Eleven students out of 50 trained by the Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA) program have been selected to join various national law universities (NLUs).
[SP], an economically backward student from Uttar Pradesh was the top performing IDIA scholar securing 45th rank in the all India general category. SP is set to join NLSIU Bangalore.
Note: The name of the student SP has been removed at his request, saying he had eventually not taken financial assistance from IDIA.
Two other IDIA students from the general category have secured admissions at NUJS Kolkata and HNLU Raipur respectively.
SP told Legally India that he could not afford the fee of national law universities and CLAT coaching but via the local IMS centre he learned about IDIA, having studied until December by himself.
After he appeared for the IDIA entrance, he prepared, qualified and took the CLAT coaching funded by IDIA and the test series, only the latter of which he had to pay for.
“[IDIA is] something which gives hope to people like me,” said SP. “I would like to get associated with IDIA in some way in future, I am really grateful to them.
“It needs to spread to all parts of the country - something like the super 30 coaching class, which trains 30 lower income group students to crack the IIT entrance and has a tremendous success rate so far.”
He added that awareness about law as a career and the national law universities should also be created to get more lower-middle class people involved. He himself wanted to originally opt for engineering but ultimately decided to pursue law after he heard about it through a friend and researched NLUs, he explained.
Two other IDIA students from the scheduled caste (SC) category have also secured admission in CLAT schools, with one student each having been allotted Nalsar Hyderabad and NUJS according to the first allotment list released on the CLAT website today (read Legally India’s full analysis of topper’s preferences).
One student from the scheduled tribe (ST) community will join NLU Orissa, which has a separate entrance exam to the CLAT.
Five visually challenged students who had applied under the Persons with Disability (PWD) category have also secured admissions to NUJS, NLU Jodhpur, GNLU, RMLNLU Lucknow and NLU Orissa.
NUJS professor Shamnad Basheer, who conceptualised the IDIA initiative, said: “For us at IDIA this unexpected success is only a mere beginning. Numbers do not mean much to us unless those numbers translate in the long run towards producing world class community advocates and leaders.”
Basheer urged everyone associated with the legal industry to support this unique initiative to create top class lawyers from all backgrounds and requested lawyers and law firms to finance the education of those IDIA students who have secured education through CLAT.
A number of law firms and institutions including Krishnamurthy and Co, Trilegal, Wadia Ghandy and CLAT coaching institute IMS have so far pledged support for the IDIA project.
Learn more about IDIA at its official website www.idialaw.com
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I understand that the motive behind IDIA is something bigger than merely providing economically weaker students an opportunity to study at law schools. IDIA would not only broaden the students profile of so-far elite law schools, it would also provide a new career option to the massive population of students belonging to low income group, having said that i would also like to point out that to such students the financial security that this kind of education would fetch also matters a lot.
I assume IDIA has a proper counseling cell to advise students about the right choice,this could further ease up the career path of these meritocrats.
I wish IDIA and Prof. Basheer all the best.
Quoting a Mop:
all the best for the future!
FYI- Kain - please give this type of news then boring one!
We covered this story 2 weeks back or so...
www.legallyindia.com/201106052137/Bar-Bench-Litigation/breaking-indian-advocates-can-practice-in-every-indian-court-within-a-week
There has not been any significant development since then. (interestingly, at the time commenters said those news were boring and irrelevant).
Best regards
Kian
Nothing gets better than that !!
However, its a pan India project and cannot be called an NUJS' project.
Prof. Basheer is from NLSIU/Oxford and is presently MHRD IP chair at NUJS.
[...]
there is nothing demeaning or shameful about earning your living expenses. It's people like you who need to change their thinking; its people like you who would happily wait tables, serve burgers to to earn extra in US/UK but the same job in India suddenly becomes below dignity. And here you are talking about working in the library! what is so wrong with that?because there are people like you who think in this manner students, who really need such financial boosts feel uncomfortable about working. Earning your living expenses by working in the library or even by waiting table is better than asking for help from rich kids around. So keep your trash called Unpoetic Justice in that trash can of yours, the one u generally like to refer as your head.
@shamnad sir: awesome work sir. God bless
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