Thanks for sharing, that's been done :) And you're right on all counts, we're glad you raised it, there's no foolish when it comes to mental health and happiness.

Also, it was high time anyway that we removed the BETA tag from the button: we feel the section has really taken on a life of its own and a lot of the topics started and conversations had are enlightening, enriching and sometimes also hilarious and ridiculous. Thanks to everyone who has been part of the beta and has made it fun and surprising.

On that note, if anyone has any other thoughts or suggestions about the conversation function or format, please share suggestions below and we will try to implement.

We are aware that some of the conversations functionality may still be a little rough but would be keen to improve usability or add features that readers request.

In short: and then what?

Even ignoring any outright WW3 possibilities, how would that scenario play out positively and happily for everyone? The Taiwanese for one might be getting quite worried about their future... What about the trillion-odd dollars of sovereign debt the US owes the Chinese? And how might China retaliate, economically or otherwise? And how would you begin to assess how much of China's foreign assets will be expropriated? And do you do this if China continues to refuse full inspections? Or only if a smoking gun is found that a lab did intentionally or accidentally release a virus? And how would you implement this? Via the UN Security Council where China has a veto? The US by itself? Loose multilateral alliances of countries where the benefit in punishing China may not be clear to any one of them?

We're always happy to hear constructive suggestions and thoughts.

There are several separate things at play here that are often conflated, including in the OP. Whether you believe that it is a Chinese bioweapon is neither here nor there and not the real question. The actual realities are the following.

1. Did China obstruct the WHO and other investigations into the origin of the virus? Yes, most probably.

2. Is there currently any actual evidence it was an intentionally or accidentally released bioweapon, beyond the circumstantial? Not really.

3. Do we know for sure that it has not escaped from a Chinese lab? No, unless you're Donald Trump.

4. Should Trump or others have been making the claim that they believe it was a bioweapon without such evidence, purely on the basis that they hope it is a possibility? Seems like a primitive way of doing diplomacy.

5. If China doesn't want to cooperate in an investigation, how exactly is the global community going to force it to cooperate or muster the political will to do so? Answers on a postcard.

6. Considering much of the world is still fighting the pandemic and will be for some time yet, would anyone really have the political will to confront China over this, when people are dependent on Chinese vaccines, and risk a global trade war on the precipice of a possible economic crisis? Outlook not likely.

7. Even if it were eventually proved that China manufactured the virus and released it accidentally, exactly what is the world going to be able to do about it, much as the world has not been able to do much to stop human rights abuses in China for decades, its annexation of territory, claims over Taiwan, its Belt & Road diplomacy strategy, militarisation of the seas, being the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter and so on... Exactly.

Update 15 May 2021: We have now reported in more detail SAM's and other law firms' efforts and difficulties in doing vaccination drives:
https://www.legallyindia.com/lawfirms/private-vax-overdrives-how-law-firms-struggle-getting-corporate-jabs-and-why-most-might-prefer-doing-it-quietly-after-samcares-20210514-12106

Seems pertinent, cross-posting this here from this thread: https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/167262-how-can-an-indian-lawyer-permanently-move-out-of-the-country#comment-167400

By "NLUJ alumn":

This is not accurate.

I once did back-of-the-envelope calculations when I was still in college and realised that the fees from the students just about covered the salary of the professors and not much was left for capital and non-recurring expenditures.

So, I did a quick google search (it took 5 minutes - and yes, I am free right now) and the numbers are all publicly available.

The college even today hardly has any money left after paying its staff. It weirdly takes pride in not receiving any "maintaining expenditure" from the UGC [see Para 19 of this judgment: indiankanoon.org/doc/180877490/]. I checked the latest budget and the difference between the income from the fees charged to the students minus salary of staff and utilities (water + electricity + internet) is ~INR 75L - that's not much for an institution and certainty leaves little for capital expenditure. I am not even accounting for the many other expenditures which would naturally arise. Another interesting piece is the absence of interest payments - which would indicate that the college didn't build its infrastructure by taking credit / loans.

Budget: www.nlujodhpur.ac.in/uploads/23162009101146.pdf.

The newer buildings: the moot court hall, auditorium, library, administrative block, second mess, badminton court, etc., the college couldn't have constructed them without Government / UGC grants. The grants released by the UGC are also publicly available. The annual reports for 2011-2012 and 2013-14 set out the amounts released to the college by the UGC - I reckon a fair amount of the newer construction took place from these grants.

2011-12: www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/Annual_Report_2011-2012_English_Final.pdf
2013-14: (www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/7938259_Annual-Report-2013-14.pdf)

So, you see, your education is also being subsidized by the Government.

If anything this is unfair, given that the typical student profile in most National Law Universities is upper middle class and upper class. The annual per capita income (accounting for the Indian billionaires) is INR 1.25L - and 99% of the students of NLUs can afford 1.25L, either directly or by accessing credit. I would reckon (and this is an admittedly anecdotal guess) 90% of the students spent more money in a year than the annual per capita income.

Great answer, thanks for sharing your experience.

While downvotes are definitely not scientific (and sometimes accidental), so please don't take them personally, in this case it's conceivable certain readers might have objected to the opinion that a life in Canada is better than in India.

We are so sorry for your loss, that must be a very difficult situation to be in.

First of all, take what time and mindspace you need, don't get pressured at this time into returning to work until you feel ready and more prepared, your mental well-being is more important (however, in some cases getting back into a gentle work routine or some sense of normality can also be helpful for people to process and distract themselves from the everything).

The above link also contains some useful blogs on how to cope with grief ( https://www.harvardbusiness.org/grief-and-resilience-support-amid-the-covid-19-resurgence/ ), also on how to return to work ( https://hbr.org/2017/04/returning-to-work-when-youre-grieving ).

But everyone deals with grief differently and a lot will depend on external circumstances (which are obviously not easy right now).

In your case, would you say that your firm being at all accommodating and understanding and is there someone in a position authority with whom you feel you can be somewhat open about how you're feeling?

Also, have you considered seeing a professional grief counsellor or a therapist? It might sometimes help to be able to talk about how you feel to anyone, especially someone who's not your immediate family or professional environment.

Lots of love from LI, hope you begin to look up and forward soon.

Featuring the below a special Harvard publishing project (thanks to a reader for sharing) about how to build resilience during Covid and how to better deal with all the horrible things happening around us at the moment, at home, in workplaces and the entire country. It includes advice on things probably everyone has felt over the course of the pandemic, and probably especially more so in recent weeks.

If anyone has any links to articles or advice or thinking that has cheered them up or managed to make their or someone else's life even a little bit better, please share this below.

And if you are facing any particular difficulties and feel like it seems there is no one to talk to about these, please feel free to share these anonymously and perhaps someone is in a similar situation or can offer a valuable perspective.

This comment thread will of course be strictly moderated.

Quote:

India is facing an unprecedented health crisis with the resurgence of COVID-19. As a professional community, we are united both in our sorrow and our determination to persevere. To help support and guide you through these challenging times, we at Harvard Business Publishing have created a resources page which is open for everyone in India.

Quote:

As we grieve and persevere collectively, hopefully these resources will help you deal with grief, build resilience, manage anxiety, and care of yourself and others during these times of acute adversity.

https://www.harvardbusiness.org/resilience-resources

Quick moderation note: In responses and speculation, please keep on topic and to facts. The reports cited above seem to primarily be based on one individual's speculation and opinion rather than factually supported and agreed to by scientists and experts at this point.

It's worth trying to apply Occam's razor here, as in many similar theories, in that the simplest explanation being more likely than elaborate webs of conspiracy.

1. There is a lot of medical and scientific research that Covid-19 is very similar to coronaviruses actually found in bats in the wild, where they mutate fast and such viruses do and have regularly jumped across species to humans, so there is a very plausible explanation that this virus was not engineered and the vast majority of scientists currently still agree with this assessment. Also worth considering what rationale would scientists studying this stuff for years and decades have in this case not to happily blame China if they've found evidence for this already? 'Liberals' are happy to blame China for human rights abuses, such as prison camps and freedom issues, so why would (even left-leaning) scientists censor themselves if they found any evidence for the China lab theory?
https://theconversation.com/heres-how-scientists-know-the-coronavirus-came-from-bats-and-wasnt-made-in-a-lab-141850

2. Is it theoretically possible the Wuhan lab was studying these viruses and they managed to escape? Sure, you probably can't 100% rule that out at this point (though you can't rule out that aliens created it, or that the Illuminati or some international terrorists secretly engineered / released the virus in China to sow chaos). But is there any actual proof or hard evidence of this? Or does it seem much more likely that the theory was claimed as fact by Trump (who infamously cares as little for facts as does the CCP) because he wanted to blame China politically?

3. Even in the event that it is true and the virus did escape from a Chinese lab, does that make it a bioweapon that China intentionally released on the world? That seems unlikely, especially considering that for a bioweapon, Covid-19 spreads so easily and uncontrollably as to be almost useless, as you can't use it without infecting the entire world and yourself. As far as grand plans and conspiracies for world domination go, this one is a hugely tricky and risky one to pull off, and could have been carried out in a far more cloak and dagger way as to be not so obviously undetectable.

4. If we want to assume that the virus did escape from a Chinese lab, for argument's sake, the more likely explanation would be that it accidentally escaped. In that case, would the liability for that be on par with Chernobyl, Fukushima or countries responsible for climate change? And who would that liability attach to? The individual lab or workers there for potential negligence? Or the Chinese government for not having strict enough safety rules in place for virus research? Or just strict liability? We would welcome opinion from international lawyers on this point.

It does seem like a bit of a grey area but disciplinary action would seem unfair, especially in light of extraordinary circumstances such as students working from home, without access to full libraries, etc.

At the end of the day, as long as she doesn't write the paper herself for the students, how is this different, for instance, from rich kids who can afford a private tutor or postgraduate to help them with their studies, or having a parent or sibling who's an advocate or academic helping them, or them studying with a friend in college and jointly preparing for an essay, or even someone who has the economic resources to buy lots of textbooks to use at home that might be directly relevant to the essay topic.

Perhaps that's not quite accurate so we'll add some moderation. As far as it appears, the decisions of the board are semi-anonymous, in that there are 20 members but only 5 members ever make a decision. Therefore Sudhir Krishnaswamy may not have been directly involved in this case.

Full decision (and details on panel composition) here: https://oversightboard.com/decision/FB-691QAMHJ/
Quote:

The Oversight Board’s decisions are prepared by panels of five Members and approved by a majority of the Board. Board decisions do not necessarily represent the personal views of all Members.

Nevertheless, big and interesting decision (though if cynical you have to wonder how much the existence of such a board simply exists to give Facebook a carte blanche and moral cover to continue its current practices; after all, Facebook doesn't really seem to care if it spreads genocide or blocks presidents on its platform unless its bottom-line is affected).

Thanks for your feedback, we are sorry you feel that way. End of the day, as tragic and horrifying as the pandemic is, it can be valuable to remember that things will not be as bad as they currently are, forever. In light of that, if LI in a very limited way can provide some distraction or entertainment from those daily horrors everpresent on television and computer screens everywhere by discussing some admittedly less life-and-death issues, then that can also be an important reminder that life will indeed have to go on, however banal and trite that may seem right now in the circumstances.

Regarding amplifying things on Twitter, LI is not particularly active on Twitter but we are told that 99% of Indian Twitter these days is sadly full of calls for resources and offers of help and lists of places to procure Oxygen from etc, so there we are not sure how we could help with our somewhat limited reach, which mostly goes out to fairly privileged English-speaking lawyers who already have access to many better and more bespoke online networks and resources about how to deal with the pandemic than LI.

All the best, please stay safe and healthy,
LI

If we get enough data for a significant number of NLUs (especially those participating in NIRF), yes possibly. Though a ranking of recruitments may also discourage some to participate or share full figures, and the numbers may also be informative enough by themselves to require a full ranking.

End of the day, it probably doesn't really matter to applicants whether one of the (usually) older NLUs got 20 Tier 1 law firm jobs or 30. The bigger issue for applicants which deserves highlighting and transparency (but doesn't necessarily need a ranking) is that there aren't enough of those popular Tier 1 or even tier 2, 3 or 4 (or whatever) law firm jobs available to even a fraction of graduates.

Thanks for the suggestion and exhaustive and well-considered methodology.

In some ways it's similar in principle to our 'recruitment power ranking' from a few years ago: https://www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/law-schools-recruitment-power-rankings-2013-14-20141031-5253

One issue with it is that we have not received very many of the 2020 recruitment results. We have requested some more but getting numbers accounting for the entire batch is hard. On that note, should the metric also account for batch size like it did previously (multiplying the percentage who got jobs in a batch by the average score). On the one hand, it seems fair. On the other hand, many colleges or RCCs don't seem to track the entire batch very effectively and smaller batches have an advantage there.

We have requested several more recruitment figures from several NLUs, so all thoughts on the above would be welcome.

Thumbs up to NALSAR students.

Online resource of useful links relating to Covid assistance by state: https://covid19.nalsar.ac.in/crowdsourced-data/

https://www.barandbench.com/apprentice-lawyer/nalsar-students-launch-covid-19-crowdsourced-resources-portal

[Moderator transferred from standalone post to collect here with other links]

Thanks, noted. The first part of the comment are still correct, even if we'd agree that perhaps not very newsworthy or relevant in the circumstances and its intent may be trollish or dubious (the jury is maybe out on that so far). The factually incorrect portion has now been duly marked as such.

This is potentially an interesting and important point - how to make careers in the judiciary more attractive to law school grads - but is the exam the main issue here? If a bright LLB grad wants to be a judge, surely it's not the exam stopping them but it would be the comparatively lack of an attractive career path, compared to even litigation, corporate law or civil services, for instance?

The pay in the judiciary is not great and the job is often thankless and whether you rise to the apex of the profession, in the high courts or Supreme Court, can be as much about playing politics and networking and luck as about talent.

You're right, thanks for pointing out, both are of course trollish in intent and language.

Interestingly, it seems like this inter-generational pecking is nothing new. Boomers also thought Gen X was undisciplined and lazy, and the parents of the hippies/boomers thought the same about that generation.

Fact is, times and standards of work and life change, and perhaps the younger generation has increasingly understood that there is more to life than just money and working hard, and that other pleasures in life are as or more important. And that's not necessarily a bad thing and might eventually also bring very tangible benefits to the rights of boomers in workplaces (even if only belatedly so).

In short, you might not understand them (or each other), but try to be kinder to each other.

Ex-Luthra, no? https://www.legallyindia.com/law-firms/another-luthra-partner-exits-after-short-stint-trade-policy-head-santanu-mukherjee-to-fly-solo-20161226-8180

Very tragic, our condolences to his family and friends. The full details are apparently not currently known yet and several different accounts have been floating around on social media.

For the time being, this is the official statement: https://www.legallyindia.com/lawfirms/r-i-p-khaitan-1st-year-nliu-2020-batch-devansh-srivastava-passes-away-after-cardiac-arrest-20210316-11997

The second in SILF's free-wheeling interview series of legal legends: Prashant Bhushan - covering judicial accountability, universal employment guarantees and more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JFmM2Sn6fU

This is a potentially interesting and valuable discussion, but please keep it clean and avoid this degenerating into trolling about which professors you don't think belong on a list, which is, of course, largely subjective. As such, moderation levels will likely be strict on this thread.

However, please do share links or details of research or personal anecdotes and other relevant information about professors - including perhaps some less well-known ones - who you might deserve to be on such a list. I.e., if in doubt, please aim to keep the tenor of posts positive and constructive rather than negative. 🤗

Update: There are actually now three NLSIU grads who are high court judges.

1996 NLSIU alum, Justice Siddappa Sunil Dutt Yadav, is also a judge on the Karnataka high court. According to the high court website, he "was appointed as Additional Judge of the High Court of Karnataka and took oath on 14.02.2018 and Permanent Judge on 07.01.2020".

Sondhi was additional advocate general of Karnataka from 2016 to 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityasondhi/

Besides being a 1998 batch NLSIU Bangalore graduate, he also holds a 2013 PhD from the University of Mysore and a 2006 correspondence MA in Political Science from Bangalore University.

If his appointment goes through, he would follow NLS 1996 graduate Shekhar Bobby Saraf: https://www.legallyindia.com/the-bar-and-bench/nls-96-grad-shekhar-bobby-saraf-becomes-cal-hc-permanent-judge-20190905-10827

Saraf first became a high court judge in 2017 and was made a permanent judge in 2019.