Shireen is a political theorist working at the intersection of caste, religion, and labour. At NLSIU, Shireen will work on her first monograph, tentatively titled ‘Reclaiming Caste: A New History of the Muslim in Modern India.’

She was previously at the Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai, where she founded and headed the digital initiative EPW Engage.

Her recently concluded DPhil at the University of Oxford centres around lower-caste Muslims in the political and constitutional history of India from late 19th-21st century. While housed at the Faculty of Theology and Religion, she taught undergraduate courses in History, Anthropology, and Politics at Oxford. She has a Master’s in Religion and Public Policy from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and a Master’s in Philosophy from the Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities.

Shivani is a lawyer and a literature graduate interested in studying the intersections of law, literature, and politics. On completing a B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) degree from O.P. Jindal Global University, she litigated at the High Court and trial/civil courts in Bangalore, working on criminal, commercial, and public interest litigations. She also holds a master’s degree in Comparative Literature from SOAS, University of London, where her dissertation was declared the runner up for the BASAS (British Association for South Asian Studies) Master’s Dissertation Prize 2023.

Areas of interest: Her areas of interest are criminal law, legal history, South Asian literature(s), and feminist theory and jurisprudence.

Outside of work, she enjoys travelling and reading fiction.

Focus area at NLSIU: She is currently working with the Writing Centre at NLSIU, an initiative focused on helping students develop and strengthen the foundational skills of academic reading and writing that are essential for a successful engagement with any discipline.

Varada completed her BA LL B (Hons.) from the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi, with gold medals for overall academic performance in the programme, and in the subjects of Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Administrative Law. She also has a PG Diploma in Cyber Law and Cyber Forensics from NLSIU, Bengaluru, and an LLM from the University of Melbourne in 2022 as an Alex Chernov Scholar. During this time, she also worked as a research staff in the University of Melbourne’s Academic Research Office.

Varada has litigation experience of over four years. She began her career as an Associate at Wadia Ghandy & Co., Mumbai where she was engaged in arbitration and litigation matters for two years. Thereafter, she assisted the former State Attorney of Kerala, Mr. K V Sohan as his Research Assistant for another two years. After her LLM, she resumed her work as an advocate in the High Court of Kerala for a brief stint before turning to academia. She cleared the UGC NET in 2022 and has worked as Guest Faculty at NUALS, Kochi where she taught Insurance Law and Banking Law.

Areas of interest: Human rights, women and child rights; however, she will be focusing more on Labour Law, Professional Ethics, Medical Law and Ethics at NLSIU.

Outside of work, she is drawn to music, poetry and recreational cooking.

Focus area at NLSIU: She is currently assisting Dr. Saurabh Bhattarcharjee, Associate Professor of Law, in the ‘Labour Law-I’ course for fourth year students of the BA LLB (Hons) programme. She is also involved in teaching the Professional Ethics module for a Bridge Course student. Apart from this, she is engaged in the PG Diploma programme for Medical Law and Ethics offered by the PACE department.

Vidya was a researcher at NLU Delhi on an interdisciplinary project (under an MoU between IIT-Delhi and NLU-Delhi). The project aimed at developing a framework for potential algorithmic bias with a specific lens on legal applications within the Indian context. She was a practising advocate in Delhi for two years, before deciding to venture into academics. She has a bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of Delhi and an LL.M (Business Laws) from NLU Delhi where she secured a gold medal for Competition Law. Prior to this, she worked as a Cisco firewall engineer for three years having obtained a B. Tech degree from Pondicherry University.

Areas of interest: Her areas of interest are tech policy and competition law.

Focus area at NLSIU: Currently, she is co-teaching the core course – Reading Judgments and Statutes, for  first year students of the Master’s Programme in Public Policy (MPP).