The Queer Archive for Memory, Reflection, and Activism (QAMRA) Archival Project is organising an Open Day for the NLS Community on January 15, 2025, with an aim to engage with and reflect on the histories and lives of queer movements in India. Come by to look at archival materials on display, learn about QAMRA’s archival collections and the histories of queer activism and legal struggles in India.
About the Open Day
The Open Day will open with a short introduction to the archive, which will be hosted from 11 am to 11:30 am. The NLS Community is encouraged to come and interact with archival material and video footage between 11 am and 5 pm.
About QAMRA
The Queer Archive for Memory, Reflection, and Activism (QAMRA) chronicles the lives, reflections and memories of queer persons in India. It holds interconnected collections of individuals and organizations, whose work has had a demonstrable impact on Indian society and law, making it an archive of national and international significance.
Reflections from the QAMRA team
The Open Day hosted by QAMRA was met with a warm and thoughtful response from visitors, both from NLS and from beyond its community. It began by giving the guests an overview of QAMRA’s work as an archive, providing an overview of the display selection. The team spotlighted a variety of material, ranging from legal documents and personal interviews from the movement against Sec. 377, books and booklets with historical significance to queer life and activism, postcards celebrating queer joy and expression, and video clips from the queer movement over the years. The display also showcased photos and objects from the first and subsequent Bangalore Pride marches. A student-made chart from an elective course previously delivered by QAMRA was also on display, highlighting the archive’s engagement with the student body.
Visitors keenly and thoughtfully engaged with the material, expressing interest in wanting to visit again and spend more time closely looking at the archive’s holdings. As QAMRA, we look forward to further engagement with the NLS community.
The QAMRA Archive is located in the New Academic Block-113 (Ground Floor), and is open to visitors on Thursdays and Fridays (2:00pm – 5:30pm).
In this week’s faculty seminar, Noor Ameena, Assistant Professor of Law at NLSIU will be presenting on “Muslim Law and Legal Pluralism: Intersections of State and Community in Matrimonial Dispute Resolution among Muslims in Kerala.”
Abstract
Even though Muslim Personal Law occupies a disproportionate space in the Indian public sphere, the diversity of personal law practices is seldom explored. In this thesis, I intend to provide a field view of Muslim Personal Law through Family Courts, Mahal Committees and Qazi Offices. The study is set in Kerala. The study brings out the evolving jurisprudence of Muslim Personal Law through Family Courts. Within the framework of legal pluralism, the study examines the interaction between state and community systems of matrimonial dispute resolution, and how the rights and entitlements of the parties are mediated through these forums. It also studies how individuals, as well as the community, respond to the incursions by the state into their personal law. The study finds that the state and community systems of dispute resolution constantly collaborate with one another. The individuals engage with these systems by strategic inter-use to derive the desired results. There is a systemic and strategic integration of state and community systems. There is a constant process of secularization in this domain, however when this happens, the community is ‘holding on to religion’ in terms of substantive law, and ‘ceding to state’ in procedural law. In response to the incursions of state, the community law and systems are re-adjusting themselves into the boundaries set by the state, without completely losing their identity.
NLSIU will be conducting an information session on the NLS B.A. (Hons.) Programme on Friday, January 10, 2025, from 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM IST. This online information session will provide information about the university, the structure of the B.A. (Hons.) Programme and the application process.
The new BA (Hons.) is a 3-year programme with the option of an additional 4th year, being offered in the upcoming Academic Year 2025-26! The NLS BA is uniquely designed to include: Common Core Foundational Courses, Majors and Minors, Open Electives, Languages, Practice Courses and Internships.
Admission will be on the basis of an all-India National Law School Admission Test (NLSAT-BA).
Dr. Atreyee Majumder, BA (Hons) Committee Head and Associate Professor, Social Science, NLSIU
This information session is free and open to all candidates who have registered an interest in the programme. To register for the online information session, click here.
If you are planning to appear for the NLSAT – BA, don’t forget to complete your registration (and payment) at nlsatadmissions.nls.ac.in before March 23, 2025.
The National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, along with the Infosys Science Foundation is organising a talk on January 9, 2025 by Prof. Helen Nissenbaum from Cornell Tech, New York, on the topic “Contextual Integrity: Privacy as Data Governance.” The talk will be delivered on the NLSIU campus at 5 pm.
About the Speaker
Helen Nissenbaum is the Andrew H. and Ann R. Tisch Professor of Information Science and the founding director of the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech. Her research spans issues of bias, trust, security, autonomy, and accountability in digital systems, most notably, privacy as contextual integrity. Professor Nissenbaum’s publications include the books Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest, with Finn Brunton (MIT Press, 2015), Values at Play in Digital Games, with Mary Flanagan (MIT Press, 2014), and Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford, 2010). These, along with numerous research articles, have been translated into seven languages, including Polish, Chinese, and Portuguese. She received the 2014 Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association and the IACAP Covey Award for computing, ethics, and philosophy. Professor Nissenbaum has also contributed to privacy-enhancing free software, such as TrackMeNot (designed to prevent the profiling of web search histories) and AdNauseam(designed to counter profiling based on ad clicks). She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University and a B.A. (Hons) in Philosophy and Mathematics from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Contextual Integrity (CI) is a different way of defining privacy – not as secrecy and not as control over personal information but as appropriate flow. It answers an urgent societal need for a definition that is meaningful, explains why privacy is ethically compelling, and points to how we may protect it through law, regulation, and technology. My talk will review key theoretical ideas behind contextual integrity, provide evidence of its empirical robustness, and explain why successful regulation of privacy needs to be accompanied by effective data governance, aimed at protecting legitimate societal institutions (“contexts”) and their associated ends and values.
About the Infosys Science Foundation
The Infosys Science Foundation, a not-for-profit trust, was set up in 2009 by Infosys and members of its Board, with the objective of encouraging, recognizing, and fostering world class scientific research connected to India. The Foundation furthers its objectives primarily through the Infosys Prize an annual award, to honor outstanding achievements of researchers and scientists in six categories – Economics, Engineering & Computer Science, Humanities & Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Physical Sciences. The Foundation also partners with educational institutions around the world to host lectures featuring Infosys Prize laureates and jurors aiming to spark curiosity and inspire the next generation of scholars. The Foundation creates conversations around science and society, engaging with various sections of the community, through talks, initiatives, workshops and training.
Excerpts from the talk
On what should be the definition of privacy
“What kind of understanding do we have to have of privacy to concede that this definition was good enough? So here are some of the basic benchmarks. 1) this conception has to be faithful to common use and by that, I mean that whatever the definition of privacy we have, it has to more or less track the way people think about the meaning of privacy. And in my view, there are various definitions of privacy that you see in the technical arena that are very rigorous, but they don’t respond to this concern.
They are rigorous because if you just adopt a natural definition, sometimes with these definitions of complex concepts that take something like justice, people, fairness, there’s a lot of argument. There could be inconsistency. So you have to shave off some of the meanings that’s very rigorous. And importantly, it has to explain privacy’s ethical significance.
So if I say, you have intruded on my privacy, that’s an ethical statement. It means you’ve done something wrong and you need to stop. A definition of privacy that doesn’t give that falls short. And I offer privacy as contextual integrity.”
On ‘privacy’
“I wanted to introduce the first premise of contextual integrity so that if everybody had to vacate the room for some reason and there’s only one thing you remember, this is it: The right to privacy is a right to appropriate flow of information. So that’s the most important difference, which is to say – flow. Concentrate on that word for a second because what I want to emphasise right from the beginning is that some definitions of privacy would define privacy as a form of secrecy. So the more information somebody has about you, the less privacy you have. And I didn’t think that that actually tracked what people cared about. It wasn’t that they cared that any information flows, because the flow of information is absolutely fundamental to just about everything we do in society.
So a theory of privacy that calls for secrecy is not a theory that can hold up the requirement of an ethical definition. So we need flow, but what privacy wants is appropriate flow. Then you might say, of course, well, what is appropriate flow? And that’s really what the theory tries to do. So what are the basic building blocks of contextual integrity? 1) social contexts, 2) contextual informational norms, that’s another big part of the theory, and then 3) this concept of contextual ends, values, and purposes.”
On ‘contextual norms’
“The idea is that we live in societies. Our social lives are not in some undifferentiated social space, but rather we are in and out of different social spheres: health, education, family, politics, and so forth. These contexts are defined by goals and purposes and values. So if we’re sitting in this room, here’s another one of the aspects of context. It’s associated with certain functions or practices.
It’s governed by certain norms and rules, so I’m fulfilling people’s expectations. So far, you’re also fulfilling people’s expectations. There are many things. If I stood up on this desk and started singing, you might be surprised and that’s because there’s certain norms.
So that’s really important and I want it to stick in our heads. Among the contextual norms are norms and rules that govern information flow. Now, that too is a fundamental part of the theory. The contextual informational norms have five parameters. Three of them have to do with the actors. You have subject, sender, recipient, attributes, which is information type, and transmission principle, which is the condition under which the information flows from party to party.”
On ‘transmission principles’
“A transmission principle is the constraint on the flow as it passes from one actor to the other actor. So the most common one that most of us are familiar with is with consent. So if some information passes from one party to another party and it’s with consent of the data subject, that’s one transmission principle. But it’s not always the case.
Sometimes in a court of law, the judge requires the person giving evidence to provide information and in that case, that information is coerced. Or information can flow because someone buys it and sells it. So there are lots of different transmission principles, but the idea is that it governs the flow from one party to the other.
… Now, this was one of the most inspiring cases to me. It was in 2007 and when I was already working on privacy. There was a huge outcry about Google Maps Street View. People complained about different things. So in the US, people would say, oh, you showed me sunbathing in a bikini. And in Japan, they were really upset because it showed the outside front of their homes. And men were saying, oh, I’m going to get in trouble for coming out of the strip club and so forth.
And the Google engineers defended themselves. They said, public is public. We’re not doing anything different. Whatever you did was in public, and we captured that. And so what contextual integrity shows is that actually, there is a radical difference, and I’m sure, it’s obvious to everybody that you can pinpoint by showing that once you’re posting it online, you’ve changed the recipient and you’ve changed the transmission principle. Because when people see you in public, for the most part, you see them. So there’s a reciprocity in public that does not exist when you move this onto the web (online mediums).”
Dr. Sneha Thapliyal, Associate Professor of Economics, NLSIU, will be the discussant.
This event is open to the public and registration for members outside of the NLSIU community is mandatory to attend the event. To register, click here.
About the Book
The nations of the Global North are responding to the climate change emergency with emissions trading schemes and alternative sources of energy. Meanwhile, nations of the Global South, still emerging from historical exploitation under colonialism, face decisions about natural resource use that are, for traditional owners and inhabitants of resource-rich lands, often a matter of life or death. Environmental lawyer and legal scholar Arpitha Kodiveri has worked alongside many of India’s forest-dwelling communities and describes how they bear the cost of both rapacious mining development and increasing pressure for forest land to be set aside for environmental conservation. Despite these challenges, Kodiveri shows how the traditional owners and inhabitants of forest areas are driving creative solutions in forest law. Hope can be found here, in each community’s unique vision of co-governance, expressed in the language of care and repair. (Source: Melbourne University Press)
Arpitha Kodiveri is an environmental law and justice scholar and assistant professor of political science at Vassar College. Her work focuses on the role of climate litigation in redressing claims of loss and damage due to climate change. She has previously worked as an environmental lawyer supporting Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities in India. (Source: Melbourne University Press)
Title: “Juridical Engagement with Electoral Reservations in India” by Sidharth Chauhan.
Abstract
The Constitution of India enables reservations for historically marginalized groups designated as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in three domains of public life, namely in admissions to higher education institutions, recruitment to public sector jobs and the directly elected chambers of the Union Parliament as well as the State Legislatures. In the context of higher education and public employment, the ambit of reservation policies has been progressively extended to intermediate castes designated as ‘Other Backward Classes’ (OBCs), initially through laws made by State Governments and subsequently through laws made by the Central Government. Significant constitutional amendments enacted in 1993 obligated the State Governments to provide gender-based quotas in local elected bodies such as ‘Panchayats’ (Village Councils) and Municipal Corporations. There are also some other distinctive examples of electoral apportionment such as the provision for nomination of two Lok Sabha members from the Anglo-Indian Community (discontinued after 2020), the nomination of twelve Rajya Sabha members from different fields of work and a seat reserved for a religious group in the Sikkim Legislative Assembly. When compared with reservation policies in the domains of higher education and public employment, quotas in elected bodies have not attracted a similar degree of scrutiny, be it in judicial decisions or in doctrinal legal scholarship. The aim of this dissertation is to draw attention to the patterns of juridical engagement with electoral reservations in the post-independence period. The hypothesis is that so far the courts have not sufficiently explored or articulated the distinctive justifications that can be mustered in support of electoral reservations. Instead, they have frequently conflated their presumptive justifications with arguments that are better suited for defending distributive measures in other spheres of public life. This dissertation argues that these special provisions for enabling the political representation of historically marginalised communities should not be narrowly viewed as methods for redistributing material resources. This leads us to the conceptual mistake of concentrating on the performance of representatives elected through reserved seats in the short-run and diverts attention away from their normative purpose. We should look at these provisions through a constructive interpretation of phrases such as ‘equality of status and opportunity’ and ‘fraternity’ which appear in the Preamble to the Constitution of India. Such a moral reading better reflects notions of collective responsibility that are needed to address historically entrenched forms of inequality. To develop this argument, this dissertation concentrates on a chosen set of judicial decisions that have touched on arguments for and against the continuance of electoral reservations at different levels of government. After examining these decisions, it demonstrates how future adjudication in this area can benefit from a serious engagement with the scholarly literature that advances the analytical understanding of ‘political equality’. With respect to explanations for democratic authority, the key idea is that electoral quotas incrementally contribute to ‘recognitional legitimacy’, a concept that transcends the immediate pursuit of political integration and the pragmatic accommodation of group differences.
Presentation 2
Title: “Evaluating the Role of Large Language Models in Legal Practice in India: Performance, Challenges, and Practical Guidelines” by Dr. Rahul Hemrajani.
Abstract
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the legal profession raises significant questions about the capacity of Large Language Models (LLMs) to perform key legal tasks. In this paper, we empirically evaluate how well LLMs, such as GPT-4, Claude, and ChatGPT, perform key legal tasks in the Indian context, including issue spotting, legal drafting, advice, research, and reasoning. Through a survey experiment, we compare outputs from LLMs with those of a junior lawyer, with advanced law students rating the work on helpfulness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness. LLMs excel in drafting and issue spotting, often matching or surpassing human work. However, they struggle with specialised legal research, frequently generating hallucinations—factually incorrect or fabricated outputs. We also highlight differences in AI model performance and provide practical guidelines for crafting effective prompts for legal tasks, with examples. We conclude that while LLMs can augment certain legal tasks, human expertise remains essential for nuanced reasoning and the precise application of law.
The National Law School of India University, Bengaluru (NLSIU) is organising a three-day interdisciplinary conference that delves into Indian Political Thought (IPT) from January 8 to 10, 2025.
Aim of the IPT Conference
The conference aims to explore the historical foundations of Indian political thought, assess their contemporary relevance, and envision future trajectories. Renowned scholars, researchers, and practitioners will participate in critical discussions to analyse the dynamics, intersections, and evolving contours of Indian political thought and practice, offering fresh perspectives and valuable insights.
Conveners: Prof. Shruti Kapila (University of Cambridge) and Dr. Karthick Ram Manoharan (NLSIU)
Main Sessions: A&O Conference Hall, NLSIU Campus, January 9-10, 2025
Schedule
The conference will kick off with a keynote address by Prof. Madhavan K. Palat at BIC on January 8, followed by panel discussions at the NLSIU campus on January 9 and 10.
Keynote Address by Prof. Madhavan K. Palat on “Nehru’s Democracy “
Date: January 8, 2025
Time: 6.30 PM
Venue: Bangalore International Centre (BIC)
Nehru presented himself as liberal and socialist; and while he did not declare himself to be a conservative, he readily deployed Burkean and traditionalist arguments for the legitimation of Indian democracy. But he also warned repeatedly that democracy could destroy itself through a democratic dictatorship and the tyranny of the majority. He derived the sources of democracy from the panchayats of tradition and from the nationalist traditions from the 19th century, and he asserted that it had become the yugadharma after Independence. He always argued that democracy had to be a movement that was dynamic but with institutions that were stable. When these came into conflict, as they inevitably must, he chose movement over institutions. The movement emerged from nationalist mobilization, and the institutions from the Constituent Assembly and its Constitution. He never ceased to warn that the Constitution was not a sacred text and that democracy could be protected only by democracy, not by the Constitution. As such, he repudiated in effect any concept of a Basic Structure. He sought to extend parliamentary democracy through Panchayati Raj, reasoning that democracy must be broadly based like a pyramid lest it topple. But ambiguities stalked him. He looked upon panchayats as bureaucratic as much as democratic extensions; he was dismayed that the electoral system was run ever more by knaves and scoundrels rather than visionaries like himself; and he feared that democracy was breeding an elective aristocracy and oligarchy. While he was unhappy that the two-party system did not seem to be evolving in India, he presciently discerned that India was run by a two-ideology system of Congress and Hindutva which could, at some time in the future, become parties. He saw the vital need for a moral ideal, but his idols were Buddha, Ashoka, Akbar, and Mahatma Gandhi, none of them democrats except for Gandhi, who was confessedly autocratic while engaging in a democratic mobilization. The only consistently democratic ideal he could present was himself, but he found a personality cult vulgar and comic. He despised democracy as promoting the average and the dull, but he feared that inspiration, charisma, and lofty commitment seemed to lead into politics of the right, which he deplored. His politics consisted in reconciling contradictions of this sort and living with ambiguities and inconsistencies, preferring the pragmatism of the conservative to the theoretical clarity of the socialist.
About the speaker
Prof. Madhavan K. Palat was born in 1947 and read history at the Universities of Delhi and Cambridge. Thereafter he specialized in late Imperial Russian history and took the D.Phil. degree at the University of Oxford. He taught history at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University from 1974 to 2004, was Visiting Professor in Imperial Russian History at the University of Chicago in 2006, National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla 2010-2011, and was Editor of the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru from 2011, seeing the project to completion in 2019. He is now the Secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund and is editing the online edition of the Nehru Archives, which will be as comprehensive as possible on Nehru rather than selective.
The Socio-Legal Review is thrilled to announce the 2nd Annual SLR Workshop. The 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.
About the Workshop
The speaker for this edition will be Dr. Siddharth Narrain. The workshop will begin with a discussion on the scope of socio-legal scholarship generally, its role in the current moment and its place within the larger movement of legal scholarship in India. This will be followed by a discussion on a pre-circulated paper that closely relates to the discipline and a Q&A Round. Finally, Editors from our Board will give a brief overview of the Editorial Policies of SLR. Through this initiative, we wish to introduce students and young scholars to socio-legal scholarship in South Asia and beyond.
The Workshop will be conducted virtually on 28th December, 2024 (Saturday) from 11AM – 1 PM. Registration is mandatory; please fill the form here to register and receive updates on the Workshop.
The National Law School of India University is excited to host a campus reunion for the batch of 2004 this Saturday, December 21, 2024 as they celebrate 20 years of their graduation from law school.
Our alumni will be spending the day on campus re-connecting with batchmates, faculty, and other members of the NLS community, and celebrating their friendships and connections over two decades.
Schedule
Arrival of Alumni: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Interaction over lunch and meeting with the Registrar: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Assembly at the NAB Quad (NAB proposed drawings on display): 2:00pm – 2:45pm
Campus walk and session close: 2:45pm – 3:30pm
Alumni Speak
Aravind Balajee Head – Legal and Compliance Department, Lodha Ventures, Mumbai
“It was, of course, very nostalgic. It was a fantastic experience. Very nice to go back to the old haunts and also fascinating to see all the interesting changes that have happened here. Very happy to see all these wonderful developments and changes that have taken place here and really looking forward to seeing our institution go to greater heights. It was really wonderful to see all the new developments.”
“I haven’t been back in 20 years. So last time I came was 2004, for my convocation. So this is the first time I’m coming back properly. I’ve obviously been in touch with faculty and others. So it’s like a whole new campus. It’s lovely seeing the old buildings and everything, but I think what they’ve done with the new facilities is just incredible. I feel like I left for too long, but now that I’ve been back, I’d love to come again in the future.”
Ritvik Lukose Co-Founder, Vahura and Counselect, India
“It’s wonderful to be back. The greenery and the trees are very much the same and the nostalgic feeling. Very happy to see the quad and the old academic block. It brings back a lot of memories. I’m so jealous that we didn’t get the facilities that the students have now. The library is out of the world. Love the atmosphere of the library. Just the feeling, like you want to stay there and just read and spend time there. That is beautiful. And in the new academic block, the classrooms are ultra modern. I would love to sit in on a class sometime.”
Vikarm Jeet Singh Partner, BTG Advaya, New Delhi
“I think the alumni network is quite strong, with our batch and also other batches. It’s one of the great strengths of this institution. I’m sure we’ll be back not only for various, anniversaries but also for trainings, other events that the college organises. If there is something that the student body can organise as well, in terms of interaction between alumni and students, I’m sure a bunch of us would love to come back.”
The National Law School of India University, Bengaluru is launching a new BA (Hons.) programme for the upcoming Academic Year 2025-26. This is a 3-year programme with the option of an additional 4th year for a research track. Ahead of the programme launch, the University organised an extensive stakeholder consultation for the NLS BA (Hons) Programme on December 4&5, 2024. The stakeholder consultation saw participation from eminent academics as well as industry experts from various fields, including academia, film, publishing, architecture, politics and more. The aim of the consultation was to enhance the quality of the planned programme structure and syllabi through their inputs and advice on the curriculum. The curriculum of the NLS BA will be further refined based on the feedback received through these consultations.
The programme schedule of the stakeholder consultations is provided below.
DAY 1
December 4, 2024
9:00 AM:
Welcome remarks by Prof. (Dr.) Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Vice Chancellor, NLSIU
9:15 AM – 10:45 AM: Economics | Roundtable 1
Vijayamba R, NLS (Moderator)
Reetika Khera, IIT- Delhi
Arjun Jayadev, Azim Premji University
Jayan Jose Thomas, IIT-Delhi
Sneha Thapliyal, NLS
10:45 AM – 11:15 AM:
Tea
11:15 AM – 12:45 PM: Sociology & Anthropology | Roundtable 2
Atreyee Majumder, NLS (Moderator)
Deepak Mehta, Ashoka University
Rowena Robinson, IIT- Bombay
Farhana Ibrahim, IIT-Delhi
Gayatri Menon, Public Health Foundation of India
Satish Deshpande, ISEC
Ammel Sharon, NLS
Anindita Adhikari, NLS
12:45 PM – 2:00 PM:
Lunch
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM: History | Roundtable 3
Anwesha Ghosh, NLS (Moderator)
Mahesh Rangarajan, Ashoka University
Pratyay Nath, Ashoka University
Manu Devadevan, IIT-Mandi
Prashant Keshavmurthy, McGill University
Janaki Nair, formerly JNU
Gitanjali Surendran, O P Jindal Global University
Chandrabhan Yadav, NLS
9:30 AM – 11 AM:
Career-facing Arts and Letters | Roundtable 5 Sneha Thapliyal, NLS (Moderator)
Karthik Venkatesh, Penguin Random House
Praveen Krishnan, The Ken
Nandan Kamath, Boundary Lab
Prasad Khanolkar, School of Environment and Architecture
Jaydeep Sarkar, Filmmaker
Anindita Adhikari, NLS
11:00 AM – 11.30AM:
Tea
11:30 AM -12.30PM: Closing Remarks
Parvati Sharma, Fiction-writer
Rajeev Bhargava, Political Theorist (CSDS)
Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Vice Chancellor (NLS)
Reflections from the Panelists
Janaki Nair, Formerly JNU
“NLSIU has embarked on an ambitious new BA programme, put together by an extremely talented and innovative faculty in the humanities and social sciences. The programme hopes to cultivate skills and dispositions that are critical to the times in which we live. These will range from critical and innovative thinking, to greater empathy and tolerance, and increased sensitivity to the absolute imperative of creating a more just, equal and free society. The location of such a course in a Law School that has earned an excellent reputation nationally and internationally, and the rich interactions between these domains, will further enhance the experience, the training and inputs that students can expect to receive.”
Karthik Venkatesh, Executive Editor, Penguin Random House India
“The NLS BA Programme is very promising indeed. I see in it a perfect blend of academics and real-world practice that would prepare students for different kinds of careers, based on their interests and aptitude.”
Rowena Robinson, Professor of Sociology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Bombay
“It is exciting to hear that NLSIU, building on its sound reputation and its well-established BA LLB program, proposes to expand with a new BA (Hons) programme built around disciplines such as Economics, Sociology and Anthropology, Political Science and History. This greater attention to humanities and the social sciences is timely, particularly as their importance for inculcating critical thinking and reasoning abilities, promoting the appreciation and analysis of social and cultural diversity, attaining a broad comparative and historical comprehension of the world, and enhancing communication capacities and ethical awareness is being increasingly emphasized globally. The programme, as envisaged by the School, also has components of Indian language learning and the development of career and professional competencies. Moreover, students will benefit from the already existing expertise in law and public policy at the School. With its excellent faculty and emphasis on rigour, NLSIU is well placed to run such a programme that can broaden students’ intellectual foundations, nurture them as informed citizens, and prepare them for today’s challenging and changing world of work.”
Reetika Khera, Professor (Economics), IIT-Delhi
“I am excited to hear that NLSIU will begin a BA in Economics that allows students to take courses in history, law, political science and sociology too. Economics is done best, when it is done with a broader understanding of the society we live in, and the NLS BA (Hons) programme is striving to give students that opportunity.”
Pratyay Nath, Associate Professor of History, Ashoka University
“I think the great thing about the new curriculum is that the history faculty (at NLSIU) has come up with a variety of electives that they’re offering, and how well they go with the core courses being offered. The core courses give a very sound understanding of South Asian history within the larger global context, while the electives help students explore a variety of themes related to history, caste, gender, law, society, culture, etc. And these courses exist as pathways for students to explore these very broad categories of the past. And the great thing is that the faculty includes a bunch of young historians who are at the cutting edge of historical research. They’re constantly researching, publishing, mentoring students, and they bring all of that expertise into teaching these excellent set of courses in the classroom. So I’m really excited to see how the programme unfolds in the future, and I think, great things are awaiting!”
The Queer Archive for Memory, Reflection, and Activism (QAMRA) Archival Project is organising an Open Day for the NLS Community on January 15, 2025, with an aim to engage with and reflect on the histories and lives of queer movements in India. Come by to look at archival materials on display, learn about QAMRA’s archival collections and the histories of queer activism and legal struggles in India.
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On what should be the definition of privacy
The NLSIU Library Committee is organising a book talk at the NLS Library by 
The 
The National Law School of India University is excited to host a campus reunion for the batch of 2004 this Saturday, December 21, 2024 as they celebrate 20 years of their graduation from law school.
