Vasanthi knows constitutional law- she actually really knows it well, even if she penalises opinions she disagrees with. She did a good job for me but not everyone shared that opinion.
he is not, he keeps referencing LI and makes political comments half the class and many times forgets how much he taught in the last class. Vasanthi is definitely more professional though not liked comparatively as she doesnt make those jokes
Sid chauhan is not liked because he makes jokes. I don’t mind his comments. And it’s very clear to anyone who knows that he’s very very knowledgable in consti law and legal theory and political science. There’s no need to think one must like either Vasanthi or chauhan - I liked them both as a student and both helped me build a career in research after.
One of the most toxic things to happen in law school related discussion in this forum has been to generate this concept of 'star faculty'. No such creature exists. All your idols have feet of clay. They are human beings. Some of them teach well, others do good research, write good papers. Only one or two people are even known to the academic community outside India. There are many who are doing good work without fanfare and publicity.
They aren't star faculty either. When they used to teach full time and shoulder regular teaching workload as their colleagues, they used to research less. After they became renowned, they no longer did that.
There are a few new enrolments which I would like to name -Balu Sunilraj - Political Science for first years and he is really well read in theoretical and his SSS for populism is doing really well too.
Rohan Cherian Thomas - he has really good knowledge of IPR.
Srijan Mandal - very well read in history
TS Kannan - very very good for sociology, knows his stuff and allocates time for doubt in every class
tbh there is faculty exodus and the VC has not appointed good faculty in masses. A better VC would be able to manage that, but this can be easily resolved if his tenure is not renewed and some other candidate is brought.
What does "in hatred to the class" even mean? You will write like this in your essays and answerscript and then complain that the marking is arbitrary.
yep, but I think this is quite a cynical view. Yes, we have an exodus of professors but we are in the middle of hiring newer professors. Instead of focusing on those who have essentially been poached, it is better to ensure that the VC brings in newer members. Nobody is tbh irreplaceable.
The answer depends on your ideology. Amita Dhanda is great if you are left-wing feminist, but mediocre and opinionated if you are not. Also, if your perception of law is hard law (statutes, rules, cases etc) rather than abstract theory, she does poorly on this count.
It’s not even that- it’s not left wing or not feminist or not. I’m a left wing feminist and I’m not a Dhanda fan. It’s that she’s gotten remarkably stubborn and close minded about her politics on very complicated things. She teaches a very dumbed down version of jurisprudence that boils down to “ positivists are evil nazis because they stick to the black letter law and the other guys are great “ . Well it turns out the philosophical disagreement they’re having with natural law scholars is actually much more complicated. Reading the actual Hart Fuller debates, reading dworkin and Raz and all of that makes it plainly clear.
She buys into critical race theory and even more abstract feminist theory whole sale. While shutting down criticisms of those things - even from black people or feminists. She elides the differences between the argument a mackinnon and a butler makes. And the daylight that’s there between say - WEB Du Bois and Kimberley Crenshaw. She makes these communities seem like a monolith with one argument that you either fall in line or you’re a bigot. But the real thing is that it’s very complex and it’s worth it to teach students that complexity.
What’s more a good teacher should be teaching the complexity to ensure her students can use any of those arguments as might suit them in their work as lawyers and counter any of those arguments as well.
Instead she rewards students who have the “right opinion” even if fuzzy thinking gets them there. She doesn’t trust that her students will get to the same conclusions as her if she simply provides them with the fair introduction to all of these arguments so she strawmans the opposing positions. It makes for worse - more indoctrinated and less useful left wing students too.
Even moving away from that - I liked her poverty outline enough as her student but it’s clear now that there’s a real blind spot. We should be knowing what free market economists are really arguing, not the straw man positions we wish they’d argue but what they’re actually saying. We should be able to examine in some greater depth how caste affects law and poverty in India. We should be learning about labour movements that tried to change things. It’s not enough to just cry “capabilities approach” without seriously engaging with all the scholarly work that is out there. When we do learn intersectionality- we should be asking ourselves difficult questions on what that means when it’s race and class, or caste and class, or gender and caste.
Dhanda wants her students to come away thinking there is an easy answer to these questions and that good liberal feminist people have one way of thinking about this - but they don’t. There are wide disagreements even in the left wing academia about how these conflicts come down. And we elide that more interesting scholarship because we want to think there is some broad alliance building based on … vibes ?
The problem with her teaching is not that it’s Left wing. It’s that its just not sufficiently rigorous. It’s the junk food Mickey Mouse version of left wing that does a disservice to its students too.
I have no problems with a teacher talking about their opinions - that’s her right. my problem is with the dogmatic behaviour in and out of the classroom.
Law and Poverty as a mandatory course must be scrapped. You can't teach an ideological course, that takes Universal Basic Income as a given, as a mandatory. FM shouldn't have removed jurisprudence as a mandatory.
I mean. We do teach many ideologies in our courses right ? Sociology you’ll read Foucault and Derrida and habermas- that’s ideology. Economics you’ll be reading smith and such- that’s ideology. The problem is not that the course teaches ideology- all courses do. It’s that it does a very dumbed down and simple version of it.
The reason they let jurisprudence go was because “oh Dhanda covers that in legal methods anyway” and I do think there’s some fear about how a more open minded prof - say Sid C would have taught it. Now Sid C is a lefty too- but he’s a debater first so he’ll be able to give you all sides of an argument before trying to convince you.
None that I can think of. Unfortunately NLUs don't have pure international law teachers. Most of them are either into environmental law or corporate or investment law in international perspective. A purely international law teacher would be in international organisations, international criminal law, international humanitarian law etc, which is hard to find.
I feel like there's a broad consensus that Neha Pathakji is by far the best at teaching tax laws — possibly in India. I've met practitioners across KCO, NDA & Trilegal who've conferred with her on complex issues, I've met fellow alumni who sing her praise, and I've met nalsar students who actually have solid understanding of the fundamentals of tax law, which is rare among new joiners. Even NUJS used to offer some electives from her for a bit back in the day, if I'm not wrong. Now, I may not have had the best personal interactions with her — and I've heard a fair share of complaints of her recent power-trip as a dean — but her proficiency with the subject remains unquestioned.
I've also heard great things about some of the new professors though. Pranav came back to teach for a while, and I'm sure he would've been a brilliant chap at that. Heard similar things about Aakanksha who was swiftly poached by JGLS. Sudhanshu was definitely a decent professor too, though his specialisation was more in capital markets than company law at large; regardless he's also now at NLS.
Last I heard, there are no great professors currently — most of the corporate-related learnings happen through practitioner-led electives, which thankfully have been increasing steadily. So, if you're a fellow alum & can find the time, this would actually be a great time to take courses: we wouldn't be where we are w/o our professors either now, would we?
Neha Pathakji is very good. No doubt about it. And certainly among the best faculty at NALSAR. But other law schools have good tax faculty too. Nigam at NLS is an all-time best tax law prof, Shreya Rao when she was teaching was pretty wonderful- i think shes not doing that anymore though. When I was at nalsar Neela Badami taught a wildly popular tax course as well.
How come no-one is mentioning Varun Malik sir for Contracts and CPC, whatever his marking standards are (fml), he is very very very good in teaching contracts and CPC. He has recently edited several books with Dhanda and now with Avtar Singh.
Vasanthi knows constitutional law- she actually really knows it well, even if she penalises opinions she disagrees with. She did a good job for me but not everyone shared that opinion.
Pathakji makes tax law fun. That’s about it.
Sourabh Bharati - Administrative Law
There are a few new enrolments which I would like to name -Balu Sunilraj - Political Science for first years and he is really well read in theoretical and his SSS for populism is doing really well too.
Rohan Cherian Thomas - he has really good knowledge of IPR.
Srijan Mandal - very well read in history
TS Kannan - very very good for sociology, knows his stuff and allocates time for doubt in every class
tbh there is faculty exodus and the VC has not appointed good faculty in masses. A better VC would be able to manage that, but this can be easily resolved if his tenure is not renewed and some other candidate is brought.
1. Teaching- Boring class and just reads from the prescribed materials sequentially. Compare that to Ms. Manisha or the others.
2. Temper- He gets angry for no reason and is always in hatred to the class for no reason with every batch.
3. His Marking standards are incredibly arbitrary and tough. He focuses entirely on rote book words as opposed to application and analysis.
She buys into critical race theory and even more abstract feminist theory whole sale. While shutting down criticisms of those things - even from black people or feminists. She elides the differences between the argument a mackinnon and a butler makes. And the daylight that’s there between say - WEB Du Bois and Kimberley Crenshaw. She makes these communities seem like a monolith with one argument that you either fall in line or you’re a bigot. But the real thing is that it’s very complex and it’s worth it to teach students that complexity.
What’s more a good teacher should be teaching the complexity to ensure her students can use any of those arguments as might suit them in their work as lawyers and counter any of those arguments as well.
Instead she rewards students who have the “right opinion” even if fuzzy thinking gets them there. She doesn’t trust that her students will get to the same conclusions as her if she simply provides them with the fair introduction to all of these arguments so she strawmans the opposing positions. It makes for worse - more indoctrinated and less useful left wing students too.
Even moving away from that - I liked her poverty outline enough as her student but it’s clear now that there’s a real blind spot. We should be knowing what free market economists are really arguing, not the straw man positions we wish they’d argue but what they’re actually saying. We should be able to examine in some greater depth how caste affects law and poverty in India. We should be learning about labour movements that tried to change things. It’s not enough to just cry “capabilities approach” without seriously engaging with all the scholarly work that is out there. When we do learn intersectionality- we should be asking ourselves difficult questions on what that means when it’s race and class, or caste and class, or gender and caste.
Dhanda wants her students to come away thinking there is an easy answer to these questions and that good liberal feminist people have one way of thinking about this - but they don’t. There are wide disagreements even in the left wing academia about how these conflicts come down. And we elide that more interesting scholarship because we want to think there is some broad alliance building based on … vibes ?
The problem with her teaching is not that it’s Left wing. It’s that its just not sufficiently rigorous. It’s the junk food Mickey Mouse version of left wing that does a disservice to its students too.
I have no problems with a teacher talking about their opinions - that’s her right. my problem is with the dogmatic behaviour in and out of the classroom.
The reason they let jurisprudence go was because “oh Dhanda covers that in legal methods anyway” and I do think there’s some fear about how a more open minded prof - say Sid C would have taught it. Now Sid C is a lefty too- but he’s a debater first so he’ll be able to give you all sides of an argument before trying to convince you.
I've also heard great things about some of the new professors though. Pranav came back to teach for a while, and I'm sure he would've been a brilliant chap at that. Heard similar things about Aakanksha who was swiftly poached by JGLS. Sudhanshu was definitely a decent professor too, though his specialisation was more in capital markets than company law at large; regardless he's also now at NLS.
Last I heard, there are no great professors currently — most of the corporate-related learnings happen through practitioner-led electives, which thankfully have been increasing steadily. So, if you're a fellow alum & can find the time, this would actually be a great time to take courses: we wouldn't be where we are w/o our professors either now, would we?