So Far, Still So Good: Clarifications regarding allegations of misrepresentation of placement data by ILNU

Allegations have been raised against a post was published on 12th May 2017 in the Ahmedabad Mirror claiming that the University had misrepresented placement data. 

On 15th May 2017, an anonymous article was published in the Libertatem Magazine accusing ILNU and Ahmedabad Mirror of misrepresenting placement data. Following the same, the Ahmedabad Mirror, on 17th May, covered the story alleging misrepresentation of data by ILNU. The major contention of the Author's of both the aforementioned articles, the replies provided by the University Management and the results of a little digging by Arguendo are provided below;

Allegation 1: The student of ILNU who had received the 16L offer, had not done so through the College Placement Cell but had received a PPO through their own efforts. 

Clarification issued by the University: 

Institute had shared the interim report of graduating students and their placement wherein it was mentioned that one of our students got an offer through PPO of approximately around 16 lakh. which was shared by the student himself to the institute. This PPO he has earned through the rigorous internship at the firm that we all know. the report of the institute had nowhere mentioned that he has got this offer through CRC (Campus Recruitment Committee consists of students and faculty incharge) by bringing the law firm at the campus. it was never intended to misguide or misrepresent the fact the only intention was to feel proud of our student and share that pride.

Arguendo's Analysis: 

Picture 1 is the actual Press Note supplied by the University to Ahmedabad Mirror, which has been provided to us by the University. 

Picture 2 is the version published by Ahmedabad Mirror (accessible here.)

We have highlighted the disputed part to make it clear that as per the interim report which was released by NIRMA University, the University had never claimed that the got his offer from the College. The interim note states that;

"The highest package offered was around Rs 16 lakh per annum and the average package comes to around Rs5.25 lakh, offered by top domestic law firms and corporates among others. Overall, the feeling is that all the recruiters who have visited the campus or who have opted off campus placement drives, were extremely happy with the quality and skills of the students of ILNU...."

What is even more blatantly obvious is that Ahmedabad Mirror choose to edit and change the verbatim of the Press Note and published something which was not only ambiguous but also started this entire fiasco in the first place.
Essentially every single accusation being leveled towards NIRMA University in this instance stems from the fact that the Editor of Ahamabad Mirror apprently left out some words in the middle of the sentence.
[We have reached out to AM but have got no response till the time of publishing this]

Allegation 2: That the student in question himself was unaware of his package and hence Nirma University announcing that the student had received a package of 16L was misleading.

Clarification issued by the University: 

According to the Ahmedabad Mirror itself, the placement coordinator for Nirma has already clarified this stating, "No law firm provides written details about pay package. Students are informed verbally about it at a later stage. We calculate the average package based on information provided to students and through figures available about the pay packages from the market."

Arguendo's Analysis: The author of the articles in both Ahmedabad Mirror and Libertatem Magazine fail to take into account that Law firms have standard fixed packages in general. As per available data published in Legally India, the last mass hike in salaries across top law firms was in the year 2015 and from 2016 salaries ranged in tightly fixed stable brackets.  Essentially if you make it into a top law firm, it can reasonably be guessed as to what will be the pay package offered to you.
Other places which give an overview of previous years salaries offers are here, here, here and here.

Again, at no place has the management of NIRMA University even remotely misrepresented on any aspect but merely drawn an inference from available data.

Subsequently, on the 18th of May 2017, Ahmedabad Mirror went ahead and covered a story stating that Nima was apparently threatening its students with defamation and restricting them from speaking against the college.  

Arguendo got in touch with the Director of Institute of Law, Nirma University, who was kind enough to forward to us the email in question, which was sent to students after the first articles were published. 

It is being reproduced below with their permission;

"

Dear ILNUits 

I came to know recently about some very shocking state of affairs. Some of our students indulging and trying to defame the institute where they studying.  If any students has got any issue any query can directly write to administration but engaging yourself in an activity which belittle the institute is not tolerated. It's ultimately damaging the future prospects of you all existing students. 

The first and fundamental lesson of law education is not to be judgmental if you do not have facts in your hand. Get your facts corrected before you opine and defame your institute on social media. Approach an appropriate authority to present your grievances/issues/comment if any. The difference between law man and layman lies here. It's very easy to belittle an image of an individual or an institute making of which might have taken huge sacrifices and sheer hardwork of many people. 

I make a sincere appeal to all of you to take care of this and refrain from any activity which ultimately harms the students' future prospects."

Arguendo's Analysis:  We leave the readers to judge this for themselves. But we clearly fail to see how websites like Lawctopus, Legally India and any other websites which may have alleged the same, reach the conclusion that the students of the University were "threatened with defamation" or their "freedom of speech were curtailed".
It seems evident that the Management, in the email shared above, only pointed out that if there were any grievances, there were proper channels of redressal for the same. Spoiling the name of the institution would only damage current students. The established process of grievance redressal is in all Universities and it would be quite a stretch to think that requesting that students respect the process cannot be a threat as such. 

It is also interesting to note that Lawctopus, Legally India, and Ahmedabad Mirror cited and shared an email sent by an ex-student, who had raised multiple allegations against the University. However surprising all the three previously mentioned websites fail to do however is share the reply by the University which clarified and rebutted all the allegations of the ex-student.
{Arguendo has been provided with a copy of the email thread but would not be sharing/publishing private emails without the express permission of the University.}




[We would like to thank Prof. (Dr.) Purvi Pokhariyal, Director & Dean, Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat for sparing some time from her schedule to revert to our queries and providing us all clarifications with respect to this.]


[In case there are any current students of Institute of Law, Nirma University who would either want to challenge this version of the events or issue a state in support of the same please do write to us at fsa712@gmail.com.]


Note From Our Editor: No University is perfect. There were allegations of nepotism, corruption, and mismanagement even in Universities such as NUJS, NUSRL, and NLSIU among some. As Law students and future lawyers of this Country, it is the duty of ever student to raise a voice whenever they see something wrong happen. But such voice should not be raised merely for the sake of hearing loud voices. As Law students, we have the greater responsibility to verify everything we say or post. Unverified allegations without proof are not something we as Law students should be buying into. No University is perfect. But something close to perfection can be achieved once students and management work together in tandem. 

Read more »

International Thematic Conference - 23rd to 25th of June - Prizes over 50K to be won!

The International Thematic Conference, is a college organized National Model United Nations Conference being conducted in the city of Hyderabad, Telangana. This conference is the end product of a year long process of intricate planning, thought and effort to bring some of the best minds across the country under a common headline. With 4 committees being simulated in this edition, each of which special in their own way, TITC is on course to becoming a benchmark for MUNs in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

The 4 abovementioned committees simulated are,

1. Interpol:  Reviewing the global cyber crime strategy with special emphasis on tackling exploitation by organized crime;
2. United Nations Commission on Status of Women: Focusing on the representation of Women in the UN, other regional organizations and government bodies in accordance to Beijing platform for action,
3. UN General Assembly Emergency Special Session: Addressing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,
4. UN Security Council: Tackling the volatile situation in Syria.

Apart from these, delegates can participate as members of the International Press, whose role would be to witness and report the proceedings of the committees during the conference as well as hold press conferences as a part of the simulation.

Our agendas for the committees most definitely assure the prospect of an amazing debate. Be it tackling the ethicacy of the existence of the dark web, the need for more women as leaders and representatives, or the active conflict zones in the form of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the state of Syria.

To make sure every delegate has the best learning experience possible, our executive board was meticulously picked after a vigorous three round filtering process. With a combined experience of the EB well above 400 in total, first timers as well as veterans can rest assured in the smooth functioning of our committees.  

So come down to Hotel Abode from the 23rd to 25th of June to participate and witness TITC in all its glory.

Registration fee without accommodation is Rs. 2400;

and Rs. 2800 with accommodation (all inclusive)

Click here to fill in the delegate application, or you could apply as an institutional delegation here.

Apply as a reporter here, or you can be a part of the photography team by applying here.

If you’ve already applied and received an allotment, kindly pay here.

Read more »

Through the Lens of a Lawyer - Interview with Rajdip Ray, Filmmaker & IPR Attorney

Sourya: How do you generally introduce yourself to people who don’t know you? A lawyer, a filmmaker, or both?

Rajdip Ray: A factotum. I was working as an IPR lawyer till earlier this month. Currently, I'm assisting the director of a feature-length independent film. Next month, I'll probably be doing something else.

Sourya: Was Kolkata, with its rich heritage of art and theater, where you first discovered your passion for filmmaking? Or did your love for movies come at a later stage of your life?

Rajdip Ray: My love for films developed considerably late. Maybe when I was in Class 11 or 12. I went to the cinemas and watched films on weekends, but that's what pretty much every regular kid does. Sometime in high school, I watched The Pianist by Roman Polanski. For the first time I appreciated cinema for the beautiful medium that it is to tell a story; and not merely as a means of entertainment. DVDs were in fashion then. Especially, pirated ones which were cheap and came in 5-1 or 6-1 combos. That's how I ended up watching Satyajit Ray, Hitchcock, Woody Allen. By then, I was hooked on to how a film could be used as a medium to tell a story.

Calcutta, of course, had a part to play. It's a city with a soul. But it was more towards developing an intellectual and scientific temperament, and sense of culture overall, rather than film in particular.

Sourya: What influenced your decision to join a Law school?

Rajdip Ray: I studied humanities in school. Chemistry I believe is one of the worst things to have happened to mankind. Nuclear weapons and atom bombs would not have existed if no one pursued chemistry. I was a decently good at studies; but horrible at chemistry. So science was never an option.
And I did not want to be a commerce student.  So arts. And law was one of the more prominent career options. That was also the time I had started reading John Grisham and had read each and every single book he had published till then. And no one writes courtroom dramas like Grisham. Since I was a debater and liked talking, one thing culminated into another, and before I knew it, I was writing law school entrance exams.
I did try studying media immediately after college, but that turned out to be an utter waste of time and money.

Sourya: Were you involved in theater/filmmaking etc even during your Law school days?

Rajdip Ray: I started filming at the end of my first year in law school. I had bought a DSLR and wanted to put it to use. I had been writing stories for a while, so I attempted to write my next story as a script. And then I shot it, with a handful of people as part of the cast and crew. My first film, 'What She Said' was made on a budget of 600 bucks, which included a drink we had to buy at CCD since it was required for a shot.
It got selected by Shamiana- Asia's biggest short film club and was screened in Mumbai, Pune, and Kolkata, along with some Oscar nominated shorts. The Mumbai screening was at Eros Cinema in Churchgate. And it was really thrilling. The Bombay people really loved it. Especially when they found out about the budget in a post-screening QnA. In Bombay, 600 bucks will buy you one drink at a bar. Two, if they have happy hours.
That was the first time I watched a film I had made on the big screen. It was the most exciting thing to happen to a nineteen-year-old. Growing up, making your film and watching it in a cinema hall always seemed like a dream which seemed a bit too far-fetched. Like driving a Formula 1 car. Or playing cricket for India with Dada and Sachin. Every kid dreamt of it. But very few thought they might actually they get to live it.
That prompted me to go ahead and make my second film - Keu Eshe Bolechilo / Images - which was my first film to compete at national film festivals, and won a couple of awards while it was doing the rounds.
And once the film bug bites, it keeps itching forever. So I kept filming till the end of law school whenever I got the time. I had to give up on some prestigious internships which would have made my legal resume shinier, in order to keep filming. And given the opportunity, I'd do it again.

Sourya: At any point during your law school years, did you ever consider dropping out of law and making movies?

Rajdip Ray: Every single day.

Sourya: Tell us about your experience as the Associate Director of The Other Way.

Rajdip Ray: In 2012, two of my close friends, both twenty-year-olds, decided to make a feature-length documentary film, an absolutely ludicrous idea at the time. And they chose "independent films and their making in India" as the subject for the doc. The three of us were also actively writing for dfuse.in, a counter-culture e-zine, where I handled the films beat. When I figured there was a chance for me to get involved, I jumped in. Because of budget constraints, the directors themselves couldn't travel all over the country. So I helped out with some of the Calcutta and Bombay shoots. And it was a brilliant, brilliant experience for a young film enthusiast. Here I had filmmakers like Onir, Q, and Sandeep Mohan in front of the camera, people who I admired and idolized, with me behind the camera.
One particular incident stands out in my head. After shooting with Q till 3 am in the morning when we were wrapping up the shoot, Q pointed out that the sound recorder hadn't been turned on. I was the one handling it. I had pressed the "Record" button, but it needed to be pressed twice in order to start recording. It was a rookie mistake, and I kept cursing myself thinking I had messed up the entire shoot. Thankfully, we had shot indoors at night with minimum ambient sound, so the camera sound was ultimately used. Since then, I keep checking multiple times whether both camera and sound are rolling before calling a shot.

Sourya: You also have your own production house known as Alt Ray Films, what would you say is it that you want to capture and show the world through the lens of your camera?

"Crash" which won at the Bangalore International Short
Film Festival

Rajdip Ray: Alt Ray Films is for my own directorial ventures, produced independently. So that's four short films so far, and I want to venture into feature filmmaking soon. I think while telling a story, you need to touch a chord with your viewer. All the films I have loved have touched that chord within me- whether that's Offside by Jafar Panahi, or Masaan by Neeraj Ghaywan. I've also tried making films on topics that bother me- lack of governmental attention to street children, increasing number of fatalities due to road rage. I hate being preachy. But if I can make people aware of realities through fiction, and make them think for 30 seconds after my film ends, I'd like to believe I've done decently.

Sourya: The success of which project/short film would you consider having been your proudest moment till date?

Rajdip Ray: As pretentious as it sounds, I have enjoyed being on shoots and the filming process, more than the end product being successful. All my shoots have been managed on a minuscule budget with a 2 member or 3 member crew at best, and it's a huge task to get it right and realizing the original vision that you had in your head. So while it's been tremendously challenging, it's been a hell of a lot of fun, and extremely satisfying, every time I have ended up with a complete film!

Sourya: Has being from a Law school influenced the way you view the world through your lens and/or the way you tell your stories?

Rajdip Ray: Of course. One of my professors had once said "In every profession, you learn everything of something. In law, you learn something of everything." And as a storyteller, you need to observe everything around you. The more you observe, and the more you know, the better your chances of presenting something truthfully and earnestly to the viewer.
Also, law school, and subsequently working at an IPR firm has given me a fair knowledge of copyrights, which is essential for any individual creating original content.

Sourya: How difficult is it, balancing a full-time job as a Trademark Attorney and chasing your passion of telling stories for people to see?  

Rajdip Ray: Very difficult. Both are full-time commitments and require your undivided attention. And it's pointless to do either of them half-heartedly.

Sourya: There would be numerous people around us, who may be stuck in Law school despite having the passion for something else. Writers, actors, singers etc, stuck in classroom chasing good grades and a high paying job instead of chasing their dreams. Would you have any word of advice for such souls?

Rajdip Ray: I am terrible at any kind of advice. So instead I'll leave you with a quote from a letter written by one of my favorite writers, Charles Bukowski.

“My dear,

Find what you love and let it kill you.

Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.

Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.

For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.

~ Falsely yours"

Read more »

Student For Liberty Local Coordinator Program Applications NOW OPEN

Students For Liberty, is the the world’s largest Libertarian student organisation.

What is the Local Coordinator Program?

The Local Coordinator Program is a platform for young liberal individuals to meet other like-minded people, learn more about the philosophy of liberty and assume leadership positions in the global students’ movement for liberty. The Local Coordinator Program helps students explore relevant ideas and concepts that go beyond course textbooks, trains students in leadership and management and allows them to engage in fruitful activism.

The most engaged students will be invited to attend a fully-sponsored retreat in July to spend a weekend with other Local Coordinators! Retreats are a great time to make new friends but students take away a better understanding of ideas they learned in the summer. We host a couple of great speakers, organise Socratic seminars and discuss more advanced topics in political economy. To know more, visit SASFL.ORG/LCP

How to apply?

You can apply by filling out a simple form. Do apply if you’re interested in learning new ideas, meeting a fantastic bunch of new people and joining the largest student network of pro-liberty students in the world! Deadline for the application is 28th May so make sure you apply well before that to get a headstart on the academic training.

Click here to apply!

If you have additional questions, please email Shree Agnihotri, South Asia Programs Associate for Students For Liberty at sagnihotri@studentsforliberty.org


For More Details Check HERE and HERE

Read more »