Abstract: In this Introduction to a set of essays that contemplate India’s liberal trajectory, Krishnaswamy, a philosopher, and Majumder, an anthropologist, consider with our divergent disciplinary toolkits, a map of Indian theory. As they see it, there have been four problems that have perpetuated a continuous theoretical dialogue within modern India. The four problems are the problem of caste and social injustice, Hindu-Muslim relations, the relevance of colonial institutions and the question of language and its self-assertive politics.
The full paper will be made available at a later date.
We look forward to welcoming a new cohort of undergraduate and postgraduate students for the Academic Year 2021-22. The University will be conducting a week-long Orientation Programme to introduce our new students to the NLS community. The Programme begins on Monday, August 2, 2021 and will continue till Friday, August 6, 2021. The Orientation sessions will be conducted virtually and our new students will have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the various academic and social activities at NLSIU. The Orientation schedule is attached below.
As our students make the transition from school to university environment, we look forward to ushering them into a University space that is committed to a holistic educational experience, a culture of free inquiry and socially sensitive lawyering.
The academic term for the incoming batch of BA LLB (Hons) and LLM students commences August 9, 2021.
Orientation Address
In this year’s orientation, we will be joined by five leading personalities from the world of law, public life and the arts, to reflect on the place of a law and liberal arts education in 21st century India. During the week, these eminent speakers will deliver an orientation address to our incoming batch of students.
Source: Texas A&M University School of Law
Justice Ravindra Bhat, Supreme Court of India
Justice Shripathi Ravindra Bhat is a Judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is former Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court. He also served as a former Judge of Delhi High Court for 15 years. Justice Bhat has authored a constitution panel judgement on equality and affirmative action, as well as judgements on gender sensitivity in writing judgements, receiving electronic evidence in court, and insolvency law.
Justice Bhat has also authored landmark judgements on issues of constitutional law, taxation laws, administrative law, arbitration, and labour law, amongst others.
Watch the Orientation Address by Justice Bhat here.
Source: The Leaflet
Indira Jaising, Senior Advocate and former Additional Solicitor General
Indira Jaising is a senior advocate at the Supreme Court of India who is noted for her legal activism in promoting human right causes. In 2018, she was ranked 20th in the list of 50 Greatest Leaders of the World by Fortune magazine. She co-founded the Lawyers’ Collective, a legal NGO that has been working since its inception in 1980 for the rights of the marginalised, particularly women, LGBTQ peoples, sex workers, and many more economically and socially disadvantaged groups. Jaising’s role was pioneering in forming landmark laws against domestic violence, against sexual harassment at workplace, among other legal interventions.
Zia Mody, Co–Founder and Managing Partner, AZB & Partners
Zia Mody is one of India’s foremost corporate attorneys. She began her career as a corporate associate in the New York office of Baker & McKenzie, where she worked for 5 years before moving to India to establish the Chambers of Zia Mody, which became AZB & Partners in 2004. Zia is widely acknowledged for her expertise, ranking No. 1 in Fortune India’s ‘India’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business’ list in 2018 & 2019 and has also been a member of various regulatory and advisory committees , both domestic and international.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former Vice Chancellor, Ashoka University and President, Centre for Policy Research
Pratap Bhanu Mehta is a political scientist who has taught at Harvard University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the New York University School of Law. His areas of research include political theory, constitutional law, society and politics in India, governance and political economy, and international affairs. Dr Mehta has served on many central government committees, including India’s National Security Advisory Board, the Prime Minister of India’s National Knowledge Commission, and a Supreme Court-appointed committee on elections in Indian universities. He is also a contributing editor and newspaper columnist.
TM Krishna, Carnatic vocalist, author and activist
Thodur Madabusi Krishna is a Carnatic vocalist, writer, activist and author. He began performing at the age of 12 with his debut concert at the Spirit of Youth series organized by the Music Academy, Chennai. He has performed widely at various festivals and venues across the world. His music is often appraised as being soulful and full of ‘raga bhava’. He also speaks and writes about a wide range of issues beyond music and culture.
Session 1, 10 am – 11.15 am: Gender Sensitization Workshop
Session 2, 12 pm – 1.15 pm: Prevention of Sexual Harassment
Session 3, 2.30 pm – 3.45 pm: Caste Sensitization Workshop
Session 4, 5 pm: Orientation Address IV – Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Day 5 – Friday, Aug 6, 2021
Session 1, 10 am – 11 am: Meet your Batch
Breakouts groups moderated by faculty members
Session 2, 11.30 am – 1 pm: Welcome session by the Student Bar Association (SBA)
Session 3, 3 pm: Orientation Address V – Mr. T M Krishna
How do I attend the session?
You will receive the schedule on your personal email IDs as provided in the CLAT portal. Each time slot in the schedule will provide the following information:
a. Meeting Room Name.
b. URL and Meeting ID to join the meeting.
c. Please ensure that you use your personal email ID (as provided in the CLAT portal) for joining the meeting.
If you require technical assistance during the Orientation Programme, please send an email to .
NLS faculty member Dr Sushmita Pati speaks on ‘Rent, Regulation and the Career of an Urban Village’ on July 27, 2021. Tune into the online session being organised by The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH).
The session will be held via Zoom from 3:45 PM to 5:30 PM.
To register, please click here. The session will also be live-streamed on the CPR Facebook page.
About the Talk
In the world of finance capital, rent represents a ‘lack of risk’. Rent also represents strong ownership in the world of finance capital which effaces ownerships. This talk would draw from the larger question that the speaker is asking in her forthcoming manuscript titled ‘Properties of Rent’ – What is the role of rent in shaping our global cities? She delves into this through looking at Jat dominated urban villages of Delhi, which have evolved into an unregulated economy of rental properties, residential and commercial, organised and managed by a thick notion of community.
This talk focuses on the relationship of these urban villages with the state, which is largely mediated through the question of regulation. We have witnessed a gradually increasing attention of the state on these villages in the form of ‘regulation’, which is consistently resisted by the community. The speaker argues that regulation is not merely an impetus of a state’s project, but also that of capital. Villagers fear that the coming of the state, through its regulations, would also usher in capital, with its facelessness, which will not only loosen their economic hold, but also their own identity.
In case of any issues or queries regarding the event, please email at .
About the Speaker
Sushmita Pati is an Assistant Professor (Political Science) at National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Her book ‘Properties of Rent: Community, Capital and Politics in Globalising Delhi’ is coming out soon from Cambridge University Press.
About the Workshop Series
This is the hundred and thirty-eighth in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and try to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society and politics.
For further information, please contact: Rémi de Bercegol at , Olivier Telle of CSH at , Mukta Naik at or Marie-Hélène Zerah at . Find videos of previous workshops, here.
The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is a national level entrance exam for admissions to undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) law programmes offered by 22 National Law Universities around the country. CLAT is organized by the Consortium of National Law Universities consisting of the representative universities.
General Instructions
CLAT 2021 examination will be held on July 23, 2021 (2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M). The duration of the test is two hours.
Candidates shall be permitted to enter into the premises of the respective Test Centres by 1:30 P.M. and allowed to leave the Test Centre only after the test is over.
Candidates shall not be permitted to enter into the examination hall after 2:15 P.M.
The Chair on Consumer Law and Practice, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru invites you to a National Webinar on “Smoke Free Hotels/Restaurants: Win-Win for Health and Business.” The event is being organised in association with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kits (CTFK) on July 14, 2021 at 4 pm.
The webinar is open for all Consumer Activists, NGOs, Academicians, Practitioner, Researchers, Government officials, Members of Regulatory Authorities, Students, hotel owners, hotel association, NGO’s and all other stakeholders and all those who are interested in consumer welfare.
Click on the Zoom link above to register for the event. Upon registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on joining the webinar.
In the attempt to join the global effort to address climate change and its allied issues, the Centre for Environmental Law, Education, Research and Advocacy (CEERA) held a one-day consultative workshop on Legislating Climate Change Law in India. The workshop was held in aid of the Centre’s initiative to draft a Bill that seeks to provide a clear and comprehensive framework for climate protection in India.
Held on June 18, 2021, the workshop aimed at creating a platform to stimulate intellectual discourse on critical issues associated with climate change and to identify viable solutions to address these issues.
Given the absence of an explicit law addressing climate change in India, the workshop created a platform for dialogue on devising a comprehensive legislative framework. With participation from experts and other stakeholders in the relevant area of study, the workshop drew from different perspectives and disciplines apart from the legal perspective of climate change.
Across nine sessions held through the day, the workshop touched upon a range of topics, including Climate Change Litigation in India, Climate Wrongs and Human Rights, Climate Change Mitigation and Tech Transfer, The Status of Climate Legislation in Australia, Comparing The European Green Deal Legislation Programme, Legal and Social Contours of Climate Change, among others.
The NLS Public Lecture Series invites you to a talk on “Gender and the “Faith” in Law: Equality, Secularism, and the Rise of the Hindu Nation” by Prof. Ratna Kapur
About the talk:
This session was chaired by Prof. Ratna Kapur, International Law, Queen Mary University of London, who analysed how concepts of gender, gender equality, and secularism have been addressed by the higher judiciary in India in cases dealing with matters of religion. The discussion focuses on three landmark decisions of the Indian Supreme Court on gender equality. The cases involve challenges to discriminatory religious practices that target women in the Muslim-minority and Hindu-majority communities.
NLS faculty member and Director of the Centre for Labour Studies, Prof Babu Mathew will be speaking at ‘The Night of Global Social Rights’ – a 24 hour conversation around the world on social rights and international solidarity.
The event is being organised by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Geneva Office) and the Civic City association in partnership with dix–milliards–humains and the School for advanced studies in art and design of Geneva (HEAD-Genève).
The ‘Night of Social Rights,’ on 16th and 17th April will be conceived around a series of interviews and conversations with social leaders, trade unionists, members of associations and political organizations with an active presence and developing militant activities in the global south and the “peripheries” of post-industrial societies.
Prof Babu Mathew will be speaking in the 11.30 am slot (IST).
Join the full event on Facebook Live here.
Friday, 16 April from 2 pm (Central European Time), 5.30 pm (IST)
Saturday, 17 April 2 pm (Central European Time), 5.30 pm (IST)
About the event
The most part of discussions around Human Rights in general and Social Rights in particular have always been traversed by an ethnocentric point of view that, by enunciating a list of universal rights and making it vertically enforceable, leave out and dismiss the innumerable manifestations of cultural diversity, and the plurality of struggles and demands that exist beyond the Euro-Atlantic world. It is in this sense that, from a Global perspective, the contemporary struggles for Social Rights need to acknowledge the different ways of defining and appropriating them and to overcome the barrier of their ethnocentric understanding, by privileging the construction of a discourse that recognizes the concerns and struggles of field actors, social organizations, trade unions and cooperative associations in the global south and the “peripheries” of post-industrial societies.
This dialogical collective and Global effort for defining Social Rights will be the aim of this event that will be held in Geneva, Switzerland and worldwide on the social media between April 12 and 17, 2021. The Night on Social Rights is a part of this larger event.
Abstract: In this paper, Dr Mrinal traces the history, interpretation and contemporary application of religious penal clauses in India. He argues that the contemporary application of religious penal clauses has a chilling effect on free speech and expression, and is being used as a tool to curtail dissent and differing points of view. He demonstrates how a few provisions have been actively used in order to prosecute articulation of counter-majoritarian thoughts and views. Analysing contemporary usage of religious penal clauses, he argues that the criminal process is the punishment intended, and that there is no serious effort to take cases filed to their logical end.
The full paper will be made available at a later date.
This session was chaired by Dr. Sushmita Pati, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU.
Abstract: “My work is centred around how cities are constituted by rent. We know enough of how capital and labour make cities. But we don’t really know where to place rent in all of this. But if we do want to understand urbanisation in the global south, I argue that rent is central. To do this, I look at a peculiar form of urban villages in Delhi. In 1950s, in the bid to create a modern postcolonial city, and along with it, modern citizens, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), a statutory body created in 1957, passed an order to acquire 34,070 acres of land under section 4 of Land Acquisition Act on 13 November 1959, in preparation for the Delhi Master Plan. Most of these villages happened to be Jat and Gujjar dominated villages lying on the southern side of the city precincts. Currently, there are some 135 such urban villages or lal dora villages dotting the urban landscape of Delhi. The reasons for not acquiring the village settlement in such a curious fashion are not very clear. A fair guess suggests that this strategy speeded up and cheapened the process of acquisition. In their grandiose scheme of wanting to create an urban revolution through a regional plan, the planning authorities could not be too bothered about the question of these newly created ‘urban villages’.
It would be decades before the urban authorities begin to get haunted by these unruly spaces, now no longer tamable by law. Urban villages ironically are a by-product of Delhi Master Plan 1962, the modern, regional plan that was supposed to end all woes of the city. At any rate, these villages remain as oddities amidst the vast landscape of upmarket residential colonies, shopping complexes, malls and flyovers. I look at two Jat dominated villages in my work- Munirka and Shahpur Jat, and their transformation as New Delhi continues to grow around them, unabated. In early years of 1960s and 1970s, these villagers try their hand at enterprises like construction and transport and other ancillary businesses whose demands were fuelled by the city. The state, also unsure of what to do with these villages, put them under a building bye-law exemption in 1963. Since they were villages that predated the Master Plan, they were not expected to abide by the building bye-laws. The exemptions therefore, were easy ways through which the state could declare the villages as ‘exceptions’ and therefore, forget about them.”
NLS faculty member Dr Sushmita Pati speaks on ‘Rent, Regulation and the Career of an Urban Village’ on July 27, 2021. Tune into the online session being organised by The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH).