The publicity given to some of the above named lawyers is a sad indictment of the superficial social media generation of today. I really feel sad for the present generation. Growing up with dumb Tik Tok videos, listening to trash autotune music, imitating shallow celebs like Kylie Jenner and Nessa Barrett, cancelling JK Rowling in the name of wokeism etc. Everything about today's youth is plastic and fake.

Karuna Nundy is an absolute star. Probably the #1 woman advocate in India today under the age of 50, tied with Menaka Guruswamy. Not only Time but she has also been featured in the Verve Magazine Power list and in Elle Magazine. Those trying to bring her down are haters.

https://www.vervemagazine.in/people/the-empower-list-2018-karuna-nundy
https://elle.in/article/voices-karuna-nundy/

On the contrary, it is YOUR research skills that are poor and so is R's moderation (to mark it featured and to mark as contested the comment that she has only 1 SC appearance in 2021).

You searched all of Indian Kanoon, including orders older than 2021 and HC orders. The search string you should have used is:

"Karuna Nundy" doctypes: supremecourt,scorders fromdate: 1-1-2021 todate: 31-12-2021

This still throws up 1 result.

The news articles which covered Nundy's stories could barely find a few influential cases in which she has been involved. The above mentioned persons have fought/are fighting several cases of human rights. Their fights have significantly impacted society.
Frankly speaking, it's just social media presence because I guess "the Times" researchers also do not want to delve deep and research. They just google and go ahead with whoever comes up, ig

It get the general point you're making but your search skills are rather underwhelming.

Nundy : https://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=%22Karuna+Nundy%22+sortby%3Amostrecent - 213 appearances

Vrindra : https://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=%22Vrinda+Grover%22+sortby%3Amostrecent - 320 appearances

Indira : https://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=%22Indira+Jaisingh%22++sortby%3A+mostrecent - 428 appearances

Mukul Rohatgi for context : https://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=%22mukul+rohatgi%22++sortby%3A+mostrecent - 5361 appearances

Of course, IndianKanoon only accounts for indexed orders/judgements and correct spellings of the names.

KN has amazing brand value, even people who have 0 interest in litigation know of her. I am not surprised tbh. Steve Wozniak did most of the technical stuff yet Jobs sold the PCs. No one knows Wozniak as the co-founder of Apple and I'm really not surprised. Nobody gives a damn about how much technical knowledge you have. This is unfair but this is the norm and is here to stay.

Same reason why Khimani is more well known than other star lawyers.

Yes the world can be rather superficial. Law students generally tend to not know what actually constitutes good lawyering. And they definitely do not know what good research is. So they like people who are “cool”. I think after you graduate and have a few years experience you learn to see through these things and admire people who do the work. Regardless of how popular they are.

Time 100 is another thing but. As is Forbes 30/30. Those lists are made by celebrities for lay people. You’re never going to find many scholars or grassroots lawyering people on there.

Time magazine has become a woke joke, just like CNN. They give more attention to social media glamour, PR and performative activism rather than serious, grassroots level work. Time even had Priyanka Chopra write the article about Guruswamy and Katju FFS!!! What does she know about human rights law???

It is Shyam Balaganesh from NLSIU (not Lawrence Liang) who has published in the Harvard Law Review. And copyleft was founded by Richard Stallman, if I am not wrong. Really sad that most kids in law schools in India haven't heard of either but have only heard of Liang and think he achieved the above.

A few years ago we had Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Kaju. Now we have Karuna Nundy. But does this list truly have the most influential lawyers on it? Or does it give more preference to people who appear on TV and speak well, or have lots of Twitter fans, or are photogenic and communicate well? For example, Katju and Guruswamy were credited as the lawyers who got 377 removed. But many would say that the real legal hero was Anand Grover, who rarely comes on TV and does not have a Twitter account. In Nundy's case, she is being portrayed by Time as the lawyer who is single handedly trying to criminalise marital rape. But haven't Indira Jaising and Flavia Agnes been doing that much before her? Aren't Colin Gonsalves and Vrinda Grover (who has an honorary PhD from SOAS) more influential human rights lawyers? Among younger lawyers, Isha Khandelwal has a mere DU LLB, is not a social media star and does not appear on TV. But isn't her work at Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group in Bastar more impactful and dangerous? Isn't she more worthy of admiration, as a young girl in her twenties who dresses in simple salwar kameez, shuns TV glamour and lives and works with tribals facing police atrocities?

I think this is an important topic because many people seem to be hyped up by the media based on their social capital and communication skills, but people who are media-shy and do things quietly are overlooked. This is reflected in how students perceive successful lawyers, going by LI comments. For example, look at Lawrence Liang's Infosys prize win, and comments on LI wrongly saying that he has invented copyleft and published in Harvard Law Review (his publication count is actually pretty low). Or the comments on LI hailing Gautam Bhatia (who I guess will make the Time 100 list next)