News Type: Event

About the Conference

The Government of Karnataka will host a two-day international conference titled ‘Constitution and National Unity’ on February 24th and 25th, 2024, in Bengaluru, India to commemorate 75 years of the Indian Constitution. The conference will focus on topics related to constitutionalism and social justice and aims to contribute to contemporary conversations on these critical themes.

The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) will anchor Theme I (The 75th Year of the Indian Constitution) of the Conference.

Theme I: The 75th Year of the Indian Constitution

The National Law School of India will anchor one theme of the Conference. Theme I of the Conference, titled the 75th Year of India’s Constitution aims to recognise and celebrate the strides made in achieving the transformative goals of the Constitution while simultaneously addressing the contemporary challenges that persist.

The speakers in Theme I feature a vibrant group of academics, policy-makers and members of civil society. They will engage in generative discussion and debate, drawing from their research expertise and experience in government and civil society. By revisiting India’s constitutional founding as a reference point, the panels in Theme 1 will navigate the complexities of our present and reimagine our constitutional future.

Panel I: Constitutionalism and Democracy in the 21st Century
2 PM to 3 PM, 24th February (Saturday)

	Prof. Gopal Guru, Editor, Economic & Political Weekly, Mumbai; Retired Professor of Political Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
	Prof Tarunabh Khaitan, Professor (Chair) of Public Law, London School of Economics Law School, UK.
	Prof Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics.
	Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Vice-Chancellor & Professor of Law, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.

 

Panel II: Ensuring Equality and Equity
3:30 PM to 4:30 PM, 24th February (Saturday)

	Prof Sanjay Jain, Professor and Former Principal, ILS Law College Pune.
	Sr Adv Jayna Kothari, Senior Advocate, Karnataka High Court & Supreme Court of India; Director, Centre for Law and Policy Research, Bengaluru.
	Prof Sukhadeo Thorat, Chairman, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru; Former Chairman, University Grants Commission.
	Prof Meena Dhanda, Professor of Philosophy and Cutural Politics, University of Wolverhampton
	Prof Rochana Bajpai, Professor of Politics, SOAS University of London.

 

Panel III: Re-affirming India’s Federal Design
5 PM TO 6 PM, 24th February (Saturday)

	Prof Govinda Rao, Emeritus Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; Member of 14th Finance Commission.
	Prof Kham Khan Suan Hausing, Professor & Former Head, Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad.
	Prof Ashutosh Varshney, Director of the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences.
	Ms. Yamini Aiyar, President and Chief Executive, Centre for Policy Research (CPR).

 

Panel IV: Institutional Safeguards for Democracy
9:30 AM TO 11 AM, 25th February (Sunday)

 

	Dr. Aparna Chandra, Associate Professor of Law, M K Nambyar Memorial Chair on Constitutional Law, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.
	Honourable Dr S.Y. Quraishi, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India.
	Prof E. Sridharan, Academic Director & Chief Executive, University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India, USA.
	Prof Arun Thiruvengadam, Professor and Faculty In Charge, V.R. Krishna Iyer Chair on Public Law and Policy Choice, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.

 

Panel V: Forging Constitutional Culture and Consciousness
11:30 AM to 1 PM, 25th February (Sunday)

	Prof Shruti Kapila, Professor of History and Politics, Cambridge University, UK
	Prof G Mohan Gopal, Former Director of the National Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court of India, Founder Chair of the National Court Management Systems Committee of the Supreme Court of India.
	Prof Anurag Bhaskar, Deputy Registrar, Supreme Court of India; Assistant Professor (on leave), Jindal Global Law School; Affiliate Faculty, Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession.
	Mr. Bezwada Wilson, Co-Founder and National Convenor, Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), New Delhi.
	Dr. John Brittas, Honourable Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha.

 

A discussion on NLSIU faculty Dr. Debangana Chatterjee’s book, ‘Lives of Circumcised and Veiled Women: A Global-Indian Interplay of Discourses and Narratives’, will be held at the India International Centre, New Delhi, on February 17th, 2024, (Saturday), from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. The South Asian Edition of the book is available here.

You can also read our interview with Dr. Debangana Chatterjee, on her book.

About the book

The book unravels the politics of representation and the process of exoticising women’s bodies through the prism of external gaze and knowledge production. It brings out the intricacies of representational discourses around cultural practices of female circumcision (FC)/female genital cutting (FGC) and Islamic veiling. Focusing on crucial international legal texts and national legislation, the book gives an overview of the cultural nuances in FC/FGC and juxtaposes it with the Indian variation, khafz.

The author studies the international veiling narratives that conjure up a fractured discourse containing aspects of colonialism, Islamophobia, and Islamic fashion and maps them with the regional variations of Islamic purdah in India. The volume explores the cultural practice of khafz and purdah through narratives in India, portraying how representational factors from international discourses reflect on the Indian context and vice versa.

Amid the world of binaries and polarised opinions, the book offers a nuanced analysis of the space in-between, characterised by narratives from women. By situating women’s narratives in relation to family, community, state, and international politics, the book explores the global-Indian interplay of discourses on FC/FGC and Islamic veiling. This volume will be of interest to scholars, students, and readers of gender studies, feminism, cultural and religious studies, sociology, South Asian studies, and International Relations.

The flyer (for the book discussion) available here, contains a QR code and additional details.

 

 

The Chair on Consumer Law and Practice (CLAP) at NLSIU, is organising a Virtual Panel Discussion on “Unveiling the Shadows: Exploring Dark Patterns in the Realm of Consumer Protection Law” on Saturday, February 10, 2024, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

The panel discussion aims to shed light on the pervasive use of dark patterns in the digital landscape and their implications for consumer protection laws. Recognizing dark patterns and bringing them out of disguise not only cautions those who practice them but also creates awareness among the consumers, regarding such manipulation.

By bringing together experts from legal, academics, consumer advocacy and e-commerce fields, the discussion will explore the challenges posed by dark patterns and potential strategies to address them within the framework of Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 (Guidelines) notified by the Central Consumer Protection Authority. This discussion is a part of CLAP’s mission in fostering awareness and promoting positive change in the digital landscape.

About the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 

The Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 (Guidelines) have been officially notified by the Central Consumer Protection Authority. These guidelines aim to prevent and regulate the use of ‘dark patterns’ employed by online platforms, advertisers, and sellers. Issued under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (Act), they extend and complement the previously issued Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022 (Misleading Advertisements Guidelines) notified under the Act in June 2022.

Dark Patterns: Meaning

In the Guidelines, Dark Patterns are expansively described as any practices or deceptive design patterns within the user interface or user experience interactions on any platform. These are crafted with the intent to deceive or mislead users into taking actions they did not initially intend or desire. The practice or deceptive design should have (a) resulted in subverting or impairing consumer autonomy, decision-making or choice; and (b) amounted to a misleading advertisement or an unfair trade practice, or a violation of consumer rights.

The tentative schedule is available here.

The link to join the session on February 10, 2024 is available here.

NLSIU will be conducting an information session on the two-year Master’s Programme in Public Policy (MPP) on Saturday, February 10, 2024, from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM IST. This online session will provide information about the university, the structure of the MPP programme and the application process. A separate information session will be organised on the NLSAT – MPP test in early March.

Panel of speakers:

Prof. Sony Pellissery, Professor and Director at the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP) and MPP Faculty, NLSIU

Dr. Sneha Thapliyal, Associate Professor, Economics, and MPP Chair, NLSIU

This information session is free and open to all candidates who have registered on the admissions portal (https://admissions.nls.ac.in/). Please click on the webinar link available in the admissions portal to register for the information session.

If you are planning to appear for the NLSAT – MPP, don’t forget to complete your registration (and payment) before February 24, 2024.

Meanwhile, for any queries regarding NLSAT, please write to 

NLSIU will be conducting an information session on the 3-Year LL.B. (Hons.) Programme on Saturday, February 03, 2024, from 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM IST. This online information session will provide information about the university, the structure of the LL.B. (Hons.) programme and the application process. A separate information session will be organised on the NLSAT – LLB test in early March.

Panel of speakers:

Dr. Betsy Rajasingh, LLB Vice Chair and Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU

Dr. Rahul Hemrajani,  Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU

This information session is free and open to all candidates who have registered on the admissions portal (https://admissions.nls.ac.in/). Please click on the webinar link available in the admissions portal to register for the information session.

If you are planning to appear for the NLSAT – LLB, don’t forget to complete your registration (and payment) before February 24, 2024.

For queries or assistance, please write to 

We look forward to meeting you at the session!

NLSIU is organising a campus visit day for prospective NLSAT candidates on February 11, 2024 (Sunday).

The campus visit is intended for anyone who is interested in applying for the 3-Year LL.B. (Hons.), Master’s Programme in Public Policy (MPPP), and Ph.D. programmes for the Academic Year 2024-25.

This event is being organised to provide applicants a unique opportunity to receive information on these three programmes directly from NLSIU faculty members through demo classes, interact with current students, and get a chance to explore the University campus. Parents/guardians may also accompany the applicants for the campus visit.

Please note, registration for the campus visit is mandatory. Please register on the NLSAT 2024 admissions portal (admissions.nls.ac.in) and fill out the ‘NLSAT 2024 Campus Visit’ Google form.

The last date to register for the campus visit is February 7, 2024 (11:59 pm). A detailed schedule will be shared with registered attendees ahead of the campus day.

For queries or assistance, please write to

Gallery

 

In this week’s faculty seminar, Ammel Sharon will present her paper titled “Literature as Recovery: Text Criticism and the Kannada Public Sphere” on Wednesday, 17th January, 2024. Dr. Kena Wani will be the discussant.

Abstract

This dissertation studies how disciplinary knowledges shape the public sphere. Specifically, Ammel studies  the methods of three manuscriptologists over the 20th century and show how these shaped the Kannada public sphere in different ways. While Ammel puts the work of these manuscriptologists in  conversation with each other, Ammel frames each of their careers through one question, respectively.

These scholars, and the scholarly milieu they were part of, were involved in multiple public activities. They founded co-operative societies, associations, printing presses, newsletters and schools, they pioneered the editing and publication of hard-to-read manuscripts  that would find their way into textbooks and popular renditions, they intervened in caste-literary  discourse, and headed educational institutions. Yet, scholars in India have rarely turned the lens on themselves, and we have few rich and extensive histories of the sites of their work, that is, of  higher education in India.

In this dissertation, Ammel bring together an array of sources including several  memoirs of scholars, academic scholarship in Karnataka including essays, syllabi, university  magazines and textbooks, pamphlets, government records, legislations, matha publications,  correspondence and photographs to show how disciplinary knowledges can have a significant,  even fatal, influence on how societies and scholars understand themselves. The university, then,  remains a consequential actor in our times.

In this paper, Ammel will discuss the historical background, methods and concerns of Pha. Gu. Halakatti (1880-1964), a Virashaiva scholar outside the university based in Bijapur, and  D. L. Narasimhachar (1906-1971), a Kannada pandit who taught at the University of Mysore. Ammel ties these up in her conclusion by framing her dissertation’s concerns in  four broad themes: text criticism in community histories, the relationship between ‘discovery’ and  ‘recovery’ in the concerns of Kannada manuscriptologists, scientific method and social totality,  and the relationship between the regional university and religious institutions (mathas) in  Karnataka.

 

The National Law School Of India University (NLSIU) invites you to a special lecture on “National Security and International Trade”, to be delivered by Professor Petros C. Mavroidis, on Friday, 19th January 2024.

About the speaker

Professor Petros C. Mavroidis is Edwin B. Parker Professor of Foreign & Comparative Law, at the Columbia Law School.

He served as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) legal affairs division from 1992 to 1995 and has been a legal adviser to the WTO since 1996. He was the chief co-rapporteur for the American Law Institute study “Principles of International Trade: The WTO” (2013).

Mavroidis has written 10 books and scores of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. His book, ‘The Regulation of International Trade’ won the 2017 Certificate of Merit in International Law for a distinguished contribution to the field from the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. The two-volume tome is a meticulous exploration of WTO agreements regulating trade in goods. The third volume of the series, dealing with Trade in Services, was published by MIT Press in 2020.

At Columbia Law, Mavroidis is a member of the Center on Global Governance and serves on the boards of advisers for the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and the Columbia Journal of European Law.

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed an increasing use of trade policies by high-income States, such as the US and the EU,  to pursue national security, economic security and policy autonomy objectives, and to protect and project societal values. A common feature of such interventions is that they are largely unilateral in nature.  In this talk, Petros Mavroidis will be discussing the findings and recommendations in his recent work regarding policy options to manage spillovers of such unilateral trade policies motivated by national security and other non-economic objectives on global trade and investment.

Note: The zoom link (available here) to join the lecture, will be activated on Friday, 19th January 2024.

 

The Socio-Legal Review, a student-run journal at NLSIU, is delighted to announce the 1st Annual SLR Workshop. Through this initiative, SLR hopes to further the understanding of its aims and scope, and more broadly the meaning of “socio-legal” literature. The workshop will also provide practical and useful guidance on how one may contribute to the SLR Journal or Forum (or socio-legal literature in general).

SLR is a peer-reviewed, bi-annual journal that encourages interdisciplinary research at the intersection of law and social sciences. SLR is an open-access, student-run journal published by the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru.

Design of the Workshop

The speakers for this edition will be Prof. (Dr.) Saurabh Bhattacharjee and Prof. (Dr.) Sushmita Pati. The workshop will begin with a discussion on what really separates socio-legal research from purely doctrinal (or other forms of) traditional legal research. This would be followed by a practical demonstration through a pre-circulated paper and an exercise on how an author can design a research proposal. Members of the SLR Editorial Board will also discuss SLR’s Submission Guidelines and Editorial Policies and things to look out for while submitting to SLR. The session will be followed by a Q&A round.

Format

The Workshop is open-to-all, and will be taking place from 3PM-5PM on 13th January 2024 (Saturday) in virtual mode.

Please note that registration is mandatory, in order to attend. Please fill the form here to register.

 

In this week’s faculty seminar, Dr. Ashna Singh will be presenting on her paper titled “Exploring ‘humiliation’ in Section 3 (1) (r) of Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989” on Wednesday, 10th January, 2024. Dr. Karthikeyan D will be the discussant.

Abstract

The Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 criminalizes, amongst other things, in Section 3(1)(r) – anyone who not being a member of a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe “intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view.” The use of caste names as slurs is covered under this section. This Act was brought about to protect SC/ST members from retaliations by non-SC/ST persons when the former would try to assert their rights. Humiliation by use of caste slurs is a form of retaliation. There have been a series of judgments in recent times from courts across the country that particularly dwell on the aforementioned offence. However, courts tend to interpret this provision very narrowly. The problem persists also because of how the provision itself is worded. The meanings of intentional insult, humiliation, and public view are unclear.

This paper aims to analyze how courts interpret this section, particularly in light of the word ‘humiliate.’ The idea of humiliation becomes important especially because the insult must take place ‘in public view.’ In case of the general offence of defamation, it is enough when at least one other person is privy to one’s defamation (whether stranger or not) but for an SC/ST person to have been insulted, the court likes to see if there has been some sort of spectacular humiliation of the victim. As per courts, this spectacularity is achieved when the humiliation occurs preferably in front of people (i.e., public) who are strangers to the victim and also preferably at a public place. Courts also tend to conflate ‘public view’ with ‘public place,’ thus furthering the private-public separation that Ambedkar recognized for its artificiality.

It is proposed in this paper that a purposive interpretation of this provision will further the object of the Act. In particular, it proposes to foreground the word ‘humiliate’ in Section 3(1)(r) of the Act by relying upon Gopal Guru’s edited volume titled ‘Humiliation: Claims & Context.’ Thinking of humiliation in its historical and present sociological context may therefore aid in understanding the meaning of ‘intentional insult’ in using a caste slur as well as help in revealing the artificial distinction between the public and the private.