Academic work at the University is a continuous ongoing process outside the classroom. Every Wednesday, an NLS Faculty Seminar is convened to spotlight cutting-edge academic research within the NLS community. This provides an opportunity for faculty members, researchers, and others within our broader network to discuss their ongoing and recent papers with the faculty and research scholars at the University.
Below is a list of faculty seminars at NLS.

“Accommodating Disability ‘Reasonably’: The Indian Supreme Court and the Shifting Contours of ‘Reasonable Accommodation’ Under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016” | Ishita Ghosh
March 26, 2025

“Where is the Historian in Public History?: An Informal Essay” | Dr. Samyak Ghosh
March 19, 2025, 3:45 pm

“Bench Constitutions And Case Assignments in the Supreme Court of India”| By Pranav Verma
March 12, 2025, 3:45 pm

“Balancing Power and Accountability: An evaluation of SEBI’s Adjudication of Insider Trading”| By Bhavin Patel from TrustBridge
March 5, 2025, 3:45 pm

“The Devaluation of Domestic Work: Regulatory Reform and Challenges to the Perception of a ‘Family-Like’ Relationship”| By Dr. Natalie Sedacca of Durham University
January 22, 2025, 2:30 pm

“Muslim Law and Legal Pluralism: Intersections of State and Community in Matrimonial Dispute Resolution among Muslims in Kerala”| By Noor Ameena
January 8, 2025, 4:15 pm

Presentations:
1. “Juridical Engagement with Electoral Reservations in India” by Sidharth Chauhan.
2. “Evaluating the Role of Large Language Models in Legal Practice in India: Performance, Challenges, and Practical Guidelines” by Dr. Rahul Hemrajani.
January 1, 2025, 3:45 pm

“Horizontality and Hohfeld: Locating the Right to Freedom of Expression in the Analytical Framework”| By Keertana Venkatesh
Dec 18, 2024, 3:45 pm

“Challenges of ChatGPT for higher education and policy responses in Asia: Investigating the first year of ChatGPT” | Dr. Devyani Pande presents the paper she co-authored with Dr. Panchali Guha, Postdoctoral Fellow at Singapore Management University (SMU)
Nov 27, 2024, 4 pm

Presentations:
1. “The Indian Pharmacopoeia: Crafting A ‘Sovereign Function Exception’ Under Indian Copyright Law” by Aparajita Lath.
2. “The Promise of Substantive Equality? Transplanting the Indirect Discrimination Test into India” by Jai Brunner.
Nov 20, 2024, 2:45 pm

“Towards a Pluralistic and Engaged Legal Education: Insights from UVic Law” | By Guest Speaker Prof. Andrew Newcombe from the University of Victoria, Canada
Nov 13, 2024, 2:30 pm

“The Foral of 1526 and the Politics of Land in Goa” | By Guest Speaker Dr. Rochelle Pinto from Azim Premji University
Nov 6, 2024, 4:00 pm

Presentations:
1. “An Uneven Land: Territorialised Citizenship in India” by Darshana Mitra
2. “National Survey of Extra-Judicial Deaths: Draft Interim Report” by Pranav Verma and Amrashaa Singh
Sept 4, 2024, 4:00 pm

Presentations:
1. “Burdens of Proof and Standards of Conviction: The Mechanics of the Presumption of Innocence through Indian Evidence Law” by Kunal Ambasta
2. “Continuity without Cultivation? The Student, Writing Pedagogy, and the University in India” by Diya Deviah and Ammel Sharon
Aug 28, 2024

Disparagement vis-à-vis Social Media Influencers: Balancing Free Commercial Speech with Protecting Consumer Interest | By Apoorv Kumar Chaudhary
Aug 14, 2024

Make Live and Let the Land Question Die: Surplus Populations and the Welfare State | By Dr. Sudheesh R.C.
Aug 7, 2024

Presentations:
1. “Forty-Five Years of Public Interest Litigation in India: Its Changing Constituencies and the Rise of the Regulatory Court” by Pranav Verma
2. “Gandhi’s Law of Satyagraha” by Dr. Salmoli Choudhuri (NLSIU, India) and Dr. Moiz Tundawala (University of Oxford)
Jul 31, 2024

Presentations:
1. “Constitutions and the Rule of Law in Asia” by Prof. Arun K. Thiruvengadam
2. “An Empire of Artificial Intelligence: Exploring an Intersection of Politics, Society and Creativity” by Dr. Debangana Chatterjee
Jul 24, 2024

Hindu majoritarianism and the construction of “religion”
Jul 10, 2024
Discussants: Prof. Nivedita Menon and Dr. Sushmita Pati

Corporate Purpose and Financialization
May 22, 2024
Discussants: Neeraj Grover and Dr. Sudhanshu Kumar

Consistent Discrepancies: Citizenship and the Language of the Gauhati High Court
May 15, 2024
Discussants: Padmini Baruah and Darshana Mitra

Preventive Detention in Karnataka
May 8, 2024
Discussants: Prof. Mrinal Satish and Anushka Pandey

An Institutional Ethnography of Counter-Terrorism
April 24, 2024
Discussants: Radhika Chitkara and Dr. Atreyee Majumdar

From Colony to Sovereign: Understanding India’s Pre-Independence Legal Personality
April 17, 2024
Discussants: Dr. Akhila Basalalli and Prof. Kamala Sankaran

Evaluating the Implementation and Enforcement of India’s POSH Act through Surveying Individuals Across Sectors
April 10, 2024
Discussants: Alexandra (Zander) Blitzer and Prof. Saurabh Bhattacharjee

Sentencing as a Fair Trial Right
April 03, 2024
Discussants: Prof. Mrinal Satish and Kunal Ambasta

Protecting Journalism from National Security: the Aftermath of Madhyamam Broadcasting
March 27, 2024
Discussants: Manish and Radhika Chitkara

Considering the Soul and its Ways for the Practice of Anthropology
March 20, 2024
Discussants: Dr. Atreyee Majumder and Dr. Karthick Ram Manoharan

The inscription of DNA as a technology of truth in India
March 13, 2024
Discussants: Manpreet Singh Dhillon and Dr Sushmita Pati

Literature as Recovery: Text Criticism and the Kannada Public Sphere
January 17, 2024
Discussants: Ammel Sharon and Dr. Kena Wani

Exploring ‘humiliation’ in Section 3 (1) (r) of Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989
January 10, 2024
Discussants: Dr. Ashna Singh and Dr. Karthikeyan D

Contextualizing Corrective Rape in an era of Transformative Constitutionalism in India
January 03, 2024
Discussants: Sharon Singh and Dr. Debangana Chatterjee

Lives of Circumcised and Veiled Women: A Global-Indian Interplay of Discourses and Narratives
December 27, 2023
Discussants: Dr. Debangana Chatterjee and Prof. Dhivya Janarthanan

Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi’s Courts
December 20, 2023
Discussants: Dr. Mayur Suresh and Dr. Manpreet Dhillon

Fundamental Duties in Indian Constitutional History
December 13, 2023
Discussants: Prof. (Dr.) Sudhir Krishnaswamy and Prof. Pranav Verma

Economic Reservations: Ideal and Reality
December 6, 2023
Discussants: Dr. Bastian Steuwer and Prof. Arun Thiruvengadam

Customary International Law and Specially Affected States: A TWAIL Perspective
November 29, 2023
Discussants: Kiran Suryanarayana and Prof. Harisankar Sathyapalan

Antaja Kings in Mleccha Land: The Political Imagination of Jāti in an Early Eighteenth-Century Royal Court
November 22, 2023
Discussants: Dr. Samyak Ghosh and Dr. Chandrabhan Yadav

What is Western About Western thought ?
November 15, 2023
Discussants: Prof. Sudipta Kaviraj and Dr. Karthick Ram Manoharan

Informality at Work – Towards a Law on Livelihoods ?
November 8, 2023
Discussants: Dr. Kamala Sankaran and Dr. Sony Pellissery


The Dynamics of Doctor-patient Relationship in Elective Aesthetic Medicine
September 13, 2023
Discussants: Dr. Madhubanti Sadhya and Prof. Mrinal Satish

Populism and Caste in contemporary India: Socio-political pragmatisms of caste associations
September 6, 2023
Discussants: Dr. Aniket Nandan and Dr. Karthikeyan Damodaran

To have a country so important: on Law as a Sign for War
August 30, 2023
Discussants: Dr. Atreyee Majumder and Prof. Diya Deviah

The Search for a Link between Electoral Expenses, Regulation, and Corruption
August 23, 2023
Discussants: Prof. Jasmine Joseph and Prof. Sanjay Jain

Discussion on the India Justice Report
August 16, 2023
Discussants: Maja Daruwala, the Chief Editor, and Valay Singh, the project lead of IJR (India Justice Report).

Bail on Medical Grounds in India: A Search for Principled Jurisprudence
August 09, 2023
Discussants: Prof. Nanditta Batra and Dr. A. Nagarathna.

Tax Avoidance in Indian Tax Treaties: The Past, the Present and the Future
August 02, 2023
Discussants: DR. Nigam Nuggehalli

Deconstructing the Universal of Consent
July 26, 2023
Discussants: Ishika Saxena and Dr. Rinku Lamba

Status of Women in the Karnataka State Police
July 20, 2023
Discussants: Devyani Srivastava

Reflections on Rabindranath Tagore’s Religion of Man
July 12, 2023
Discussants: Prof. (Dr.) Rinku Lamba

Making India an Arbitration Hub: Does India Need a Separate Law for International Arbitration
May 24, 2023
Discussants: Sahana Ramesh and Sharada Shindhe

Dr. Arul George Scaria’s Report for the Delhi High Court.
May 17, 2023
Speaker: Dr. Arul Scaria

Right to occupy Airspace – Conflict between Airports and Landowners on the use of vertical space in India
April 19, 2023
Speaker: Dr. Betsy Rajasingh


“When will the dawn of divorce arrive?”: An Itinerary of Pre-Legal Ideas about Divorce in Stree Magazine, 1930-1955″
March 15, 2023
Speaker: Prof. (Dr.) Ashwini Tambe

Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality.
March 8, 2023
Speaker: Dr. Sebanti Chatterjee

Marxism and Postcolonialism: A Reparative Reading through Walter Benjamin’s Historical Materialism.
January 18, 2023
Discussants: Atreyee Majumder and Ishika Saxena

Discussion on the Paper “An Exceptionally Special Law: Constraints Over Emergency Powers under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.”
December 21, 2022
Discussants: Radhika Chitkara and Prof. Arun Thiruvengadam

Coining Legitimacy: Law and Technology in India
November 23, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Sukhalata Sen, Moderator: Dr. Mrinal Satish

Dr. Nikhil Menon on his Book: “Planning Democracy: Modern India’s Quest for Development”
November 16, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Nikhil Menon, Assistant Professor of History, University of Notre Dame

Grand Narratives of Transition and the Quest for Democratic Constitutionalism in India and South Africa
November 9, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Theunis Roux, Professor, University of New South Wales (Faculty of Law), Sydney.

Collaborating in Times of Crisis: Challenges and Strategies of International Research
November 7, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Victor V. Ramraj, Professor, University of Victoria (Faculty of Law), British Columbia

The Southern Turn Towards World Comparative Law
November 2, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Philipp Dann, Professor, Humboldt University (Faculty of Law), Berlin

Reposing ‘Faith’ in Gender Equality: Mapping the Consequences of the Sabarimala case for Religious Freedom and Gender Equality in India
July 20, 2022
Speaker: Megha Mehta, Visiting Assistant Professor, NLSIU

Co-producing India’s National DNA Data Bank: Bio-legality and the Question of Privacy
July 13, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Manpreet Singh Dhillon, Academic Fellow, NLSIU

A Life of Contradictions: Group Inequality and Socio-Economic Rights in the Indian Constitution
May 25, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Aparna Chandra, Associate Professor of Law, NLSIU

Hidden in Plain Sight- The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 as a Guide to Evidence Law Reform
May 18, 2022
Speaker: Kunal Ambasta, Assistant Professor of Law

Can we Really Devise Dispute Resolution Mechanisms Different from the Regular Procedures of Civil Trial Envisaged in the CPC? A Study of the Consumer Protection statutes
May 11, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Nanda Kishore, Visiting Faculty, NLSIU

The Evolution of the Right to Property in India: From a Law and Development Perspective
April 27, 2022
Speaker: Ms. Rashmi Venkatesan, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU

Reconsidering SEBI Disgorgement
March 30, 2022
Speakers:
- Renuka Sane, Associate Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
- S. Vivek, Research Fellow, Regulatory Governance Project, NLSIU

Climate-Change Induced Displacement and Rights-Based Protection: Need for a Sui Generis Convention
March 16, 2022
Speaker: Dr. Saurabh Bhattacharjee, Associate Professor of Law, NLSIU

Liberty After Freedom: A History of Article 21, Due Process and the Constitution of India
March 9, 2022
Speaker: Rohan J Alva, Counsel, Supreme Court of India

Open Courts and the Regulatory Framework for Judicial Data
January 27, 2022
Speakers: Aakanksha Mishra, Dual Qualified Attorney (India and New York) | Law and Policy | Masters in International Trade Law; and Siddharth Mandrekar Rao, DAKSH’S Research Associate

Knocking on the Doors: India’s Challenges in Accessing Legal Services
January 19, 2022
Speakers: Varsha Aithala, Doctoral Candidate, NLSIU; and Karthik Suresh, Candidate for the European Master in Law and Economics, Erasmus University, Rotterdam

Cartel Leniency Program in India – Why No Race Here?
December 22, 2021
Speaker: Prof. (Dr.) T.S. Somashekar, Professor of Economics, NLSIU

Mapping the Elements of an Ambedkarite Jurisprudence
December 15, 2021
Speaker: Arvind Narrain, Visiting Faculty, NLSIU

The Meld Model: The Holy Grail of Indian Corporate Jurisprudence
December 1, 2021
Speaker: Rahul Singh, Associate Professor of Law, NLSIU

Studying cyber crime awareness and victimisation among female students and IT professionals in Karnataka – An Overview of the Research Methodology
November 17, 2021
Speaker: Tasneem Deo, Visiting Faculty, NLSIU

Legal Barriers to Accessing Safe Abortion Services in India: A Fact-Finding Study
September 29, 2021
Speaker: Dr. Aparna Chandra, Associate Professor, NLSIU

Marking the Market : Municipalizing Calcutta’s Spaces of Exchange
September 8, 2021.
Speaker: Dr. Anwesha Ghosh, Assistant Professor, History, NLSIU

Designed for Abuse: Special Criminal Laws and Rights of the Accused
August 25, 2021
Speaker: Kunal Ambasta, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU

Revered ‘Routines’ in Medical Examination of Rape Accused
August 18, 2021
Speaker: Shreya Shree, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU

Introduction: Liberalism and Its Encounters in India
August 11, 2021
Speakers: Dr. Atreyee Majumder, Assistant Professor, Sociology, and Dr. R. Krishnaswamy

Rape adjudication in India in the aftermath of Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013: Findings from trial courts of Delhi
APRIL 7, 2021
Speaker: Preeti Pratishruti Dash, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU

Religious Penal Clauses in Context: Country Studies in Common Law Asia
March 24, 2021
Speaker: Dr. Mrinal Satish, Professor of Law, NLSIU

All that Glitters…Recent Law Reforms and their Impact on Child Marriages
March 10, 2021
Speaker: Dr. Sarasu Esther Thomas, Registrar & Professor of Law, NLSIU

Whither Evidence (Act) based reasoning?: Towards an Effects-based Approach in Indian Competition Jurisprudence
January 20, 2021
Speaker: Rahul Singh, Associate Professor of Law, NLSIU

In the Shadows of the State: How Rent Shape Our Cities
January 6, 2021
Speaker: Dr. Sushmita Pati, Assistant Professor of Law, NLSIU

Cross-Border Data Access for Law Enforcement: What Are India’s Strategic Options?
December 2, 2020
Speaker: Smriti Parsheera, NLS ‘LLB 2006, is a researcher at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, and a Fellow with the CyberBRICS Project hosted by the FGV Law School, Brazil.

Why Not Nature Rights?
Jan 8, 2020
Speaker: Dr. Manjeri Subin, Assistant Professor (Ad-hoc), NLSIU

The Hocus Pocus of Corporate Purpose and the Visible Hand of the State – Insights from India’s CSR Experience
December 18, 2019
Speaker: Akshaya Kamalnath, Lecturer (Corporate Law), AUT Law School, Auckland

Competition Regulation in Two-Sided Markets: The Indian Experience
December 11, 2019
Speaker: Akash Krishnan, Teaching Associate (Economics), NLSIU

An Unclear Empiricism: A Review of the Death Penalty India Report
December 4, 2019
Speaker: Kunal Ambasta, Assistant Professor, NLSIU