News Type: Event

NLSIU’s 33rd Annual Convocation | September 7, 2025

The 33rd Annual Convocation of the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru was held on Sunday, September 7, 2025 at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar School of Economics (BASE) University Auditorium.

The Convocation was presided over by the Hon’ble Mr. Justice Surya Kant, Judge, Supreme Court of India (representing the Chancellor of the University), who conferred degrees to the graduates, and delivered the Presidential Address.

The Chief Guest of the event, Shri. T. N. Ninan, Former Chairperson and Editor of Business Standard, delivered the Convocation Address and awarded the medals and prizes to the top performers across the academic programmes.

Chairman of the Bar Council of India (BCI) and a Member of the Rajya Sabha, Shri. Manan Kumar Mishra delivered the Welcome Address on the occasion.

Earlier in the event, Prof. (Dr.) Sudhir Krishnaswamy, the Vice-Chancellor of NLSIU delivered the opening remarks, and presented a brief report capturing the key highlights of the University.

The graduating student address was delivered by Ms. Vibha Swaminathan, from the first graduating batch of the 3-year LLB (Hons) programme at NLSIU and 2025 Rhodes Scholar-elect.

Graduates

This year, a total of 1,557 students graduated from various academic programmes of NLSIU. This includes 287 graduates across the on-campus programmes, and 1,270 off-campus graduates. Here is the breakdown:

  • Ph.D Programme: 6
  • Master of Public Policy Programme: 26
  • Master of Laws Programme: 114
  • 3-year Bachelor of Laws (Honours) Programme, the first graduating batch: 43
  • 5-year Bachelor of Arts and Laws (Honours) Programme: 98
  • Online & Hybrid Education Programmes – Master of Business Laws (MBL) Degree and Nine Postgraduate Diploma programmes: 1,270

Medals & Prizes

The University awarded a total of 52 gold medals to 25 graduates during the Convocation. The medals were awarded to 36 BA LLB (Hons) graduates, two 3-year LLB (Hons) graduates, 10 LLM graduates, three MPP graduates, and one MBL graduate from the Online & Hybrid Education programmes. The University also gave certificates to the Best Performing Student in each of the Post Graduate Diploma programmes from the graduating batch of PACE students.

Additionally, the gold medal for the 28th Annual H.M. Seervai Essay Competition in Constitutional Law (organised by NLSIU) was awarded to Niharika Mukherjee from the BA LLB (Hons) programme at NLSIU.

Programme

  1. National anthem
  2. Invocation
  3. Welcome & Annual Report Highlights by the Vice-Chancellor
  4. Welcome Address by the Chairman, Bar Council of India
  5. Address by Graduating Student
  6. Declaration of Opening of the Convocation
  7. Conferment of Degrees, Medals & Prizes
  8. Presidential Address
  9. Convocation Address by the Chief Guest
  10. Dissolution of the Convocation
  11. National Anthem

Press Releases & Speeches

Press Release – Convocation 2025
Convocation Speeches 2025
List of Gold Medallists

Watch the Streamed Video

In the Media

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Presentation by Dr. Dev Gangjee, University of Oxford | JSW Centre for the Future of Law, NLSIU

The JSW Centre for the Future of Law at NLSIU is organising an online presentation by Dr. Dev Gangjee, Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director of the Oxford IP Research Centre (OIPRC), Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, UK on September 22, 2025. The talk is part of a series of presentations by the Centre on contemporary scholarship by leading academics.

About the Talk

Dr. Gangjee will be delivering a presentation on his recently published paper on the use of genome editing techniques and geographical indicators in the context of climate change in wine production, titled “Lightning in a Bottle? Wine GIs and Disruptive Innovation.”

Abstract

This article examines the intersection of innovation and tradition in the context of geographical indications (GIs) for wine, focussing on the transformative potential of new genomic techniques (NGTs) in viticulture. GIs signal provenance, whilst requiring a commitment to traditional production methods. However, viticulture in the European Union (EU) today faces several challenges, including climate change, increasing competition from new world wine producers, and shifting consumer preferences. Innovation is an important resource for meeting these challenges. NGTs, exemplified by CRISPR technology, enable precise genetic modifications to promote traits such as disease resistance while preserving the genetic identity of traditional grape varieties. They hold out the promise of reconciling innovation with tradition. The European Commission’s proposal for a regulation on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques (COM (2023) 411 final) could pave the way for their adoption across the wine sector. However, the adoption of NGTs within this sector raises complex regulatory, legal, and socio-economic questions. The novel contribution of the study is to analyse the compatibility of NGTs with the EUs strict GI regulations, considering public perception challenges related to biotechnology, and implications for wine typicity and varietal diversity. In bridging the domains of GIs, biosafety regulation, and agricultural innovation, this study identifies the challenges to be overcome by the EU wine sector when seeking to reconcile its deep-rooted traditions with the radical potential of NGTs.

How to register?

Attendees are required to register here: Registration link.

The meeting link for the discussion will be shared directly to the registered email address.

For more information or queries, please write to

NLS Faculty Seminar | ‘Educated but Excluded: India’s Youth Employment Challenge in the Coming Decade’

At this week’s faculty seminar, Dr. Angarika Rakshit, Assistant Professor, Social Science, NLSIU presented her co-authored paper titled, ‘Educated but Excluded: India’s Youth Employment Challenge in the Coming Decade.’ Dr Rakshit has co-authored the paper with Rosa Abraham, Assistant Professor, Azim Premji University. The seminar was held on September 3 at NLSIU’s Training Centre.

Abstract

India’s demographic dividend is expected to end soon, with the population structure becoming more middle- and top-heavy by 2036. Although the youth population is expected to shrink, the past trend of rising enrolment rates in higher education suggests that the youth population entering the labour market in the upcoming years would be increasingly more educated. In this context, this paper examines the future demand for salaried jobs in India, based on the projected youth population and education enrolment rates for men and women. Using data from the Population Census and the official employment surveys, the study estimates – assuming different scenarios for the year 2036 – the number of new salaried jobs required to productively engage the educated youth. These scenarios include ‘aspired’ employment rates for women and the desired proportion of salaried jobs among graduates and non-graduates within total employment. By projecting the youth population and their employment and higher education enrolment rates separately for men and women, the paper provides a framework to determine the number of salaried jobs needed to accommodate an increasingly educated youth labour force. The findings highlight the urgent need for expanding industries to create more employment opportunities for women to integrate educated young women into the workforce. They also offer insights into the future challenges of creating quality employment and inform policy recommendations aimed at ensuring productive youth employment.

Guest Lecture | ‘Doing Policy That Prioritises People: The Challenge of Reflexivism’ by Dr. Vijayendra Rao

Dr. Vijayendra Rao, Lead Economist, World Bank’s Development Research Group, delivered a talk on ‘Doing Policy That Prioritises People: The Challenge of Reflexivism’ on September 4, 2025.

About the Talk

Contemporary policymaking is dominated by three broad paradigms – Neoliberalism, Neo-Keynesianism, and Neo-Paternalism. These approaches typically rely on “outcome-policies” that operate through measurable levers of government, often guided by randomised controlled trials and behavioural “nudges.” While these methods promise precision, they may overlook the complex, lived realities of the people they aim to serve.

In this talk, Dr. Rao argued for an alternative approach – Reflexivism – which emphasises incremental, participatory, and people-centric policymaking. Reflexivist interventions are harder to measure and control, but they may lead to deeper and more enduring transformations. Drawing on examples from India, he explored how such an approach can better align policy with the aspirations and agency of those it seeks to affect.

The talk drew upon a variety of sources, in addition to the two papers below:

About the Speaker

Dr. Vijayendra Rao is a social scientist who works at the intersection of economics, anthropology, political science, and development practice. A Lead Economist at the World Bank’s Development Research Group, he has spent his career exploring how culture and power shape development outcomes and how policy can better engage with the lived realities of people.

Rao’s research spans themes including gender inequality, deliberative democracy, community development, and the cultural dimensions of poverty. He has written on dowry, domestic violence, participatory governance, and the political economy of collective action. His policy work has informed large-scale development programs in India and globally, emphasising the need for reflexivity, inclusion, and local agency.

He is completing a book on how women’s groups in Bihar catalysed deep cultural change and is engaged in projects that use narrative methods and AI tools to scale the analysis of qualitative data. In 2026, he will serve as Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner in Residence at Northwestern University’s Buffett Institute for Global Affairs.

Rao is committed to rethinking development from the ground up—by listening, learning, and bringing people into the heart of policy. His other works can be found here.

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Book Talk | ‘Educating Lawyers in the Digital Age: From Theory to Practice’ by Prof. Yarik Kryvoi

The DC Singhania Chair on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) organised a talk by Professor Yarik Kryvoi on his book titled ‘Educating Lawyers in the Digital Age: From Theory to Practice,’ on September 15, 2025.

Prof. Kryvoi’s talk was followed by a discussion moderated by Dr. Harisankar K Sathyapalan, Associate Professor of Law and Faculty In-Charge, DC Singhania Chair on Alternative Dispute Resolution, NLSIU, along with discussants Dr. Devyani Pande, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, NLSIU, and Sidharth Chauhan, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU.

About the Book

This book takes a practical, design-based research approach to enhance and refine learning design principles for legal education. Drawing on extensive research conducted at University College London (UCL), including interviews with legal practitioners, students, and educators, it explores what sets legal education apart from other fields. It identifies what works in online courses and offers strategies to bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world legal practice, making legal education more effective and affordable.

The book formulates seven essential legal skills and provides practical guidance on teaching these skills in both traditional and online learning environments. It also introduces a comprehensive set of learning design principles tailored to legal education. While the focus is on the legal field, the findings and recommendations have broader applications across various disciplines. Read more about the book.

About the Author

Professor Yarik Kryvoi is the Senior Fellow in International Economic Law and Director of the Investment Treaty Forum at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL). He is also an Of Counsel at Keidan Harrison in London and co-director of Arbitration Lab.

Prof. Kryvoi’s expertise lies primarily in international dispute resolution, including investor-state arbitration and international commercial arbitration, public international law as well as Russian and Eurasian law. His academic credentials include a Ph.D. from UCL and an LL.M. from Harvard.

In addition to his role at the BIICL, he is a visiting professor at a London-based university and a co-director of the Arbitration Lab. He has several years of experience practising international dispute resolution with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London, Morgan Lewis & Bockius in Washington, DC and Baker & McKenzie in Saint Petersburg.

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Book Talk | ‘Women and Colonial Law: A Feminist Social History’ by Prof. Janaki Nair

The NLS Law and Society Archives, in collaboration with the NLS Feminist Alliance (NLSFA), Socio Legal Review (SLR), and the Law and Society Collective (Law Soc), organised a book talk with Professor Janaki Nair on the revised edition of her book, ‘Women and Colonial Law: A Feminist Social History‘ (Cambridge University Press, 2025), on September 3, 2025. This important work was originally published in 1996 by Kali for Women in collaboration with NLSIU. We were delighted to welcome it “home,” so to speak! Three panellists from NLS joined Prof. Nair in conversation on the book, pedagogy, and feminist studies in India over the past three decades.

Discussants:

1. Dr. V. S. Elizabeth, Professor of History, NLSIU

2. Dr. Aparna Chandra, Professor of Law, NLSIU

3. Jyotika Tomar, Student Member, Socio-Legal Review (SLR) Board

About the Book

This book introduces students of law and history to key colonial moments that have shaped women’s legal status up to the present day. It introduces students and general readers to the critical events and legal decisions that determined the place of women under law. It also introduces readers to terms that are critical to understanding women’s legal status in India today. In addition to bringing together the latest developments in Indian historical research with advances in feminist legal studies, it tracks the shifts and changes that have occurred, especially over the last 30 years, to feminist standpoints on women and law. Using examples and cases from different regions of India, the book also weaves together a complex and nuanced account of colonial social history more generally. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

About the Author

Janaki Nair was Professor of History at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi until retirement in 2020. Her books include Women and Law in Colonial India (1996, Second Revised and Updated Edition, 2025), Miners and Millhands: Work Culture and Politics in Princely Mysore (1998), and The Promise of the Metropolis: Bangalore’s Twentieth Century (2005, which won the New India Foundation Book Prize) and Mysore Modern: Rethinking the Region under Princely Rule (2011/2012). She has published widely in national and international journals and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Women’s History and Urban History. She also writes for newspapers and journals on contemporary developments in Karnataka. She has held Visiting Appointments at the University of California, Berkeley;  University of Wuerzburg, Germany; German Historical Institute, London;  National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, and Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. She currently serves on the Advisory Committee of the Karnataka State Education Commission and is a member of the Kerala Urban Policy Commission.

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Workshop on ‘Constituting Pregnancy: Rights, Reproduction and the Indian Constitution’ | By M.K. Nambyar Chair on Constitutional Law, NLSIU & University of Bristol

The M.K. Nambyar Chair on Constitutional Law, NLSIU and the University of Bristol, UK, organised a workshop on ‘Constituting Pregnancy: Rights, Reproduction and the Indian Constitution,’ a forthcoming monograph from Dr Gauri Pillai, on Saturday August 30, 2025. The day-long workshop was held at the Allen and Overy Hall, Training Centre, NLSIU.

About the Author

Dr. Gauri Pillai is a Lecturer-in-Law at the University of Bristol, UK. Previously, she was a Max Weber Post-Doctoral Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence and an Assistant Professor at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford, where she was Managing Editor of the Oxford Human Rights Hub Blog. She studies pregnancy and reproduction through the lens of public law, exploring core questions on constitutional rights and structures at a time of democratic backsliding and constitutional regression.

About the Workshop

The workshop engaged with the central arguments and insights from the forthcoming monograph with the Cambridge University Press. It brought together academicians, researchers, lawyers, and civil society members with expertise in constitutional law, gender justice, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. Each session focussed on specific chapters of the forthcoming monograph, using them as prompts for wider conversations on advocating reproductive justice within the contemporary legal and political climate in India and globally.

View the Schedule

About the Monograph

Constitutions are key battlegrounds for reproductive claims. Yet, most constitutions contain no explicit mention of pregnancy or reproduction. What do constitutions do, when faced with a claim concerning pregnancy on which they are silent? How is pregnancy – at once a unique bodily state and a marker of group vulnerability, a private expression of self and a socially valued function – characterised and adjudicated within these matrices? Can such a complex experience be captured by structures rarely built to contain it? In short, how is pregnancy constituted – and how should it be?

Constituting Pregnancy explores this question through the lens of the Constitution of India, mapping the beginnings of what could be a new chapter in India’s reproductive politics. It argues that pregnancy can and should be constituted by reading the rights to privacy and equality in synthesis, advancing Indian constitutional law, and simultaneously intervening in a pressing global debate on framing constitutional reproductive rights.

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Book Talk | ‘Tareekh Pe Justice: Reforms for India’s District Courts’ by LSC

The Legal Services Clinic is organising a book talk on ‘Tareekh Pe Justice: Reforms for India’s District Courts‘ with authors Prashant Reddy T (NLS BA LLB 2008) and Chitrakshi Jain (Author and Researcher). The session will be moderated by Varsha Aithala, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU.

About the session

The book presents a rare, evidence-based analysis of India’s district judiciary, tracing its colonial legacy, systemic shortcomings, and urgent reforms. As a legal aid body engaged with access to justice, LSC hosts this conversation to reflect on institutional reform at the grassroots. For a deeper look into the book’s core themes, please find the official introduction attached to this email. The session will begin with a presentation by the authors, followed by a panel discussion and an interactive Q&A with the audience.

Muse@NLS Library | Seminar on ‘Fiction, Justice and the Law’

NLSIU’s Library Committee organised a seminar on ‘Fiction, Justice and the Law’ by debut novelist Sonali Prasad on Saturday, August 23, 2025.

Drawing on Sonali’s ‘Glass Bottom,’ the seminar examined the consequences of environmental harm, the persecution of environmental defenders, the state’s power over the individual, and catastrophes that push beyond existing legal frameworks. Framing the planetary crisis as a crisis of conscience, and engaging with the tensions between natural law and human law, participants explored how literature and law together illuminate the boundaries of justice.

The seminar took place in the NLSIU Library Basement at 11 AM. Attendees were invited to bring a legal case or ruling that resonates with these themes and to contribute to a live, collaborative discussion that bridges jurisprudence, ethics and storytelling. NLS student Niveditha Prasad (Vth year BA LLB) moderated the event.

About the Author

Sonali Prasad was born and raised in New Delhi, India. Her journalism has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, The Washington Post, Hakai Magazine, Quartz, and Esquire Singapore. She has been awarded a Pulitzer Travelling Fellowship, Global TED Fellowship, MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship, Logan Science Journalism Fellowship and a Jan Michalski Writing Residency, among other grants and honours. Her debut novel, Glass Bottom, was published with Picador India (2024) as their “literary debut of the year”. It was listed in Telegraph India’s ‘The page turners of 2024: Fiction’ among esteemed writers such as Samantha Harvey, Jhumpa Lahiri and Percival Everett, and was shortlisted for the Kalinga Literary Festival Book Award in the category ‘Debut (English)’.

NLS Faculty Seminar | Reconciling Conflicts Between Fundamental Principles Of Public Law And Of Private Law Within Private Law Adjudication

In this week’s faculty seminar, Dr. Niamh Connolly, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Laws at University College London (UCL), presented her paper titled “Reconciling conflicts between fundamental principles of public law and of private law within private law adjudication.” The seminar was held on August 20, at 2:30 pm, in the Ground Floor Conference Hall at NLSIU’s Training Centre.

Abstract

How should private law respond when a legal dispute involves a conflict between important principles that originate in public law and private law respectively? This paper proposes an approach that involves, at its core, attaching due weight to the considerations of both public and private law. Neither sort of principle should be viewed as categorically more important. Nor are public law principles somehow beyond comprehension for those engaged in private law adjudication. Private law judges are fully capable in engaging in reasoning that takes into account rules governing the use of public power. It might seem that the fundamental principles and policies at issue are incommensurable and cannot be weighed against each other. However, it becomes possible to attach due weight to them when we focus on how each principle is actually engaged on the facts of each case. Just as we all make judgments that balance incommensurable considerations every day, the common law regularly balances competing principles and policies. There are several techniques that the law uses to achieve the appropriate compromises between competing considerations. Sometimes it constructs a route map of rules and exceptions that enables us to plot a path that takes due account of a range of salient factors. Sometimes, instead, the law allows judges to engage in evaluative decision-making that responds organically to the facts of each case. Either technique might enable us to achieving a balance between conflicting public law and private law considerations.

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