"I completed my undergraduate degree in law at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, from where I graduated in 2017 with Gold Medals for Criminal Law; being the Best Orator; and also received the Vice Chancellor’s Gold Medal for the Best Male Graduate with Proven Leadership Qualities. After graduating from NALSAR, I worked briefly in the disputes practice of S&R Associates, where the lessons learnt in the practice of law were to prove valuable tools for a future career in academia.
The fact that academia was my true calling was a realisation first shaped by my own stint as a Teaching Assistant as a final year student at NALSAR, and then further on as an externally hired TA after graduation. I then went on to pursue my Master of Law at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, where I cultivated my research interests in the intersection of constitutional law and criminal law, and more specifically, in the practice of the death penalty in India. Thereafter, I joined NALSAR as an Assistant Professor in 2021, which in many ways marked a return to my home institution, and I couldn’t have asked for a better start for a career in academia. In my teaching responsibilities, I believe in an active engagement between both, what the law is, and what it ought to be, to nurture the critical analytical abilities in my students, that I credit my own NALSAR education much for.
In addition to my teaching responsibilities, I serve as the Faculty Supervisor of the University’s flagship Lecture Series on Constitutionalism, which aims to bridge the gap between scholarship and practice in the field of constitutionalism, and provide a space for deliberation on cutting-edge issues of constitutional law. My other non-teaching responsibilities also include coordinating the University’s social media outreach programs.
Apart from teaching, I enjoy writing and more so on contemporary themes in public law and criminal justice. Not known as much of a sports person, I do, however, enjoy swimming and occasional jogs to keep up with my fitness travails"
This is what Pranav Verma, had to say when he joined NALSAR as faculty, everyone was so happy that an alumnus came to Shameerpet to give back. Now, he too is leaving for greener pastures. Latest information suggests that he will join NLS.
Just imagine with this kind of a rock star performance people generally prefer TCs or teaching abroad. This guy is issuing his brain here. NLS will certainly benefit a lot
He's worked at a law firm for sometime after graduation and then did a foreign LLM. Good, but certainly not any 'rockstar performance'. He's yet to prove himself in academics, though seems promising so far. Stop with the hyperbole.
I’m an alum . I knew Pranav in college . He did okay. He’s a nice guy. I quite like him . But rock star ? Come on ! Organising lectures is not the same as being a scholar. Getting a gold medal which someone gets every year is not the same thing as winning Jessup or winning Rhodes. Being popular with students is not the same as being academically gifted. And it certainly isn’t the same thing as doing at least IDIA work and actually helping people who need help. Have some perspective. Or have standards fallen so low that basically any alum is a rock star ?
This is typical boys hostel culture where any man is hailed by his junior friends as a rock star and no woman no matter her accomplishments is recognised as even exceptional. Perfect example of how much this rock star word needs to be totally retired.
They do not. Do you see 30 something Rhodes scholars every year because that’s how many gold medalists there are. You see one Rhodes scholar once in a 6-7 years. The last one was 8 years ago. And they didn’t get Rhodes because they had gold medals. She applied for Rhodes at the end of her fourth year / beginning of fifth year. No one had gold medals. Gold medals are given out at convocation. The Rhodes committee would care more about your overall GPA and consistency than they would about whether you managed to get first in one subject.
Don’t get your causation mixed up with correlation. Just because most Rhodes scholars are good students who probably did get several gold medals ( cause Rhodes looks for good students with high GPAs) doesn’t mean that a gold medal is enough to get you Rhodes.
I might look at the weather forecast and carry an umbrella and it may rain on me. But that doesn’t mean me carrying an umbrella made it rain.
And please tell me you’re not comparing judiciary exams or GMAT to a Rhodes scholarship in terms of difficulty. Hundreds of lawyers manage to crack those every year. How many Law students get a Rhodes scholarship ?
And a TC is an achievement - but is still more common . There consistently have been 3-4 TCs a year.
When was the last time someone won jessup or got Rhodes at nalsar ? By my count the last Rhodes scholar was sanya in 2014. That’s been 9 years. NLS won jessup in 2013, but nalsar team only got into quarters in 2015 I think. Oorvis team got into Octas at jessup in 2019?
That is not occasional. That is rare.
People get gold medals every single year. You need to top the subject is all. And the vC medal you don’t even need to do that. People in fact get tens of gold medals when they graduate when you do have a rock star. And look - no shade to Pranav. He’s a young scholar still making his bones and he has done okay for himself. Cambridge was a major win. But this not “exceptional”. It is not rock star. I’m happy doing away with rock star altogether. But if the boys hostel clubs keep bringing the term up / they should get used to getting criticised for it.
This is all the critical thinking they teach nowadays? If you don’t want to worship at someone’s altar you must be a spurned woman ? Good to see how feminist nalsar students are.
Of course men don’t bring up gender. Should we all shut up about it until they do ? Is this the feminism they teach at nalsar ? The point is that “rockstar” culture is male and toxic and it celebrates any man at all before it provides the slightest acknowledgement of an accomplished woman. And that it’s time to retire this culture and to that word.
Okay. First of all we don’t know what intention was behind OP’s usage of the word ‘rock star’. I am pretty sure he meant it in his academic context. I agree with you that the term ‘rockstar’ has given rise to toxic heteronormative stereotypes on multiple occasions. But that’s certainly not the type of education nalsar inculcates. I mean I have seen people calling toppers of the other gender superwoman and that does generate a conducive atmosphere for learning and nurturing other orientations as well. Yet just the term or tag of ‘superwoman’ is really not accommodative of the entire mails dominance that is persisting. Now that I have mentioned this , don’t you think this thread never entered into the area of ‘slightest acknowledgement’ in the first place? Don’t get me wrong but that was never mentioned
I mean. Please. I spent years at nalsar. It’s not about what you’re taught in the classroom - it’s about what you’re taught outside it. It was a place rife with sexism. The student culture absolutely doesn’t celebrate women. No women alumni receive the same affection and reverence as the men do. Women students don’t get the same kind of space in and out of the classroom that men do.
I’ve literally never heard any woman at nalsar being worshipped by juniors the way even mediocre men are. If you can’t self reflect- that’s a you problem.
Especially in academic contexts - creating rockstars is just another way to further privilege already privileged folks. On paper - this man is okay- rockstar and all is not there.
+1 agree. The few senior women also are so insecure after years of fighting for space that they also only valorize men. Sanya Samtani is a rock star if you're looking for the young ones.
"Never heard of a woman at nalsar being worshipped by juniors"!?
You must have lived in a very different time then. Off the top of my head: Sadhika, Oorvi, Priyamvada & in recent times, Rhea. Half our batches used to fangirl over them & their credentials — and mind you, I have been a BH resident.
I'm nowhere denying the existence of misogyny anywhere in the world — but to use such an extreme and untrue example doesn't help your case. We've run behind Prof. Dhanda for an insanely long time, and off late, professors like Aakanksha Kumar & Sahana Ramesh have commanded a great amount of respect, quite probably more than Pranav did.
Amita Dhanda was not hero worshipped like this until she became the symbol of Nalsar v. Veer Singh. That's not an 'insanely long time'. It is not even half the life of nalsar. I've never even heard of Sadhika, Oorvi and Priyamvada but it's great to hear they are admired. The point being made is that men's achievements are multiplied 10x and women's are undermined and ignored especially as they get older and solidify their achievements. Just because an older woman like Dhanda crosses over to being treated by a man because of a series of events that caused people to rally around her, does not mean that this extends to all women.
Look I mean it’s very easy to prove this. Show me the post that praised Sahana Ramesh as a rockstar. Aakanksha Kumar is very senior to Pranav and Dhanda is senior to all of them so the idea that these people are seen as “ all rockstars” actually proves my point. Women have to be exceptional to earn that word- men just have to be. ( although I don’t think that word has been used for AK at all).
The last three Rhodes scholars from nalsar were women. Be honest- this is an anonymous forum where there’s no point to lying at all - without a google search - could you even name them ?could you tell me what they work on? How about the first female president of the student body council ? That is the sort of thing that should create a myth right ? Can you tell me one fact about her other than her name ? ( because you can look that up )?
please dont make "rockstars" of early career professionals. chill maar. NALSAR does need to figure out its attrition problems. It has had attrition problems for years but the regime change has made it significantly worse.
Did Pranav have offers of TCs or offers to teach abroad ? I’d be very surprised if that was the case. Was coming back Pranav’s choice or something he had to do because staying there was not an actual option ?
As a Nalsarite who's known him on multiple levels and had the opportunity to sit in his classes too, I can confirm that he's possibly the best professor that nalsar has had the pleasure of having, in recent years atleast. After the departure of Prof Dhanda, there were very few brilliant academicians left at nalsar anyway. Now, it's all going down the drain.
Are you guys familiar with him? I see y’all commenting like you were the jealous people in his batch and he didn’t even seem to care. We nalsarites are not like this. We are proud of him
no true scotsman is it? if you dont want to say this dude is the best nalsar had to offer then youre not a nalsarite anymore? ive got no problem with pranav at all. but being popular is not the same thing as being the best professor. Sid C has constantly been the best professor. He holds students to high standards, doesnt compromise, and yet supports and teaches you complex ideas and enables you to carry out high quality work. thats just a fact. If you asked pranav- hed agree.
What exactly is your question ? I was not in Pranav’s batch- I was one batch junior and I wasn’t a direct competitor and it’s not about being jealous of him ! All of my interactions with the guy were pleasant. It’s about this rockstar BS! It’s about saying he’s the best professor after two years which is really ungrateful to the man who has contributed the most to institution building and raising the standard of education at the university. Nalsar has never given Sid C his due as an institution and it’s sad to see students do this too. Really- if you know Pranav go and ask him who the best professor is - I’d bet money that he’d say sidc
I have attended his classes, and he was a true gem. He was truly motivated to teach in his home law school. The present stupid work culture is to blame entirely for this.
Rahul Mohanty, a NALSAR alum, and BCL grad, also left last year for JGLS. NALSAR should introspect why it is unable to retain its bright younger faculties.
This is extremely poor showing from NALSAR. To have such a massive exodus of their few quality faculty in less than a year is not good news for the future of this place. If they can't retain their own alumni pass-outs who voluntarily came back to teach in Indian academia and have historical affection for the institution's progress, how on earth do they expect to attract other quality faculty?
Does SKDR really have any plans to improve the institution in the future or are they content with just claiming they were once second-best to NLS before NLUD displaced them there?
And looking at the NALSAR faculty page on the website, it hasn't even been updated in a long while it seems. If it weren't for the fact that their nearest rival NLUs like NUJS, NLUJ and GNLU weren't also full of administrative issues and equally unenterprising, there is definitely scope for more proactive law schools overtaking NALSAR.
Another huge advantage that NLSIU has is a supportive EC. Can't stress the importance of it enough. They have recruited 5 times in the last 2.5 years, a feat unheard of in any law school in the country. That couldn't have happened without the EC cooperating.
The quality of a law school's faculty depends entirely on the VC. NLSIU and JGLS have dynamic VCs and thus very good faculty. Similarly, you can compare NUJS under MP Singh to NUJS under Ishwar Bhat and subsequent mediocre VCs.
The NUJS faculty drive hardly lasted. Barely any faculty that MP Singh hired stayed for a long time, most quit within 2-3 years for greener pastures. That's not enough time to spend for institution-building. It requires atleast 5 years of commitment in a supportive ecosystem. Luckily for NUJS, it was already established before that.
A better comparison would be what Ranbir Singh did at NLUD in a short while. And as far as JGLS goes, the VC isn't the only reason for its faculty, which vary in quality as per student feedback. It's a private institute that can afford to throw loads of money to attract talent, and even then their hiring seems less focused on experience than mere qualifications. NLS's recruitment has been one of the best so far.
Ha ha! What a pathetic defence of the NUJS admin! You know very well that those hired by MPS left after MPS left and Bhat/Talukdar/NKC took over. In Shamnad Basheer's case he was compelled to.
In what way was I defending NUJS? It's a known fact that most MP Singh hires left once he left. Hence, the fact that they didn't contribute much to the institution building. Maybe you should learn how to read first.
Actually, Sudhir left even before. So did Pritam and Chinmayi, almost immediately with MPS. They never meant to stay at NUJS for long anyway. Prabhash, Shamnad and Daniel left later. Saurabh stayed for long after. MPS did not do everything perfectly, he did not build anything that would sustain without his own presence, and he made everyone permanent, including a bunch of completely useless people, the brunt of which the university has been bearing since.
Prabhash left before Chinmayi or around the same time. Who would want to deal with Ishwara Bhat if they could leave. Shamnad was senior and was not so easy to bully. But as his health failed, even he did not have the energy to fight any more.
No, Prabhash left in 2013 after he realised that he won't be getting the differential treatment under Bhat that he was accustomed to get under Singh. I am not saying that he wasn't good. But these people other than Shamnad have always fleeted from one institution to another everytime they get better opportunities. Nothing wrong with that, they are entitled to look after their career. Shamnad was hardly teaching anyway and Bhat could not figure out his way of operating. More like clash of ideals. That was a bad loss. The rest never had any loyalty towards the institution, be it Sudhir, Pritam, Prabhash or Chinmayi. Shamnad was different.
No one has loyalty. Some people stay because of family or because they get what they need from the institution or the city. A wise leader ensures that there are incentives for good people to come and stay. There were plenty of corrupt people playing games in NUJS. They were not staying out of loyalty. They just learned to manipulate that system and were not so confident they could do the same elsewhere. And there were decent people also whose personal lives or professional opportunities in Calcutta suited them.
Those who did not have loyalty didn't stay for long in any other institution too. They keep fleeting from one place to another, so their movements cannot be considered as metric.
I can't comment on the difference in work culture between the two places but one advantage that NLS has over Nalsar is its location. I don't think anyone who is making a decent amount of money would want to stay in a jungle far away from the city. Other than this, Bangalore is a lively city and it's easier to attend events etc that keep on happening in the city. I guess this is one of the factors behind the younger faculties of Nalsar leaving. However, I am not saying that this is the only reason why people leave for NLS so please don't bring in the examples of Arun, Aparna and Saurav.
Especially with the metro now, Nagarbhavi is much better connected with proper Bangalore than it used to be for the first 25-30 years since NLSIU started.
I obviously have very little knowledge regarding the campus , but isn’t NLS in Nagarbhavi? I went there for a competition and it’s also quite far from the city if I am not wrong.
Bangalore native here. Nagarbhavi is far from the city centre area but it is certainly well-connected and quite easily accessible, and is well within Bangalore city limits. NALSAR, on the other hand, is not really within Hyderabad city limits at all. On a related note, this is the problem with LI where people who have hardly been to other cities and NLUs pass judgement saying location is good/bad or that location "doesn't matter".
The fact that academia was my true calling was a realisation first shaped by my own stint as a Teaching Assistant as a final year student at NALSAR, and then further on as an externally hired TA after graduation. I then went on to pursue my Master of Law at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, where I cultivated my research interests in the intersection of constitutional law and criminal law, and more specifically, in the practice of the death penalty in India. Thereafter, I joined NALSAR as an Assistant Professor in 2021, which in many ways marked a return to my home institution, and I couldn’t have asked for a better start for a career in academia. In my teaching responsibilities, I believe in an active engagement between both, what the law is, and what it ought to be, to nurture the critical analytical abilities in my students, that I credit my own NALSAR education much for.
In addition to my teaching responsibilities, I serve as the Faculty Supervisor of the University’s flagship Lecture Series on Constitutionalism, which aims to bridge the gap between scholarship and practice in the field of constitutionalism, and provide a space for deliberation on cutting-edge issues of constitutional law. My other non-teaching responsibilities also include coordinating the University’s social media outreach programs.
Apart from teaching, I enjoy writing and more so on contemporary themes in public law and criminal justice. Not known as much of a sports person, I do, however, enjoy swimming and occasional jogs to keep up with my fitness travails"
This is what Pranav Verma, had to say when he joined NALSAR as faculty, everyone was so happy that an alumnus came to Shameerpet to give back. Now, he too is leaving for greener pastures. Latest information suggests that he will join NLS.
NLS again wins and if this goes on then there will be a substantial difference between NLS and the other nlus. So jealous
This is typical boys hostel culture where any man is hailed by his junior friends as a rock star and no woman no matter her accomplishments is recognised as even exceptional. Perfect example of how much this rock star word needs to be totally retired.
Don’t get your causation mixed up with correlation. Just because most Rhodes scholars are good students who probably did get several gold medals ( cause Rhodes looks for good students with high GPAs) doesn’t mean that a gold medal is enough to get you Rhodes.
I might look at the weather forecast and carry an umbrella and it may rain on me. But that doesn’t mean me carrying an umbrella made it rain.
And please tell me you’re not comparing judiciary exams or GMAT to a Rhodes scholarship in terms of difficulty. Hundreds of lawyers manage to crack those every year. How many Law students get a Rhodes scholarship ?
And a TC is an achievement - but is still more common . There consistently have been 3-4 TCs a year.
That is not occasional. That is rare.
People get gold medals every single year. You need to top the subject is all. And the vC medal you don’t even need to do that. People in fact get tens of gold medals when they graduate when you do have a rock star. And look - no shade to Pranav. He’s a young scholar still making his bones and he has done okay for himself. Cambridge was a major win. But this not “exceptional”. It is not rock star. I’m happy doing away with rock star altogether. But if the boys hostel clubs keep bringing the term up / they should get used to getting criticised for it.
I’ve literally never heard any woman at nalsar being worshipped by juniors the way even mediocre men are. If you can’t self reflect- that’s a you problem.
Especially in academic contexts - creating rockstars is just another way to further privilege already privileged folks. On paper - this man is okay- rockstar and all is not there.
You must have lived in a very different time then. Off the top of my head: Sadhika, Oorvi, Priyamvada & in recent times, Rhea. Half our batches used to fangirl over them & their credentials — and mind you, I have been a BH resident.
I'm nowhere denying the existence of misogyny anywhere in the world — but to use such an extreme and untrue example doesn't help your case. We've run behind Prof. Dhanda for an insanely long time, and off late, professors like Aakanksha Kumar & Sahana Ramesh have commanded a great amount of respect, quite probably more than Pranav did.
So let's not get triggered by a random word, yea?
The last three Rhodes scholars from nalsar were women. Be honest- this is an anonymous forum where there’s no point to lying at all - without a google search - could you even name them ?could you tell me what they work on? How about the first female president of the student body council ? That is the sort of thing that should create a myth right ? Can you tell me one fact about her other than her name ? ( because you can look that up )?
The best professor at nalsar for some time has been Sidharth chauhan.
Does SKDR really have any plans to improve the institution in the future or are they content with just claiming they were once second-best to NLS before NLUD displaced them there?
And looking at the NALSAR faculty page on the website, it hasn't even been updated in a long while it seems. If it weren't for the fact that their nearest rival NLUs like NUJS, NLUJ and GNLU weren't also full of administrative issues and equally unenterprising, there is definitely scope for more proactive law schools overtaking NALSAR.
A better comparison would be what Ranbir Singh did at NLUD in a short while. And as far as JGLS goes, the VC isn't the only reason for its faculty, which vary in quality as per student feedback. It's a private institute that can afford to throw loads of money to attract talent, and even then their hiring seems less focused on experience than mere qualifications. NLS's recruitment has been one of the best so far.