The National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, is organising a public lecture by Prof Ian Loader from the University of Oxford on the topic, “When is Obstructing the Road not Obstructing the Road?: On the Affective Sovereignty of Urban Automobility”. The event will be held on 5 September 2026 from 5.00 to 6.30 pm in the Conference Hall, Ground Floor, Training Centre, NLSIU.

About the topic

Across the Global North, and increasingly in much of the Global South, cities are often assumed to be places of flow and roads the arteries that make flow possible. Urban mobility is heavily, and perhaps excessively, car-dependent – part of a societal attachment to driving as a form of ‘freedom’. But what happens when movement, especially by car, is ‘obstructed’? What affects are activated? What new possibilities might emerge or be occluded? In this paper, we trace some scenes of everyday obstruction and examine the differential conditions under which road obstruction becomes a matter of concern and an actionable public problem. We propose a prospectus for a comparative socio-spatial analysis of attention and denial that seeks to clarify what is at stake in the scenes named as obstruction arising in infrastructural repair, protest, collective rituals, and the provisioning of other transport modalities. We also consider, in contrast, the neutralisation or overlooking of the endemic and most familiar form of obstruction: traffic congestion. By unsettling the sovereign claims of auto-freedom, we argue for a shift in attentiveness to the alternate possibilities of urban sociality that might arise when uses for roads other than driving can be conceptualised.

About the speaker

Ian Loader is Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow of All Souls College. He is also an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Ian is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society for the Arts.

Ian is the author of numerous books, edited collections, theoretical and empirical papers, and works of civic engagement on security, public and private policing; sensibilities towards dis/order and justice; penal policy and culture; crime control and political ideologies, and the democratic purposes of criminology. His current work coalesces around aspects of environmental harm. His latest co-authored book – Ecologies of Security: Everyday Disorder in a Climate-Changed World – is due out in October 2026, with Bristol University Press.

Ian is presently in receipt of a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship (2025-2028) for a project entitled ‘Car harms: Automobility and the objects of criminology’. The project seeks to use the car, and systems of automobility, as a vehicle through which to explore what it means to practice criminology in the midst of a climate breakdown. Ian is also teaching a graduate seminar on ‘Criminology and the car’. A background article for this project has been published in the Annual Review of Criminology, as well as a brief paper on 15 minute cites and auto-freedom.

Ian has, in recent years, been a member of the Advisory Board for the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales and of the Research Advisory Board of the Canada/Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission. Ian was Editor-in-Chief of the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice from 2016 to 2025.

The National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, in collaboration with The 108 Peace Institute, is organising a guest lecture by Dr Lobsang Sangay titled “The Dalai Lama’s Reincarnation: International Law, Religious Freedom, and Geopolitical Implications” on 10th September 2026, from 2 PM to 3 PM at OAB 102, NLSIU. 

About the Lecture

The Dalai Lama is not only the preeminent spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism but also an enduring symbol of Tibetan identity, resilience, and moral authority. The question of his reincarnation has, in recent years, become increasingly politicised. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), despite its officially atheist orientation, has articulated a calculated framework to assert control over the recognition of the next Dalai Lama for strategic and political ends, thereby undermining the sanctity and autonomy of a deeply revered spiritual process. In contrast, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, in his statement of July 5, 2026, unequivocally reaffirmed that the Gaden Phodrang Trust alone holds the legitimate authority to identify his successor. Furthermore, in his recent work Voice for the Voiceless, he underscored that his next incarnation will be born in a free country, thereby explicitly precluding any scope for external political interference.

India, host to the 14th Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamshala, occupies a position of critical importance in this evolving context. Across the Himalayan belt, including Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh, where vibrant Tibetan Buddhist communities reside, the recognition of the next Dalai Lama carries profound religious, cultural, and societal implications. India’s approach to this issue will not only shape regional stability and its bilateral relations with China but also influence the broader trajectory of Tibetan Buddhism. At the global level, the issue raises fundamental questions concerning religious freedom, the right to self-determination, and the protection of intangible cultural heritage in the face of state interference.

About the Speaker

Dr Lobsang Sangay is the founding President of 108 Peace Institute and is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. He was a democratically elected Sikyong (President) of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and served two terms (2011-21). Dr Sangay completed his BA and LLB from Delhi University and pursued an LLM and SJD ‘04 at Harvard Law School. Dr Sangay received the Yong K. Kim 95 Memorial Prize for excellence in dissertation and contributions to the understanding of East Asia at Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, akin to Track III, he organised seven rounds of meetings/conferences between Tibetan, Western and Chinese scholars, most notably the first-ever meeting between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and 25 Chinese scholars and students.

He was a researcher for the report “Tibet: Human Rights and the Rule of Law”, published by the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland (2008). He also published Legal Autonomy of Tibet: A Tibetan Lawyer’s Perspective, in the Journal of East Asia and International Law and “Education Rights for Tibetans in Tibet and India,” in John D. Montgomery, ed. Human Rights: Positive Policies in Asia and the Pacific Rim, SOKA University Press. He wrote an article, Tibet: The Exile’s Journey, published in the Journal of Democracy (2004). He was selected as one of the twenty-four Young Leaders of Asia by the Asia Society (2006). He has spoken at international conferences such as Forum 2000, Halifax Security Forum, and Oxford Union. He has written numerous Op-eds in major newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs, and appeared on many international TV networks like BBC and CNN. He was awarded the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse, College Historical Society (CHS), Trinity College, Dublin (2014) and the Salisbury University Presidential Medal for Distinguished Community Leadership (2015). He has visited various capitals and parliaments around the world and played an important role in the passage of the Tibetan Policy and Support Act 2020 signed by the United States Government.

Dr Sangay is currently writing two books:

(1) Democracy in Exile: The New Frontiers of Stateless Governance presents a timely intervention into the study and practice of democracy.

(2) Geopolitics of Reincarnation and the Institution of the Dalai Lama (Co-editor).

This faculty seminar will feature a presentation by Kunal Ambasta, Assistant Professor, on ‘The Fugitive Truth in the Law of Confessions: How the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 lost and recovered its procedural safeguards.’

Abstract

The criminal justice system’s goal of uncovering the truth behind a crime is considered an important function. Yet, it is qualified by values which take the form of procedural rights and exclusionary rules in favour of the accused. Often, these rules are viewed as compromises on the law’s ability to discover the substantive truth, or to its efficacy. Arguments in favour of limiting these rights are common, and enjoy widespread approval. This paper argues that procedural rights must not be considered challenges to the discovery of the truth, but instead, as its veritable guarantees. Focusing on extra-judicial confessions under Indian law as its analytical site, it demonstrates that reducing procedural protections to their minimal formulaic scope in fact diminishes the probability of discovering the truth rather than enhancing it. The paper first undertakes an historical study of Indian law. This part demonstrates how issues around legislative drafting and judicial interpretation restricted the scope of procedural rights meant to protect the right against self-incrimination. These developments illustrate how conceptions of truth-seeking have influenced judicial decision making. This position eventually reached an inflection point in the Supreme Court’s decision of Aghnoo Nagesia v. State of Bihar, a ruling that placed procedure at the centre of the criminal process. This paper shows that apart from its important endorsement of the accused’s procedural rights, the Supreme Court in fact protected the criminal law’s burden and goal of uncovering the truth of crimes. To prove this, it undertakes a reconstruction of this judgment utilising the legal archive consisting of the original investigative and trial records of the case. This process upturns conventionally set ideas of the objective or substantive truth in criminal investigations, in turn showing the central importance of procedural rights to the same. The paper thus presents the debate around procedural rights in a new light, proving not just their theoretical, but practical and functional value in criminal law.

This faculty seminar will feature a presentation by Mahima Balaji, Assistant Professor (Law), on ‘The Mythical Mortgage of Movables in Indian Law.’

Abstract

The ‘mortgage of movables’ has quietly entered the vocabulary of Indian private law. It appears in judicial decisions, has found legislative recognition, and is also used in commercial practice. Yet the expression sits uneasily with the statutory taxonomy of Indian private law, where the mortgage has traditionally been understood as a proprietary security over immovable property. In this context, this article examines the juridical foundations of the mortgage of movables through its historical development, statutory expression, and judicial evolution. Drawing upon the statutory taxonomy of proprietary security in Indian private law – particularly the Transfer of Property Act 1882, the Indian Contract Act 1872, and the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 – this article argues that although the mortgage of movables has acquired judicial and legislative recognition, authorities have yet to identify a coherent juridical basis for its recognition. In this sense, it is suggested that the mortgage of movables resembles a legal myth. Not because it is legally non-existent, but because it has acquired acceptance through repetition, despite its uncertain juridical foundations.

The Centre for Labour Studies at National Law School of India University is organising a Webinar on ‘Bangalore Water Supply Reference: Reaffirmation, Reformulation or Uncertainty?’. The event will be held on Saturday, 29 August 2026 at 5:30 P.M.

About the Webinar

Late last week, the Supreme Court delivered its much-anticipated judgment on the correctness of the reference made in Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board v. A. Rajappa, the landmark 1978 judgment that expansively interpreted “industry” under Section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The nine-judge Constitution Bench’s judgment comes at a particularly significant moment, following the repeal of the Industrial Disputes Act and the coming into force of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 in November 2025.

At the heart of the reference was the correctness of the “triple test” laid down in Bangalore Water Supply for determining what constitutes an “industry”. The judgment has, however, generated considerable debate about what the Court has actually decided. While some commentators have read the judgment as substantially reaffirming the Bangalore Water Supply framework, others have understood the Court as reformulating the test. Yet others have pointed to the multiple opinions and the absence of a clear majority on the proposed reformulation to argue that the precise legal position remains difficult to discern.

This webinar will take stock of these competing interpretations and unpack the different opinions of the nine judges, examining what the judgment means for the definition of “industry”, pending disputes under the Industrial Disputes Act, and the interpretation of the Industrial Relations Code going forward.

The discussion will bring together practising labour lawyers from Karnataka and Delhi, alongside academics from the Centre for Labour Studies at National Law School of India University (NLSIU), to critically examine the judgment and its implications for labour jurisprudence and workers’ rights.

Details of the Webinar

Date: 29th August 2026, Saturday
Time: 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Link: Microsoft Teams meeting link
Meeting ID: 398 579 960 446 914
Passcode: 8Mu644zD

Details of the Speakers

Professor Babu Mathew is Visiting Faculty at NLSIU, and President of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) for the State of Karnataka. He is a pioneering member of the Centre for Labour Studies at NLSIU, and he has long been a part of the trade union movement and various other social movements taking up issues of bonded labour, child labour, displacement and destruction of the livelihoods of the marginalised.

Maitreyi Krishnan is a Bengaluru based Advocate practicing on the labour side representing workmen and unions. She is the State Secretary AICCTU. Bangalore Secretary, CPI( ML) Liberation. She is also the president of All India Lawyers Association for Justice (AILAJ).

Jawahar Raja is a Delhi-based advocate who practices extensively in labor, service, and criminal law matters before the Delhi High Court. He represented New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) as an intervenor in the BWSSB Reference before the Supreme Court.

Dr. Saurabh Bhattacharjee is Registrar at NLSIU. He is presently also the Co-Director of the Centre for Labour Studies at NLSIU, and teaches labour law at the university. He has served on the Government of West Bengal’s Committee to Review Vagrancy Laws and on the Government of Karnataka’s Working Group to frame rules under the Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025. His work has been cited by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour and Employment in its Report on the Code on Wages Bill.

The webinar will be moderated by Vijetha Ravi, Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Labour Studies at NLSIU. Each speaker will speak for 20 minutes, and then we will open up the session for Q&A.

The JSW Centre for the Future of Law is organising a guest lecture on 7th September, 2026, from 5:00 – 6:30 PM with Dr Akanksha Bisoyi at the NAB 105 on the topic, ‘Critical Making for Justice: Applying Design Method to India’s Digital Courts’.

Venue: NAB 105, NLSIU Campus
Time and Date: 07 September 2026, Monday, 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM
The workshop is open to the public. Kindly register here.

Abstract

This session introduces critical making as a design method for studying and reimagining access to justice, applied specifically to the digitisation of India’s courts. Participants will move from a theoretical framing into a hands-on exercise, physically modelling and redesigning a justice user’s encounter with a digital court process to surface points of friction, exclusion, and possibility.

About the Speaker

Dr Akansha Bisoyi is a Post-Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the Professorship of Law, Innovation, and Legal Design at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), working with Prof. Dr. Christian Djeffal. She designs legal and policy toolkits and interactive platforms that make governance legible and legitimate, with a focus on how emerging technologies can be designed, shaped, and deployed to comply with the rule of law.

Since April 2026, she has held the Friedrich Schiedel Fellowship at the TUM Think Tank and is an affiliated researcher at the TransforM Excellence Cluster. Originally from Odisha, she trained in Mumbai and Geneva and completed her doctorate at TUM with a dissertation on blockchain and legitimacy, awarded magna cum laude.

The JSW Centre for the Future of Law at NLSIU is organising a workshop titled ‘Designing (for & with) Justice: AI, Judicial Digitisation, and the Rule of Law in India’ with Dr. Akanksha Bisoyi, post-doctoral researcher at the Professorship of Law, Innovation and Legal Design, Technical University of Munich.

• Day & Date: Friday, 04 September 2026
• Time: 4:00 to 5:15 PM
• Mode: Online

The workshop is open to the public. Kindly register here.

Abstract

Designing (for & with) Justice: AI, Judicial Digitisation, and the Rule of Law in India

Judicial technologies, including AI, built to optimise efficiency, whether for case management, litigant communication, or decision support, encode a particular vision of justice, and with it a gap between the formal availability of courts and substantive access to them. The paper proposes designing (for & with) justice: critical making as both a methodological framework and an analytical lens for examining that gap across India’s judicial digitisation. It asks how such technologies might be designed and evaluated so that gains in institutional efficiency do not come at the cost of the rule of law values.

Critical making, coined by Ratto (2009), combines critical thinking with hands-on material engagements with technologies to surface the assumptions and social values embedded in technological design. It aligns with Nissenbaum’s ‘values in design’ and Costanza-Chock’s ‘design justice’. Unlike conventional user-centred design, which defaults to imagined ‘dominant’ users resembling the designer, thereby reproducing structural exclusions, critical making places affected communities within iterative design, where material choices pose questions rather than merely solving problems. Drawing on Loveless’s ‘research-creation’, the framework privileges
deliberate slowness and community accountability over optimisation logics.

Applied to judicial digitisation initiatives across India, the paper aspires to develop a framework to examine how technological artefacts reconfigure participation, reshape access to justice, and affect the institutional conditions necessary for the rule of law. It evaluates technologies by situating them within their institutional and socio-political setting, identifying affected stakeholders, surfacing embedded assumptions, and assessing outcomes against criteria for access to justice, equitable participation, and the integrity of the rule of law.

The paper contributes a methodology for integrating critical making into legal design research and develops equitable design criteria and affordances for the development of court technology. It offers a framework for community participation in justice system design, and evidence to help policymakers and civic-tech organisations navigate the tension between institutional efficiency and substantive access to justice.

Work in progress and limitations – This work is at an early stage. Analysis of judicial technologies and stakeholder interviews is ongoing, and the consolidated design framework will be refined through further fieldwork. The paper, therefore, presents a methodological intervention. Discussion is invited on the method and on the criteria proposed for evaluating the rule of law compatibility.

Acknowledgement – This research forms part of the ‘Visions of Justice Space’ project on judicial digitisation, participatory research, and the rule of law in India. The project is funded by the Friedrich Schiedel Fellowship for Technology in Society, TUM Think Tank, Munich, Germany.