India Today
The India Today magazine has published its annual ad-supported college rankings supplement again, which also ranks law schools, and as we have written several times, other than the fact that a lot of parents make their choices based on that list, no one should really care.
The annual India Today magazine law school rankings have seen NLIU Bhopal, NLU Jodhpur and RGNUL Patiala disappear out of the magazine’s top 20 rankings, after NUJS Kolkata threatened the magazine with a press council complaint in 2010.
Newschannel IndiaTV’s producers Rajat Sharma and Ritu Dhawan sent a defamation notice to their former employee Tanu Sharma who had made sexual harassment allegations against the channel and its senior executive Anita Sharma, reported the Caravan’s online publication, Vantage.
The notice states:{jcomments lock}
“The defamatory and vilification campaign […] is being carried out with an ulterior motive of reckoning vengeance against our clients. […] immediately stop such vilification and defamatory campaign [and on Newslaundry and www.aapkibaat.com to] immediately remove the objectionable articles,” “issue a public statement apologizing … and circulate the same on all platforms including online websites, social networking sites, twitter handle, facebook accounts and all print or digital media.”
Nalsar tops India Today: Nalsar Hyderabad displaced NLSIU Bangalore at first place in India’s top 25 law colleges this year according to India Today. NLSIU, Delhi University, NUJS Kolkata, NLIU Bhopal, GNLU Gandhinanar, Symbiosis Pune, NLU Jodhpur, ILS Pune, AMU Aligarh, BHU Varanai and Amity Law School Delhi follow Nalsar, in that order. [Rankings via India Today] Legally India has reduced coverage of third party law school rankings since last year.
Sweeping marriages: As social media buzz continued about the Madras HC maintenance order on sex and marriages, former Madras HC judge K Chandru “warns against the tendency to make sweeping statements in family matters”, saying that the Justice CS Karnan’s judgment reported yesterday is likely to be “misunderstood” by subordinate courts, which might force people into relationships merely because they have had sexual intercourse. [Times of India] Karnan, in turn, today defended the judgment, saying it was misunderstood, and “not only for the purpose of giving relief to the victim woman, but also to maintain the cultural integrity of India” [Hindu]
Suicidal state of affairs: “Treating a person who is driven to take such a drastic step as a hard-core criminal violates basic human dignity in a way few other actions do,” argues psychiatrist Dr Ashoka Jahnavi Prasad about the law criminalising suicide attempts. He says that India should follow the example of 59 countries who have decriminalised attempted suicide. [Newslaundry]
Anti-PRISM PIL: Ex-Delhi University law prof, Professor SN Singh, files PIL to stop government using US internet companies’ services, and prays for government to take action against for breach of privacy, after US internet companies were revealed to have shared data of non-US citizens with US spies in leaked top secret documents [PTI]
Previous years’ coverage of various national magazines’ law school rankings has turned into a bit of a media circus and has not really contributed in any way to improving the quality or transparency of Indian legal education.
The magazines’ law school rankings have been often criticised and little understood, while colleges’ rank often varied widely and seemingly randomly from year to year. Please feel free to read previous stories, drama and hundreds of comments on this topic.
Legally India has therefore taken an editorial decision not to analyse, publicise or give major editorial space to such magazines’ rankings.
NUJS Kolkata professor Shamnad Basheer and two students have threatened to complain to the Press Council of India about the law school rankings of national magazines Outlook India and India Today, which they allege suffered from "gross inaccuracies and methodological flaws" that violated "canons of journalistic ethics" and did a great disservice to students.
Indian weekly magazines India Today and Outlook India have both ranked NLSIU Bangalore and Nalsar Hyderabad as India's top law schools, while NLIU Bhopal and ILS Pune occupied third place in each respective ranking and NUJS Kolkata found itself in sixth and fifth place.
New Delhi
India Today and Outlook have published their annual rankings of colleges accross India. Among law schools, NLSIU is placed first in both the rankings. India Today placed NALSAR at second while Outlook placed NUJS in that position. We have painstackingly managed time to explain the hotch-potch of rankings after that.
India Today’s representative when asked about the difference between rankings of itself and Outlook answered, “See during our first year we were unaware what NUJS was till one of the boss’s kids told him that this national law school has opened in Kolkata”.
“In the second year we were driven away by some Bong faculty. Its only after that year, that NUJS featured in our rankings. Hence we can only slowly move up its rank so that we maintain a sort of consistency with our previous years’ rankings”.
Delhi University is placed third by India Today while Outlook has NALSAR in the position. An Outlook’s representative explained, “See, we have copy catted India Today. So we try to be different from them. Hence we placed NALSAR at third, just to sound different you know”.
“For the top three we have three slips NLSIU, NALSAR and NUJS. Our boss picks up a slip and our researchers write down the name of whatever name comes up”, said the lead researcher of Outlook, Mrs. Bahari Dekha explaining Outlook’s rigorous methodology.
“For the 4th and the 5th slot we have chits of NLIU Bhopal, NLU Jodhpur, ILS Pune and Delhi University. A similar process is followed and afterwards, chit picking becomes too slow and tedious. So we just pick and choose a cooler sounding law college”, she added.
“In short it is first chit picking and then pick picking. There is no nit-picking”, she explained.
We asked India Today’s boss Bharat Aaj about the experts his team had consulted: “Our team in itself is an expert. We have pioneered the rankings. We are the experts. And more importantly students believe us. Don’t tell me we should consult anyone else”.
Our next question to Mr. Aaj was whether his team visited the law schools: “See we did not visit Bangalore because we had pre-decided their rank. NALSAR told us that they would put up an advertisement and so we gave it a skip. We did not visit NUJS as that day was a bandh in Kolkata. Jodhpur was way too hot. And who’ll visit a place like Bhopal”?, he answered.
“We visited Amity Law School, though. It is right next door. We were treated to a dinner and great drinks, as always. They also have a front page advertisement and we have mutual respect for them”, he added. Amity is ranked 10 in India today rankings and has remain unmoved in that position.
Ankit, a 17 year old student law aspirant who was seen carrying all the issues spoke to FNWB: “I buy the magazine to see some hot college chicks and generally see what the cool dudes are upto, as far as trends and all is concerned”.
If you are worried about your college ranks, the legal horoscope might be of help.
National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bangalore today regained the top spot in India Today's annual ranking of the top 25 Indian law schools, pushing Hyderabad's National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University (NALSAR) back to second place.