy services and building an environmental law community are CEERA’s main objectives. It enjoys the support of the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change, other Ministries, international organisations, the Bar and the Bench in India.
As part of its activities, CEERA also runs two portals:
ceerapub.nls.ac.in – CEERA has taken pioneering efforts in keeping up with the technological advancements by publishing journals, blogs, articles, Books and other research materials on its online platform NLS Publications at nlspub.ac.in. The website launched in the year 2019, is a virtual shelf for anyone interested in learning about recent developments and also provides a place for others to contribute on any recent topics.
abs.nls.ac.in – This portal was launched as part of a project under the United Nations Development Project (UNDP) and Global Environment Fund (GEF) on Strengthening Human Resources, Legal Framework and Institutional Capacities to Implement the Nagoya Protocol (Global ABS Project). This portal provides updates on training programmes, and developments in the field of Biodiversity in India and across the world.
Center Co-Directors: Prof. (Dr.) Sairam Bhat & Dr. Gayathri D Naik
The Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, earlier known as the Institute on Law, Ethics and Medicine and subsequently as the Centre for Law and Ethics in Medicine, undertakes policy and regulatory research on health law at the national and international level. The Centre strives to provide information on, and analyse current policy responses to health issues, advocate for health law reform, health system reforms, and health policy implementation. The Centre through its unique position focuses on a multi-disciplinary approach of identifying issues pertaining to health law and engages itself in research, dialogue and negotiation that enables systematic reforms in the health sector.
Ongoing Projects
The Centre currently has two ongoing projects:
Public Health Law and the Constitution: This project aims to evaluate the constitutional framework within which the duties, powers and limitations of the government on public health are debated and scrutinised by the courts. The project entails a survey of leading cases from the Supreme Court of India and the State High Courts on the constitutionality of public health regulations, programmes and policies in India, and the interaction of public health with fundamental rights, directive principles of state policy and the federal structure of the Constitution of India. The scope of examination includes public health themes such as access to medicines, availability and affordability of healthcare services, discrimination in access to healthcare facilities, compulsory vaccinations, digitisation and privacy concerns, nutrition support, control of harmful substances and prohibition of their advertisements of harmful substances, regulation of drugs and medical devices, regulation of professions, compulsory bonds, impact of emerging technologies, rare diseases and the extent of state responsibility. The project is supported by the Thakur Foundation. It began in 2022 and will culminate into a compendium of edited cases and materials including critical comments on issues of public health and the Indian constitution.
Think Tank on Health Initiative: In 2018, NLSIU received support from a group of medical experts and practitioners to set up a Think Tank on Health at the University. The objective was to make NLS a hub of collaborative and critical research, teaching, policy intervention and advocacy on various rights based and other legal issues in the healthcare ecosystem. As a first step, an edited book was published by Thomson Reuters in 2022 on ‘Health Law and Ethics (Critical Reflections)’. Also, co-authored opinion pieces of NLS faculty and Think Tank Members have been published.
Other work
NLS is also working closely with IISC, Bengaluru and National Health Authority for discussions and deliberations on Digital Health Data Protection, Analytics and Emerging Technologies and other teams of scientists for a project on ultrasound technology. For more details, please contact Ms Nanditta Batra at .
Centre Director: Dr. Madhubanti Sadhya and Bhanu Tanwar
The Centre for Intellectual Property Research and Advocacy (CIPRA) was established with the objective of enhancing the intellectual property knowledge base and research capabilities of the country in general and the NLSIU in particular. The centre attempts to achieve these aims through a two pronged strategy. Firstly, it attempts to disseminate information on intellectual property rights with a view to create awareness in the public in general. Secondly, it initiates research into relatively unexplored and novel areas.
Centre Co-Directors: Dr. Arul Scaria & Dr. Betsy Rajasingh
The Centre for Labour Studies (CLS) was set up as interdisciplinary Centre aimed at addressing various issues that define regulation and governance in employment relations. The CLS seeks to primarily engage with five key research areas: labour law and regulation; trade unions and collective bargaining; labour law governance in Karnataka; employment relations and structure of industry in select sectors of informal and formal employment, and precarious work and forced labour. In connection with this engagement, the CLS undertakes research, organizes seminars and workshops; and engages with trade unions, labour economists, academicians and the Karnataka Labour Department and other state labour departments on specific workers’ rights issues.
Centre Co-Directors: Dr. Saurabh Bhattacharjee, Vijetha Ravi
A Draft Bill for Informal Workers:
The Centre has been working on a draft legislation for informal workers with a Working Committee consisting of more than ten trade union leaders belonging to informal sectors from Trivandrum, Chennai, Andhra and Delhi, among others. This Project received initial seed funding from Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). Consultation Meetings on the Draft Bill have been held at Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Sector-specific draft bills are being prepared for regulation of employment in the agriculture sector, fisheries sector, self-employed work sector, and salt plan work sector. Initial consultations have taken place, and preliminary drafts have been discussed for some of these sectors.
Projects relating to structure of Employment in food delivery and ride-hailing platforms in India The CLS has been engaged in research into the issue of earnings and work intensity in platform work since 2019. The initial research focussed on food delivery work in Karnataka (primarily Bengaluru), and ride-hail work in Hyderabad and three study reports are available. A comic book on conditions of employment in the food delivery platform in Bangalore, based on the research done by CLS is also available. An analysis of algorithmic control of platforms, and the regulatory need to define algorithm role with respect to workplace democracy and privacy, was undertaken in collaboration with the IT for Change, a technology research organization in Bangalore in 2023. The study resulted in a report which is available.The Centre has also been studying the emergence of platform oligopoly and its implications n workers and available alternatives like platform cooperatives and other experiments started with autorickshaw platforms and platform taxis like Namma Yatris. The Centre for Labour Studies, with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, completed two reports on the platform economy: the first examining the growing monopolisation of platform companies and its implications for workers’ conditions, and the second analysing how algorithm-driven work shapes and impacts the rights of workers at their workplaces.
Work on Universalisation of Social Security CLS has carried out consultancy work with Central Social Security Organisations like the Employees Provident Fund Organisation on Universalisation of Social Security schemes.
A Draft Bill for Platform-based Gig workers: A bill for Gig and Platform workers- The Platform-Based Gig Workers (Conditions of Service and Social Security) Act Bill, 2023-drafted by the CLS was presented to the Labour Minister of Karnataka in 14 September, 2023, addressing social security and conditions of work. Subsequently, the ILO country Director and Head of Social Protection held discussion with CLS before the state level convention on a bill for Gig & Platform workers in consultation with Government of Karnataka. The Draft Bill is being revisited in view of the recent declaration adopted by the European Union and in view of the preparatory steps now launched by the ILO for adopting a convention on the same subject.
South Asia Poverty Report The South Asia Poverty Report is a triennial report brought out by the South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE); a Nepal based coalition of civil society organizations. The NLSIU has been associated with the bringing out of the last two editions of the report. The current report, co-edited by Babu P Ramesh of the Ambedkar University Delhi, Akhil Ranjan Datta of Guwahati University and Mohan Mani of CLS, has been released and is available here.
Draft Karnataka Labour Policy The Government of Karnataka has appointed a tripartite Committee along with two academicians from NLSIU, Babu Mathew and Mohan Mani to prepare a Karnataka Labour Policy. Prof. Babu Mathew is Chairing this Committee. A draft Labour Policy document, and an interim report to the Government of Karanataka is currently underway.
Research Consultancy with WIEGO on implementation of Town Vending Committees (TVCs) under India’s 2014 Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending Act. The Centre for Labour Studies commenced research consultancy for Women in Informal Employment, Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)’s Law Programme, examining the implementation of Town Vending Committees (TVCs) under India’s 2014 Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending Act. The consultancy involves conducting literature reviews of the legal framework, comparative analysis of TVC functioning, and assessment of democratic participation mechanisms in workplace decision-making for informal workers. The first phase of this project, a literature review, has been completed in March 2025. In addition, WIEGO commissioned the Centre to prepare a memorandum on the functioning of the TVC in Bhubaneswar, which has also been completed.
Collaboration with Nazdeek on Tea Plantation Workers Rights The Centre for Labour Studies entered into a partnership with Nazdeek, a women-led organization focused on advancing community justice and legal empowerment in South Asia, to address issues concerning tea plantation workers. As part of this collaboration, the Centre hosted a conference at the National Law School of India University in September 2025, bringing together unions and activists from the sector to establish a Working Group and to deliberate on both immediate research priorities and strategies for advocacy. The Centre is also working on research report based on the conference discussions and findings.
Completed Projects
Garment work research
CLS was commissioned by the ILO to study the Regulation of Employment in the garment sector in Jordan. The study was completed and report submitted to a tripartite validation workshop in Jordan, and to various arms of the ILO. The report has been published by the ILO. The study was done by Babu Mathew, Mohan Mani and Kavya Bharadkar.CLS with the trade union Garment and Textile Workers Union (GATWU) undertook in 2019 a study of garment workers access to health care and the ESIC in Karnataka. The study including a survey of garment workers’ health care access conducted across Bengaluru and other parts of Karnataka.The ILO commissioned CLS in 2018 to undertake a 2-state study on minimum wage in the garment sector covering Karnataka and the NCR. This study was submitted at a seminar in the CLS, organised jointly by the ILO and CLS. CLS was commissioned in 2017-18 by a Tirupur based NGO, CARET, to look at regulation of employment among women workers in the textile sector in Tirupur.
Forced labour (i) CLS participated in a 6-country study research done for Equal Rights Trust (for ILAW/ Solidarity Centre) in 2022-23. The study sought to understand informality of work and access to labour protection in India, the UK, South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela and Tunisia.
(ii) A study was undertaken by CLS for the ILO in 2018 on forced labour in various sectors of employment across the country, and the report was submitted to the ILO.
(iii) An international seminar was organised by CLS along with Kings College, London on the issue of forced labour and its regulation globally.
Drafting the State Rules for the 4 Labour Codes in Chhattisgarh CLS was commissioned by the Chhattisgarh Labour Department to draft the State Rules for the 4 Labour Codes in 2020-21. The final report for all four Codes was submitted by mid-2021.
Founded in 2015 with the support of the Government of Karnataka, Tala Samudaya provides a vibrant institutional space to engage with the study of the marginalised communities with a view to understanding their active role and participation in the social, political, economic, and cultural life of the India in general and Karnataka in particular. The Centre has undertaken research, teaching, continuing education, and training in these areas and works closely working with key state and civil society actors and initiatives to further the empowerment of marginalised communities.
For more details, please contact Dr. Chandrashekhar.
Centre Co-Directors: Dr. Karthikeyan Damodaran and Chandrabhan P Yadav
Founded in 2008 through an initiative of the University Grants Commission, Government of India, NLSIU set up the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion & Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP) to promote interdisciplinary research on the varied forms of social marginality and exclusion in India. This centre has been renamed as the ‘Centre for the Study of Social Inclusion‘ as per the UGC circular dated July 12, 2024.
Besides offering courses for B.A. LL.B (Hons) and LL.M students at NLSIU, CSSEIP undertakes academic, legal and policy research with a special focus on caste, tribal and religious minorities with an active commitment to furthering democratic practices.
The CWL was set up at the very inception of the Law School in 1988. The CWL endeavours to look at law and the legal process from the perspective of gender justice and administer programmes directed towards equal justice for women in Indian Society.
In association with social activists and women’s organisations, CWL undertakes various training programmes focussing on legal literacy fro women, social auditing of welfare legislations affecting women, legal aid and assistance.
Centre Co-Directors: Dr. Debangana Chatterjee, Noor Ameena
Ever since Hugo Grotius characterised the sea as the common heritage of mankind, the “commons” have been the subject of legal enquiry on the international plane. With increased commodification, privatisation and appropriation of the valuable resources of the State, it would become the clear, present and imminent concern of the legal order to arrest the depredation of the “commons”, and the threat to human rights over such common resources and promote their protection and the conservation.
The Commons Cell took birth within CEERA to view law in the context of society and for opening up new vistas of legal learning and scholarship in the light of experience.
Centre Co-Directors: Dr. Sneha Thapliyal & Lianne D’Souza
