News Type: Event

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.

Read her full paper here.

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.

The full schedule of the event is available here.

The session was chaired by Dr Mrinal Satish.

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.”

Read the full paper.

This session was chaired by Rahul Singh, Associate Professor of Law, NLSIU.

Abstract:
India has a nascent competition enactment. But it has an old evidence law—the Indian Evidence Act—of 1872  vintage. The competition commission has shown scepticism towards the applicability of the evidence law to competition proceedings. This article argues that such scepticism is mistaken. Based upon an intrinsic reasoning (ie arguments from the autonomous discipline of law) and two ‘instrumental’ reasonings (ie arguments emphasizing the consequences of the counterfactual), this article underscores that the competition commission ought to develop fidelity towards the Indian Evidence Act. Such fidelity (rather than scepticism) would move the needle of competition jurisprudence towards an effects-based approach in decision-making.

Read the full paper.

This session was chaired by Dr. Sarasu Esther Thomas, Registrar & Professor of Law, NLSIU.

Abstract: This paper looks at the intersection between child marriage and related laws with a special focus on Karnataka which is the only State which has an amendment to the child marriage law declaring such marriages void.

Dr Sarasu takes the position that the stand taken on declaring child marriage void by the One Man Core Committee/ Justice Shivraj Patil Committee, the Karnataka Amendment to the PCMA, and the Court in obiter in Independent Thought as well as Karnataka based studies on child marriage in Karnataka, does harm to the child/ woman (child rights or life cycle approach).

Read the full paper. 

The aim of this webinar is to familiarize its participants with the legal implications of misleading advertisements and
ways by which the consumer protect themselves from such malpractices. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, has
empowered CCPA and Consumer Commissions to regulate Misleading Advertisement. This webinar will address the
role of CCPA, ASCI, NGOS and other concerned stakeholders in protection of consumer from misleading advertisement.

Time : 4pm – 6pm 

Zoom Meeting ID : 961 9908 8945  Passcode: 570950

Speakers 
Ms. Nidhi Khare,
Chief Commissioner, CCPA,
Additional Secretary, Ministry of
Consumer Affairs, Food and Public
Distribution, GoI

Prof.(Dr.) Ashok R Patil,
Chair Professor,
Chair on Consumer Law and Practice,
National Law School of India University,
Bangalore

Prof.(Dr.) Keshav Rao, Vurrakula
Vice Chancellor,
National University of Study and
Research in Law, Ranchi, Jharkhand

Mr. Y G Murlidharan
Founder Trustee,
Consumer Rights Education and
Awareness Trust, Bengaluru

Dr. Anita A. Patil
Associate Professor
Ramaiah College of Law, Bengaluru

The Centre for Environmental Law, Education, Research and Advocacy (CEERA), NLSIU, and University of Agricultural Sciences,GKVK, Bengaluru, in collaboration with ICAR-IIWM, Bhubaneswar, is organising an online National Seminar on ‘Strengthening Agricultural Water Use Law, Policy and Management in India on 26th March, 2021.

The programme will strictly be on registration basis and only paid participants are permitted to present papers. We invite papers on the following themes:

• Use of Technology in Water Conservation and Usage
• Multi-jurisdictional Comparative Analysis of Water Conservation Policy
• Accountability and Transparency of the Government in Agricultural Water Regulation
• The Regulatory Role of the Central Government: A bane for Sustainable Agricultural Water Practices
• Agricultural Water in India: Compromised by Economic Growth
• Public Private Partnership in Water Management and Utilization
• Efficient Management and Administration of Water Resources: Possible Avenues
• Striking balance between Right to Livelihood and Conservation of Water
• Exploitation of Government Agricultural Programs
• Re-Thinking Decentralization in Water Use and Management
• Sustainable Development Goals and Agriculture sector
• Sustainable Agricultural Practices
• Water and Food Security
• Water Policy for the Agricultural Sector with special emphasis on Climate Change perspective

Who May Attend?

• Agricultural scientists, academicians, Ph.D. scholars and students from law universities, agricultural universities and university of environmental sciences and management.
• Farmers’ Associations, Agricultural Associations and Water Users Associations.
• Officers of the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Agriculture,Environment,Forest & Climate Change and officers of Pollution Control Boards.
• Industry professionals, officers from the irrigation department,water management experts, environmental engineers, EHS managers, lawyers and consultants

Submission Rules:

• Maximum of two authors.
• Each author to register individually.
• Register by sending an abstract of 500- 750 words along with name and designation of author(s).

Important Dates:

• Last date to Register and Abstract Submission: 20th March, 2021
• Date of seminar: 26th March, 2021

Registration Fee: Rupees 750/- (inclusive of GST).
For further details, write to .

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India) and Chair on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) &  The Centre for Intellectual Property Research and Advocacy (CIPRA), National Law School of India University, Bangalore is organising an International Roundtable on ‘Achieving global food security through instrumentalities of plant variety and other related disciplines (Patent, Trade Secret, ABS & Regulatory framework).

The two-day programme will be held on March 5 & 6, 2021. With an excellent line-up of expert speakers and presenters from around the world, this roundtable aims to analyse and deliberate upon the state of art in the global PVP scenario with special reference to India.

This round table will help to equip Researchers/Scientists/Students/Faculty involved in developing and protecting new plant varieties and related intellectual property (patentable inventions, trade secrets, biological data) or genetic material (ABS) for achieving global food security. Further, awareness amongst various stakeholders in the country would amount to an increased plant variety and other IP portfolio and competitiveness of the seed industry both
domestically and globally, thereby achieving balanced economic growth.

More details along with the schedule of the two-day programme are available here.