https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/nlsiu-to-introduce-new-ba-hons-programme-for-2025-26-on-tuesday/article68965008.ece

https://news.careers360.com/nlsiu-bangalore-launch-ba-honours-for-upcoming-academic-session-2025-2026

Ha, ha. For anyone who thought NLS was a law school, it is now going to offer a regular BA program with an annual fee of ₹4.54 lacs per annum excluding mess. Where is NLS headed? It is a case of how to destroy a good university.

It is on track to offer Class 11 and 12 high school education in a few years - NLS High School, competing with NPS and DPS.

1. It needs to diversify its programmes. Universities can't be successful today with just a few programmes. Therefore, your argument is completely wrong. Just admit you are part of the TLC lobby and that your relevance levels are ZERO!!!

2. NLS starting a high school isn't the flex you think it is. Well-known universities in England have tried (and been successful in) such projects. One such attempt was recently covered by the Sunday Times of London - see below:

Title: The top UK sixth form that is ‘Disneyland for maths’

Author: Stephen Bleach
Date: Friday December 06 2024, 6.00am, The Sunday Times

Link: https://www.thetimes.com/best-schools-league-table/guide/article/inside-brainiest-maths-schools-uk-xmqd0sstb#main-container

Enough of the frivolity. Universities around the world are assessed on how they do their outreach to stretch the aspirations of people from working class (or other marginalised) backgrounds, who may have had beliefs drilled into them by teachers/lecturers, seniors/fellow students from non-marginalised backgrounds, university advisors at school, parents, society etc that they aren't worthy of the best intellectual spaces. Why should only Indian unis (or NLS specifically) be exempted from scrutiny on this front/not be doing such work?

If NLS really wanted to diversify it could have offered a completely new program (like the economics example by IIT that you cited).

The reason for NLS's existence was to offer a 5-year law program. Now all it has done is unbundled the two to offer two 3-year programs, coupled with a land-for-seats scam - it is a laughable mix of innovations in practice.

When clowns like you start defending decisions that are devoid of any iota of common sense, that's when the problems start. If NLS wants to commit suicide, who are we to stop them?

1. You have replied to the wrong comment. The comment citing IIT Economics is down below!

2. Flip that argument: wouldn't people have said that the raison d'être of IIT was to offer science and engineering and not other programmes? We can't remain stuck in the past forever!

Stop comparing NLS (or any NLU) with IITs. IISc, IITs, IIMs, AIIMS', IISERs, and NFSU are INIs with different levels of mandates, missions, and funding. NLUs are state universities with their remit limited to the respective states. This is like comparing a state Ranji team with India's National Cricket team. The fact that NLUs want to be compared to INIs just reveals NLU's inferiority complex and insecurity.

On the whole I think it was a decision in the right decision but given the numerous quotas and domicile it is funny how around 15 seats out of 60 are for All India General Unreserved. Nonetheless it taps into the intellectual capital of the faculty in the humanities and makes logical sense given NLS offers the LLB and it would serve as a springboard to that. I am unsure as to how this experiment of diversification will work out in the Indian context particular for NLUs but this was the only way to expand for grow and the success of this particular programme will determine whether other NLUs in the future take up the same path. IITs have started offering economics and other courses so why shouldn’t NLUs expand if they have the bandwidth to do so. Ultimately we cannot build grand multidisciplinary colleges like in the United States at this stage but we can try our best. Isolation and division of subject matters and fields in higher education is the opposite of what the norm and ideal is being viewed at and NLS Is acting in accordance with the NEP.

"For anyone who thought NLS was a law school"? Did anyone ever really doubt that NLSIU, the institution which created the now ubiquitous 5-year programme, is a law school? The mere fact that one pure social science course is being started at the university does not take away from the overwhelming evidence which shows that NLS is a law school. Make better and more believable rage bait.

I don't understand why people are criticising this. NLS has always had a heavy social science leaning. Anyone who has studied at NLS knows this. NLS has produced many good historians, sociologists, and anthropologists. We have some amazing social science faculty as well. You cannot retain such good faculty if they only get to teach history/sociology to uninterested law students. So it makes sense to have a new programme to utilise their talents. And I am sure the social science curriculum in India will benefit from NLS' academic rigour.

None of this takes away from the existing law courses. If anything, the few students interested in social sciences will benefit. And the student community in general will benefit from exposure to people studying diverse disciplines. A welcome break to most of us who are tired of law school. Although I agree with those criticising the programme for high tuition fees.

Sudhir should acquire the entire stretch between Gnanabharti Main Road and Outer Ring Road on the left bank of the mighty Vrishabhavathi River. He could then establish the National University of Law & Social Science (NULSS), where students can study everything from anthropology to home science, and psychology.

The bigger problem here is not that they’re offering a new course. But who in their right mind will pay 4.5 lacs a year for a non-professional degree when they can just as easily join some DU college for less than 10% of such fees? They’re essentially targeting the Ashoka-type crowd except they have literally 15 unreserved seats to offer for people who would actually be able to afford such an amount. It’s quite absurd.

The fact that Indian equality law is fucked isn't something Sudhir can do much about in the short to medium term! Honestly, I'd have kept it at 15 seats, if I could - imagine that! An undergrad programme similar to Yale Law School's LL.M. class (usually about 25 students) in its size! Also, let's keep it real, you cannot artificially keep tuition fees down. For good faculty, good infra, good halls conditions, universities need money. We are supposedly a world economy with good prospects, why not develop (if not for every scam uni in India, at least for the good ones, like NLS) a student loan-style system, like what is there in developed countries?

This proposal involves converting NLS into Karnataka Degree College. Such a change has the potential to negatively impact the very structure and foundation of a law school. The inception of the law school was designed with legal studies in mind, providing a holistic educational environment. The goal was to integrate legal studies in an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary manner, focusing on social science subjects within the broader framework of legal education.

Introducing BA programs into an ecosystem originally intended for law teaching is a flawed idea. If this trend is adopted by other law universities, it could be highly damaging and disruptive to the future of law education in this country.

Good points. Yes, that's true. The Karnataka Government has been nudging NLS to become a regular degree college (to take in more local domicile students). Being a state university it has to adhere, not having much of a choice. A lot of people don't know but even the land that NLS is located in belongs to Bangalore University (just leased out to NLS). So NLS has not been given its own land even after so many years. As someone mentioned, NLS will be subsumed within Bangalore University - that's the medium-term direction.

It will be fun to see regular arts students (we all know how they are) on campus. The administration will favor and promote the BA and 3-year LLB students as they have to show that their decisions are right. The 310 BA-LLB students will be orphaned, forgotten, sidelined, and merely a source of revenue.