Exclusive: Two lawyers – Arushi Garg from Nalsar Hyderabad and Anupama Kumar from NLSIU Bangalore - have won the prestigious Rhodes scholarship alongside three non-lawyers.
Garg, who was notified of the award yesterday, told Legally India that the feeling of having won the Rhodes was “still sinking in”.
“It takes a while to get used to being a Rhodes scholar,” she mused. “Right now the tentative plan is to come back and teach international criminal law at some point [in India].”
She added that she would hope to complete D.Phil. at Oxford after her BCL and M.Phil., which would take three years, followed by some time practising international criminal law in the field.
Having studied the subject while on exchange at Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois, Garg said she was “thrilled” about the area of law and having the opportunity to study it further at Oxford.
“Both the US and India have very strong objections to the International Criminal Court but their objections are motivated by different paradigms. “I feel is that the Security Council has been given a disproportionate amount of power - I am not in complete agreement with that objection, although the balance is slightly skewed in favour of the Security Council.
“But it’s very easy to sit and crib that the system is politicised; the better thing is to see what you can do as a lawyer to minimise that. I feel that the focus should be in coming up with constructive solutions.”
Investigative procedures by the state in India often do not deliver results, she said, citing the post-Godhra riot investigations. “People feel that justice has been delayed to the point that it’s been denied.”
In such cases, where a domestic justice system has proved itself unable to successfully prosecute the wrongdoers, she explained, the ICC would step in and assist without being subject to the same political pressures.
Garg noted that she was a strong proponent of India signing up to the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Garg confirmed that Kumar was the only other lawyer who was awarded the scholarship yesterday, but was not reachable for comment at the time of going to press.
Garg said that three other students were also selected for Rhodes scholarships in India: one arts student, one energy systems scholar, and one economist.
The Rhodes scholarship entitles recipients to study a subject of their choice at Oxford University for at least one year.
Last year NLSIU Bangalore student Vrinda Bhandari was the only Indian law student to have won the Rhodes. In the three years before that two lawyers were selected for the scholarship in each round, with 2009 and 2010 again seeing one student each from NLSIU and Nalsar get the nod.
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Thank you.
Couldn't place you though.
Congratulations Girls.
Om, Son of Som.
Best wishes,
Kian
Placements better than NUJS? S#!t me not!
Let's label them 'Losers', then! Double the intake of NLS/NALSAR and not a single person interested in Acads? Something's definitely wrong!
Even LI is at fault here, they don't see to it as to who all have won other scholarships like the ones mentioned above.
I can’t make out from your comment whether you are actually making a serious interjection or being facetious.
If you are making a serious interjection, before going out on a limb and make asinine comments, you could try and check.
www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/about/rhodes-scholars/class-of-2006
Shibani graduated from NUJS.
Nonsense. AFAIK Nobody from NUJS ever got Rhodes. 2-3 did go to oxford but no Rhodes winners. I hope you know what Rhodes means ?
www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/about/rhodes-scholars/class-of-2008
Kian obviously does not screen these comments because it gets him more readership and attention. LI is operating like TOI. All masala and no content.
With time I think people would start reading B&B and not care about what LI reports. This is just poor editorial control.
On a more important congrats to the two students. Good luck for your future endeavours.
Om, Son of Som.
But yes, @B&B Reader above, you are correct in that we generally adopt a laissez faire approach to the comments. In a nutshell, comments are completely optional for readers, and I don't think it should be our place to decide what comments are 'nice' or 'worthy' or 'mature' or inoffensive enough to go up. And I don't think you'd really want us to take that call.
But this discussion has been had dozens of times in the past in the comments, forums, etc, so I won't bore everyone further:
www.legallyindia.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=27&catid=3&id=20&lang=en&view=topic&tmpl=index
Best wishes,
Kian
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