Albeit with significant delays, national law universities (NLUs) have started their first batches of the five-year LLB programmes with many hoping to catch up on the lost time due to the delayed Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) admissions by working through the first semester holidays.
We have contacted a number of NLUs about their start dates and how their plans to get their first years back on schedule, despite many of the NLUs’ senior batches having nearly finished their first terms on ‘normal’ online-teaching schedules.
First out of the gates were Nalsar Hyderabad, NLU Jodhpur and GNLU Gandhinagar, which all began with classes for the first years only several days after the CLAT results were announced in mid-October.
Nalsar and NLU Jodhpur both began online classes on 19 October.
NLU Jodhpur vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Poonam Saxena explained: “The first semester would be over for them in February and the second by middle June. From next year onwards the classes for all will commence from July 1st.”
The same is the case at GNLU, where director Prof Sanjeevi Shanthakumar said that there would be no mid-term break though there was a short break over Diwali. “We have made a separate calendar for the first years. Hence the first semester classes will continue until mid-February 2021,” he said. “After the semester we will give two weeks break before we commence the second semester.”
Nalsar academic dean and soon-to-be professor emerita Prof Amita Dhanda, said that flexibility had been the most important factor in changing the academic calendar.
“We’ve seen flexibility as the operative principle as the operative thing,” she said. “People [students] who joined in October, if we were to drag it on until after January or later, the entire year would get dislocated.”
The alternative, of getting “everyone to tighten their belt” and getting the work done by using weekends to teach and adjusting the schedules, was the better approach, she added.
Nalsar also has the advantage of already having a system of continuous assessments, rather than a massive final exam.
Nalsar’s plan will be to get the first years back on the normal schedule with the other batches by 11 January. While senior batches will get semester breaks in November and December, the first years will be catching up with only around 10 days off after 31 December 2020. In practice, some of that additional work load will fall on teachers, though only some were teaching both first years and more senior batches, said Dhanda.
A similar strategy of doing away with semester breaks has been followed by NUJS Kolkata and NLIU Bhopal.
At NUJS, classes began around 2 November, following an orientation around 19 and 20 October.
NLIU had its commencement day lecture on 28 October, with full classes starting on 29 October and continuing on a tight schedule thereafter to bring them back on track: from 2 November for 23 days, another 26 days in December, 25 days in January and 6 days in February.
NLSIU Bengaluru is somewhat different, in having a trimester system unlike the others, and has taken a different approach, as classes for NLS first years started on 27 October, ending on 31 October, with proper classes beginning on 2 November.
“We skipped the first semester, but added one extra subject in each term,” NLS registrar Prof Sarasu Thomas explained. “They’ll be caught up by next year, with reduced work limits on projects and for every subject they have two teachers.”
This effectively puts the first years on exactly the same schedule as the more senior batches, albeit with a higher workload for the first year.
A new student welfare officer had also been appointed to to work closely with the first year (and other) students, to assist them with any issues the new schedule could cause.
Photo by Nick Youngson via Alpha Stock Images.
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Apparently couldn't wait 2 weeks then for CLAT but now waited 2 weeks even after NALSAR started it's classes. Shameful how he got away with so much lying.
It seems sudhir and sarsu have permitted few students inside the campus while refused the permission to others.
the boys are in himalaya hostel and girls in their hostel.
find it a bit unfair coz a lot of us have made an application but were refused.
1. Updated website: best in the country by miles and comparable to foreign universities.
www.nls.ac.in
2. Open call to ANYONE ANYWHERE to offer electives (subject to review by the board). No law school in India, or perhaps anywhere in the world has taken such a progressive measure. On the contrary, VCs in other colleges try to keep alumni out. The call is displayed on the front page of the website.
3. PhD scholarship named after founding VC Professor Madhava Menon.
www.nls.ac.in/news-events/introducing-the-dr-n-r-madhava-menon-doctoral-scholarship-for-phd-students/
4. Internal strategy to improve QS ranking to become top 3 in Asia by 2025.
5. Discussions going on for partnership with top foreign universities.
6. Implied declaration by the Hon'ble Karnataka High Court that NLSIU is a special institution not comparable with other law schools. This was explicitly argued by the Learned Counsel for the Bar Council of India, who is the Additional Solicitor General of India, and impliedly accepted by the Hon'ble Court.
7. High-level discussions are happening regarding declaration of Law School as an Institution of National Importance like IIT and IIM. Concurrently, a meeting has happened with the Chief Minister of Goa regarding the establishment of the first-ever International Law University (ILU) in India, which will be totally different than NLUs. There is discussion on whether the campus can be a de facto second campus of NLSIU.
These are just some of the changed being done by Professor Sudhir, with full support of the students. NLSIU is really going to go the next level with this.
'Call for credit courses' - Most NLUs like NALSAR and NUJS already have that in operation and even NLSIU did. Just posting it on website isn't really any achievement.
Comparison of website: Lol, that's supposed to be considered an achievement now? And world class website? What does it do, allow people to the degree without going to the university?
The PhD scholarship is the only proper achievement mentioned here. That and the latest recruitment, although not all the people recruited are of the 'star quality' that they are being peddled to have.
The other things mentioned are without any evidence whatsoever.
Of course, the commentator carefully avoided all the bad decisions that Sudhir made in the last one year. Dragging the NLSIU name through mud by foolhardy decisions to conduct impractical exams, scamming students for convo fees, forcing people to take online exams without adequate infra, playing big brother by monitoring internet usage, closing off grounds, making the VC's office inaccessible to students and so on. The bhakts never get to see bad things, only the glitter.
1. No it is not the best by half a foot. GNLU has a better website as does RGNUL.
2. Putting it up on the website isn't proof of anything - give statistics for the number of such electives made live.
3. How is this a revolutionary change?
4. How is this a change? Are we counting internal meetings as revolutionary changes now?
5. Again, how is this revolutionary, a change, or a revolutionary change? You think NLS foreign uni collabs were invented by Sudhir?
6. Explicitly argued by ASG, Implicitly accepted by HC, ______ by Sudhir??? How are you attributing decades of legacy to a man whose first major decision as VC was shredded apart in court?! For your own sake I hope you're not a lawyer.
7. Please refer to 3, 4, 5 and a dictionary in that order please .
P.S. "Full support of students" okay sure lol, please join one of the batch WhatsApp groups before shooting your mouth off in a public forum and embarrassing yourself like this.
Look at this image. entire image is morphed and they are using it on the nls website.
One of these is that the SC/ST seats at NLS have to be reserved for Karnataka students ONLY due a previous HC judgment (Lolaksha case) in that regard. The Court said that would increase the number of Karnataka students to 50%+ if the domicile quota was implemented. Of course, NLS choosing to conveniently hush up and subvert the law (it doesn’t provide any such reservation) hasn’t been brought to judicial notice due to the incompetence of the Karnataka government.
BCI did initiate the process to set up NLS but it has no power to set up a university. And why did BCI interfere only in this case? It could’ve lobbied against the Bill from the beginning but it didn’t. It just executed a power of attorney in favour of that ASG guy who is an NLS alumnus. So it looks like was more of an alumni initiative than a BCI one.
As far as the arguments of other NLUs being equates to regular State Law Universities is concerned, it’s plain and simple misleading. You’d see that if you looked at the differences in the statues of NLUs as against a University like KSLU.
Even NLUD increased their batch size to 120 this year but the number of seats for the General category have remained the same (around 50) since it’s provided seats for EWS and OBC. If the NLS admin believes that social exclusion in a country like ours and attempting to stifle the competitiveness of other NLUs is what sets them apart, then yeah, you trolls can go ahead and brag about it.
The High Court judgement is to that end, full of contradictions and the reasoning is flawed (even though striking down the poorly conceived state quota was a right call, imo).
You seem to grasping at every opportunity to acclaim your uniqueness when it doesn't actually exist in any conceivable legal sense. The argument on the uniqueness was made since the KA reservation bill referred to all other NLUs having domicile to justify its introduction. In any case, just because the KA government is incompetent, that doesn't give that some random NLS alum the right to take a call on the status of other NLUs. There are more similarities than differences in the structure of all these NLUs. The reason why NLUs are "autonomous" law schools (since you don't seem to understand its true meaning) is because their governing councils aren't governed solely by the State (or a majority of State representatives) unlike other State-level universities. They should, therefore, have the right to decide on their reservation policy. Just because the administration is inept and weak to resist advances by the State government doesn't mean that these decisions shouldn't be challenged.
Although I doubt you can digest these real facts since people like yourself just read articles and headlines from LI and B&B which have excerpts of judgements without applying any common sense reasoning or critical legal understanding to such issues. Keep barking.
FACT: Sudhir's CV is the best among all NLU VCs right now.
FACT: Sudhir has hired star faculty recently, NLSIU has the highest number of alumni as faculty.
FACT: The Law School website is the best right now among NLUs
FACT: Law School holds the record for Rhodes scholarships and Magic Circle placements in India.
FACT: McKinsey prefers Law School for recruitment.
FACT: Law School alumni include a QC, a Harvard MBA, an ASG, Senior Advocates and Judges.
FACT: Law School has topped NIRF 3 years in a row and got 100 in perception score.
FACT: The BCI challenged reservations only in Law School, nowhere else. It is clearly stated by the BCI and arguing counsel, Mr Vikramjit Banerjee, that NLSIU is a special national institution and other so-called NLUs are state colleges.
FACT: The vast majority put Law School as #1 in CLAT.
Fact: 'Supporting' Legally India? What do you do, give Kian a retainer or provide ads?
Fact: NLSIU trolls are starting to sound like Jindal trolls these days. Which is sad.
NALSAR : Very ugly looking. Lots of pictures of Faizan, just a few small ones of the campus. LOL.
NLUD: Same
NUJS and NLUJ: Pukeworthy sarkari design, NUJS not been updated for many years.
NLIU: Doesn't load properly and it calls the college "Gyan Mandir". LMAO.
GNLU: Only decent one, but design seems copied from JGLS.
I've always said that an outsider doesn't have to embarrass NLSIU. Every once in a while, an insider ends up doing that job for them so thoroughly. You exemplify that.
At the end of the day, "office mein tera baap kaun? Law School, Law School!" continues to hold merit - "office" here being even high offices in public life.
Your "competitive ecosystem" is no different from that of any other top law school and you'd know that if you ever visited one of the others or actually knew people from other law schools (trolls like yourself generally don't do either). And did you seriously claim that a lure for power shows a high degree of competence and self-awareness? Grow up, kid.
www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/karnataka-high-court-grants-relief-nlsiu-student-sitting-judges-son-plagiarism
"People take pride in the fact that Bangalore law school is the Harvard of the East - we will work continuously to make people say that Harvard is the Bangalore of the West."
www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/bangalore-law-school-takes-on-world-with-good-advice-20090522-022
And let me expose the fact- the open call for elective is not some grand masterstroke of dictator. It's his sheer tardiness. Earlier, they used to contact people and finalise lecturers well in advance. Now under his ineffective leadership and grand mismanagement, they have not been able to score enough good people to take an elective and hence this last ditch effort.
The call is for intensive seminars - 4 hours a day of teaching for 10 consecutive days. (Another masterstroke). At least last term, we were given enough time to select our elective and read a trimester worth of material.
Now he expects us to read material in less than a week and come prepared for 40 hours of classes. Only a fool will overlook the timing and the sheer undertone of urgency in the notification.
The dictator is worse than Modi and Trump combined. And you dear commentator, the Sambit Patra of the dictator, are worse than that Sudarshan news clown.
-NLS IV Year
At the same time, Comment 12.2 (probably written by one of my classmates or immediate juniors) is also a bit too caustic and is misleading to some extent. Despite all of the problems with Sudhir's administrative decisions, both the quality and range of electives offered to 3rd, 4th and 5th year students has definitely improved by leaps and bounds since he joined as V-C. Even during the present trimester (November 2020-January 2021) we do have a good range of electives made available to us. Some have been set up based on suggestions from students while several others have been set up through the administration's initiative. As I understand it, the purpose of the 'Intensive Seminars' planned between December 1-10, 2020 is to get shorter courses out of professionals and academics at other institutions who are otherwise too busy to teach electives spread over an entire term. So this is a genuine attempt at value-addition, just like many other law schools who host shorter elective courses. Obviously, they are going to require more concentrated work on part of students. Accelerated seminar courses have been run in the past several years as well. So this is hardly a ground for lampooning or heaping criticisms on Sudhir. He did deserve criticism for the attempt to hold NLAT in September, but let us not mix up separate issues.
If there is any doubt about this point, you can ask Kian to call up the arguing counsel Mr Vikramjit Banerjee. He will confirm it.
However, a window of opportunity may arise in May 2021, when the TMC govt is booted out of power and the current Law Minister and Advocate General are forced to quit the EC. The new BJP government may be requested to grant NUJS the status of an institution of national importance.
Anyway, students and parents are advised to skip GNLU and RMLNLU for the time being. Go for NUALS/NLUO/MNLU etc, even if the ranking may be lower.
There are a few who actively tell you to address them by just their name but they're the exception and not the rule, and also might have had to address their seniors in such a weird manner even if they don't subject their juniors to it.
-Professor of Law (1 permanent post + 1 post for Ford Foundation Chair)
-Associate Professor of Law (1 post for HAL PSU Chair)
-Assistant Professor of Law (4 permanent posts + 2 contractual posts)
-Assistant Professor of History (2 year contract)
They have also advertised administrative positions such as that of the Registrar and Finance Officer. Here is the link to read the details and apply online:
www.nls.ac.in/news-events/call-for-applications-faculty-staff-recruitment/
The deadline for applications is January 24, 2021 and the interviews will be conducted soon thereafter. The following persons were appointed through the previous round of recruitments held in February 2020:-
1) Dr. Mrinal Satish - Professor of Law
2) Dr. Aparna Chandra - Associate Professor of Law
3) Dr. Sushmita Pati - Assistant Professor of Political Science
4) Ms. Rashmi Venkatesan - Assistant Professor of Law
5) Mr. Kunal Ambasta - Assistant Professor of Law
6) Ms. Shreya Shree - Assistant Professor of Law
7) Mr. Raag Yadava - Assistant Professor of Law (Contractual)
8) Ms. Sanyukta Chowdhury- Assistant Professor of Law (Contractual)
9) Dr. Atreyee Majumdar- Assistant Professor of Sociology (position offered, candidate is yet to join service)
Hopefully the fresh round of recruitments will attract some more competent teachers to NLSIU.
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