Law schools

Thanks to a dear reader, who has pointed out some interesting titbits in a recent online video interview of NLSIU Bangalore vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy, talking (a little bit) about the recent blockbuster faculty recruitments, a criticism of wider Indian legal academia and plans for NLS to become a pioneer in online legal education.

Nalsar Hyderabad academic dean and professor Amita Dhanda has been made professor emerita at the university by the executive council (EC), in order to focus on primarily on research and having been due to reach the mandated retirement age of 65 later this year.

The mainstream press have reported over the last few weeks that OP Jindal Global University and its subsidiary law school, JGLS Sonepat, have launched 100 scholarships for students facing the economic and general fallout from Covid-19, dubbed “graduate research immersion scholarships” or more succinctly, GRIPS.

The NLU Delhi students fighting for the continued employment at NLU Delhi of up to 55 housekeeping staff, via a third party contractor, have made an emotional video appeal and a written rebuttal to the university’s claim that it had “taken a decision to help on a purely humanitarian basis” by making “arrangements of their employment in the nearby areas”.

NLSIU Bangalore’s executive council (EC) on Saturday signed off on its permanent faculty recruitments, which had been long-pending due to the EC having been repeatedly postponed due to Covid-19 after interviews had been carried out.

NLSIU Bangalore is set to increase its intake from 80 students to up to 120, vice chancellor (VC) Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy and registrar Prof Sarasu Esther Thomas said in an alumni video conference call today.

OP Jindal Global University (JGU), the parent organisation of its largest (law) college JGLS Sonepat, has entered into a sophisticated outsourcing deal with Goldman Sachs-owned student housing and services company Good Host Spaces (GHS), as first reported by Mint on 10 June (hat-tip to several of our commenters who alerted us to this somewhat old but nevertheless interesting piece of news).

The standoff between the NLU Delhi administration and a group of students protesting for the continuing employment of up to 55 campus cleaning staff (indirectly) came to a head over the weekend as on Friday one student and one worker were allegedly briefly detained by the police after student protests outside the main gates.

Analysis of data submitted by 29 law schools to the government’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), of which 19 were ranked in the top 20 of NIRF, has revealed that nearly all face significant disparities in undergraduate female to male gender ratios, which are considerably below the national average for the age group of law school aspirants.

The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) data and law school rankings are a treasure trove of information and over the next few weeks, we intend to dig deeper into the numbers to help law school aspirants from making more informed choices.

The full National Institutional Ranking Framework are out and are substantially unchanged from last year - with NLSIU Bangalore, NLU Delhi and Nalsar Hyderabad taking the top three spots; howveer, NLU Jodhpur has overtaken NUJS Kolkata, and GNLU Gandhinagar has jumped ahead of SLS Pune and Jamia Milia Islamia, in this government-sponsored and -approved ranking that saw a total of 97 law colleges participating (see full list and ranking table below). Movers and shakers