Maharashtra National Law University, Mumbai's 1st Foundation Day Celebration

Mumbai, October 10, 2015: Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai (MNLU) today celebrated its 1st Foundation Day Celebration at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). The celebration was graced by Shri. Devendra Fadnavis Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Shri. Vinod Tawde Hon’ble Minister of Higher & Technical Education.

MNLU is the first law university for the State of Maharashtra, and is currently offering courses such as BA, LL.B Hons. Five year integrated program and one year LL.M (Legal Pedagogy and Research) program. The university has received a very positive response of around 3000 applications for its opening batch. The classes for this batch are already under way.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri. Devendra Fadnavis Hon’ble Chief of Maharashtra said; “It was always a dream for our government that we should have institutes of national repute for imparting legal education and the government decided to have 3 such institutions at Mumbai, Aurangabad and Nagpur. I am happy that we could start the first one at Mumbai.”

He further announced that the Government of Maharashtra is going to start an International Arbitration Centre in Mumbai as there is a huge scope for it, as most global companies have their presence here. While referring to students he added, “MNLU has offered you an opportunity to be part of a mechanism which caters to the youth of India and I am sure you will use it to the fullest.”

MNLU is currently housed and is temporarily being operated from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) campus until an independent and new campus for “Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai”. The MNLU students have been offered the same facilities as TISS students. The students also have access to TISS library for their research/study purposes.

Shri. Vinod Tawde Hon’ble Minister of Higher & Technical Education expressed his desire that MNLU should include certain other novel disciplines such as International Maritime law and International Humanitarian law. He also assured the students that MNLU will celebrate its next Foundation Day at its own campus and congratulated them on the launch of its maiden newsletter, “NYUSURETA” (means newsletter in Japanese).

“Starting of a new campus was a challenge. Understanding our concerns and challenges, the support offered by The Govt of Maharashtra and TISS has helped MNLU become operational quickly and has also created a healthy environment for students to pursue their courses. As a pioneer law university in the state of Maharashtra NLU will look forward to produce and groom the talent” said Prof. (Dr.) Bhavani Prasad Panda, Vice Chancellor, Maharashtra National Law University

Speaking on MNLU and TISS association, Dr S Parasuraman, Director, TISS said “We welcome MNLU, the presence of university at the campus will encourage dialogue/ conversations and engagement amongst students from both institutes and also offer opportunity to learn from each other.”He further added that “In a country like India, optimum utilization of resources (sharing attitude) at educational institutes will not only be beneficial to students but also contribute in growth of the economy as a whole.”

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TheWitnessStand: Life @ Amity Law School Delhi

                 It’s been less than a month since college has begun. I am still in the process of getting accustomed to the routine, the people and the culture. But at the same time, when you enter as a fresher, you notice certain peculiar characteristics about the college that you would get so used to in 5 years that it would hardly stand out anymore. For every aspiring lawyer, who doesn’t want to leave Delhi, Amity Law School Delhi is usually their second best option (after NLU Delhi of course). The part that bothers most of the students at ALSD is the stigma attached with the word “Amity”.Almost everyone is aware of the fact that Amity has no procedure to grand a child admission and takes anyone in who is willing to pay the high fee.  It takes a lot of effort for most of us to explain how ALSD is different from the regular Amity Law School Noida. 

We have to explain that we had to go through a competitive examination to get through the college we are in and the only thing that ALSD shares with Amity is its building.  But at the same time, we are lucky enough to share all the facilities and fancy infrastructure that the regular amity provides. Mainly AIR CONDITIONING!! And at the fee of a central university. Situated in some corner of Noida, the 60 acre campus of Amity University is not hard to miss. Its huge red bricked buildings are even visible from an airplane. While everyone raves about the Amity campus, I wasn’t too happy. I crave natural beauty and greenery. Amity University is a concrete jungle! The few trees that they have planted, seem so artificially placed in between the tiled floor. Having a 60 acre campus, one thing is fairly certain. You have to walk. A lot. The walk becomes worse thanks to the Delhi heat. It is common to see people carrying umbrellas with them (at least the girls) , or covering up their entire face with their scarf. In the first week of college, the campus seemed like a maze. Usfreshers seemed like lost tourists in a foreign land asking people where which block or gate is. It is a great relief to enter our bloc i.e. F-2. Ever building at Amity is like an enigma. At the basement of our building itself, we have a canteen, a restaurant ( Wallstreet, and a gaming zone called Arcadia. Since there is not much outside the campus,once we are done with classes we go and chill in the Arcadia. Arcadia is not exclusively for our building, but it’s famous throughout Amity. You can play Pool/Snooker/Billiards (still don’t know the difference), air hockey, foosball, videogames, and even do bowling. In fact the even have a carom and ludo table. If you aren’t interested in any of that you have an eatery inside the Arcadia itself. We are still in the process of exploring all the cafeterias below each building. Its just disappointing to the non-vegetarians. There is no non-veg served on campus. However, right outside gate 2A you have various stalls where you get non- veg and all sorts of rolls, momos, and maggi .Just one of these buildings in the Amity Campus is the Central Library. It is a huge two storey building which even has escalators installed. It has books covering most of the subjects. Except well Law. For Law books we have our own small library in our own building.

The first few days of college were awkward. Everyone was just getting familiar with one another and being overly sweet knowing that they’d be spending the next 5 years of their lives with each other. It is hard to imagine that I would be 23 by the time I pass out. As far as the crowd is concerned it is not that diverse since IP reserves 85% of their seats for Delhites. Some of the people even ended up finding people with mutual friends. Some of them were shocked when their myth of what college would be like was broken. Many had the image of college coming straight out of a karanjohar movie where people would bunk and party. I thankfully did not have such perceptions since I knew it was Law School. Ive had friends who’ve completed law school in 8 years. I had been guided by them to not take the attendance that lightly. It is compulsory to have a minimum of 75% attendance in every subject. Attendance is the only thing that is keeping people in class. Hardly anyone has bunked as yet. In fact, attendance is the best threat/incentive a teacher can give. It is taken in every class. In a day we usually have maximum 4-5 classes. Apart from that on a few days we have our PSDA (Personal Skill Development Activity ) class on which we are marked. Every morning, there is a huge crowd around the bulletin board on which a new daily schedule of classes is put up. While us first years have a hard time deciphering the initials of the teachers’ names. In class, most of the friend groups formed have started to solidify. Since I enjoy most of my subjects, classes actually seem interesting. We often deviate from the main crux of what we are studying and end up having these intense debates in class which I thoroughly enjoy.

This year onwards, they have started a new activity known as the Mentor-Mentee Program where you have numerous activities to choose from, and at the end of it achieve the established goal. You also have various societies (debate, dance, and music, moot court) to choose from. We start mooting from first year itself. The seniors are pretty enthusiastic about mooting and most of them are extremely helpful. From what I’ve heard, the first moot of ours (which would be held in October) would not be that serious. It would be more of ragging where seniors would grill you and make you do weird antics. It has been an old tradition which our seniors choose to carry forward and hopefully we will too.

Amity Law School Delhi is our second home. More than half of our day is spent in here. From what seemed like ‘school for 5 more years’, it’s getting better as the days pass. I guess I’d have more to say once I’m done with this 5 year long journey.

About The Author:

Ria Khanna, is a first year BA LLB student at Amity Law School, Delhi. She is an Air Force kid and has lived practically out of bags half her life. She loves a good conversation and tea.

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TheWitnessStand: Life At RGNLU

When you are at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab, you know that it’s not all about the academics; we have a wide variety of extra-curricular activities from mooting, debating, theatre to sports.  Every day from 4-7 PM we have parliamentary debate sessions held by the Literary and Debating Committee. The boys generally like playing basketball or football on the campus field. We have drama practice for those interested in exploring the world of expressions and emotions. 

The fresher’s have a load of activities to occupy their time. From the fresher’s moot intra to the intra parliamentary debate to orientation sessions for the moots, projects and debates to workshop demo sessions for adjudication, boy are they kept busy. The Football League, tennis League, Cricket league, Basketball league, all promote intra and inter batch familiarity and sportsmanship. Events are also organized for the girls like Table Tennis, gully cricket and basketball. We also have a tradition of watching ‘interesting’ cricket matches like India-Pak or South Africa and India on the big screen (both boys and girls) in one of the halls in the college, sometimes, the teachers join us too.

We also have research centers for humanitarian law, consumer protection, labor law, criminal law, economics, social sciences and an initiative by the some of the students to teach the children of the laborers on campus. There is also a Punjab chapter opened by Increasing Diversity by Increasing Awareness (IDIA) in our campus to help those underprivileged children who wish to write CLAT and are unable to due to financial and familial constraints. We have committees like the literary committee to organize fests, MUN's and other competitions. We also collaborate with a lot of universities and organizations to conduct Moots and essays. The International Justice Mission (IJM) has a tie-up with our Labor research centre to conduct field work and also essays and other competitions. 

For those who want, this campus has a lot of activities to offer but as they as say, for the unenlightened mind, nothing will appeal even if it is right in front of their eyes.

About the Author:

Riya Prem Raaj, is a final year law student at RGNUL , Patiala of Corporate Law Honors. She is an avid reader and has a passion for debating. Mooting interests her but debating is her forte. Fantasy is her world and books her home.

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TheWitnessStand: One Year In CNLU, Patna.

It’s been a month staying and studying at CNLU and I have come to know what actually college life is.

It’s been a month full of joy and merry making; a month which gave me my second home with amiable family members (friends, seniors and professors). It also took a good toll of my patience and withstanding arduous circumstances’ abilities which actually primed me meticulous and painstaking.

I’m always betrothed with some work in the college and have a particular schedule which I’ve been following for the last one month and I really keen on it because it always keeps me active and occupied. In the beginning I felt that it won’t be possible for me to keep pace with the new schedule and would surely fall behind, but gradually I was in the swing of the new things and was ready to gear up to the changes. The Parliamentary Debate sessions, the mock MUN sessions, the juvenile politics, girls ‘and’ friends, are all quite engaging and endearing but above all these, are those people who are actually behind all these activities (except for the “girls ‘and’ friends” part) and without whose support and efforts we wouldn’t have had these myriad opportunities: our seniors.

Before arriving at the college, I wondered how the college is going to be, and essentially how the seniors (especially the immediate seniors) are going to be; callous, harsh, unsympathetic, inconsiderate or any other adjective synonymous to these? But to my surprise they turned out to be warm-hearted, soft, sympathetic and considerate.

They are quite helpful, understanding and always there to help and guide you whether it be related to any subject matter or extracurricular activities. There is no fear in our minds when we communicate with them. What we have for them in our minds is admiration and the words ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’ come out of respect for them and not because of any pressure or unwarranted influence. There is nothing called ‘gap’ between us for the reason that we have developed a fiduciary relationship now.

There are all kinds of seniors available here- one to help and assist you with your studies, another to help you out with your extracurricular activities and another to advise you how to tackle with the exam trepidation. Some are ‘sociologists’ who would go on advising you about how to socialize with others in the college and here happens to be some ‘psychologists’ as well who would tell you what kind of a mindset one has and whether it is advisable to converse with any particular person or not. This is the reason why I personally like to touch base with them on a regular basis. The positive interaction which we had in our introduction sessions during the first couple of weeks with our seniors was quite beneficial as you get to gel up with them and with your batch mates as well and also get to know the protocols of college life. Every time I felt like having more and more of such interactions. It’s quite obliging to have such understanding and cooperative seniors.

About the Author:-


Utkarsh                                                                                                                    
Campus Correspondent
3^rd Semester, CNLU, Patna

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TheWitnessStand:- 5 Reasons To Join Faculty of Law, IFHE Hyderabad.

The question might sound very difficult. Why should you study at Faculty of Law, IFHE? Noting that there is no death of law colleges in India, why choose FOL, IFHE, assuming you didn’t get through CLAT into the few top NLUs and are now looking for alternatives. In my opinion, then current question should be why not FOL, IFHE. The following will try to present an unbiased opinion as to why one should join FOL, IFHE. Please keep in mind the Faculty of Law offers BBA-LLB, which is much cooler (and a bit more hectic) then a simple BA-LLB.

1)     I am not going to give you figures of 100% placement cause for one, the first batch hasn’t passed out yet and for second, no college can guaranty 100% placement.  What I can tell you instead is that Faculty of Law, IFHE, Hyderabad is part of the ICFAI Group which includes IBS Hyderabad, one of the top B- Schools in the country, and ICFAI Law School Dehradun , which is a very prestigious law school in itself. ICFAI Group has thousands of students passing out each year from the MBA, BBA, Btech and Law programs. Hence placement scenario would be as good as if not better than most law schools. (Not making any promises here, strictly my belief)


2)     Faculty of Law, IFHE is located inside the central campus of ICFAI Group, the IBS-IFHE Hyderabad Campus. It is a 99 acre campus which includes everything from multiple gyms, tennis courts, a swimming pool, football field, badminton and squash courts, a three floor centrally air conditioned library, a medical clinic with doctors and ambulances in case of emergencies, a miniature “WalMart” (Actually a miniature store where you can get everything you would require and even some stuff you wouldn’t) and 2 canteens filled with juice parlors, bakeries, a Wings & Fry’s outlet besides the general food counter.  We even have movies show on campus from time to time thanks to the Entertainment Club of the MBA students. (I could actually go on about it for quite some time, but I am sure most of you have got the picture.)

3)     One of the biggest problem students from other parts of India face when they join a Law school in a different part is that they have an issue adjusting with the food. That would never be an issue in IFHE. Our mess is run by one of the best catering groups in India, namely, Sodexo.  We are served everything from Paneer Dosa to Allu Paratas, from Noodles to Lemon Rice. For those who are willing to spurge a bit, there are a lot of dhabas just outside the campus which serve mouth watering Hyderabadi Biriyani to Afghani Chicken. I think I have more then made my point.

4)     The Law Department has its own separate library apart from Law books being also kept in the Central Library, multiple AC classrooms, a separate computer lab. There is WiFi in the entire campus, which is actually very helpful when you need to access Manupatra (which can be accessed from our college Intranet) for your research while chilling in the canteen. Between the Legal Club, Sports Club, Cultural Club and the Moot Court Society you would have enough of extracurricular activities to keep both your mind and body sharp.

5)     Now to one of the most important features of FOL. Faculty of Law has a compulsory internship policy which means that every student has to complete atleast one internship, of the duration 4 weeks, per year. The student is expected to make a report and put forward a presentation at the end of the internship period based on what he/she had learned.  At Faculty of Law, IFHE every students is assigned a Faculty as a Mentor. The Mentor guides the student through his/her internships and helps them in case of any and every kind of problem they might encounter during the course. I shall refrain from commenting on Faculty-Student interactions in other Law colleges, but in Faculty of Law, Professors play an active role and take serious interest in the academic and extracurricular life of each and every student and are always willing to help whenever necessary.



For Further Details One Can Check Out Our Website:- http://www.ifheindia.org/fol/

Online Enrollment:- http://www.ifheindia.org/bballb/bballbprg.asp

Application Material and Form:- http://www.ifheindia.org/fol/IFHE_BBA_%20LLB_appl%202014.pdf

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TheWitnessStand: DAMODARAM SANJIVAYYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY- A fresh name in the list of NLUs.

INTRODUCTION:-

With growing importance for quality legal education, various national law schools acquired lot of importance. To meet the requirements of students of this State, the Government of Andhra Pradesh decided to establish a new Law University and as per the decision of the Council of Ministers meeting held on 30-06-2008 the Governor of Andhra Pradesh promulgated the Andhra Pradesh University of Law Ordinance, 2008 on 8th July 2008. Subsequently the cabinet on 04-08-2008 approved Andhra Pradesh University of Law Bill, 2008, replacing the Ordinance and this Bill was passed by the State Legislature on 28th August 2008 and became an Act after the same was assented to by the Governor on 23rd September 2008. Thus A.P. University of Law came into existence with Visakhapatnam as Main Campus.

Thus, Andhra Pradesh University of Law” name changed as “Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University” vide Andhra Pradesh University of Law (Amendment) Act, 2012 (Act No. 15 of 2012) published in the Andhra Pradesh Gazette Extraordinary dated 14th May 2012.  The Government of Andhra Pradesh has notified vide G.O. Ms. No. 63 dated 22-5-2012 that the 22nd Day of May 2012 is the date on which the provisions of the said Act shall come into force.

Further, this year the Core Committee of CLAT 2014 at its meeting held on 24-05-2014 has resolved to include DSNLU in CLAT 2014 subject to first fulfillment of certain conditions.

ACADEMICS AND ADMINISTRATION:-

The government appointed Prof. A. Lakshminath as the first Chancellor, Y. Satyanarayana as the First Vice-Chancellor and Amancherla Subrahmanyam as the first Registrar of the university, presently, the Vice-Chancellor is Prof. R.G. Babu Bhagavath Kumar and the Registrar is Prof. Pasala Sudhakar.

DSNLU conducts teaching in law and allied disciplines, with emphasis on practical training of the students in technical skills of the profession through Moot Courts, Seminars, Project Reports, Expert Lectures, work and Interns in law chambers, Court visits and conducting Legal aid and Legal literacy camps in parts of the country, the most recent one being "Abhyeti" conducted in Bhopal. The first national moot court competition of DSNLU was held on February 15 & 16.

This is the only National Law University to enter into MoUs with other National Law Universities, which are:

1. National Law School of India University, Bangalore
2. The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata
3. Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala
4. Chanakya National Law University, Patna

The Universities that have agreed in principle for exchange are:

1. National Law University, Delhi
2. NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad
3. Centurion University of Technology and Management, Odisha
4. Institute of Company Secretaries of India, New Delhi

The foreign MoU is with Vistula University (University of Economics and Computer Sciences in Warsaw), Poland.

IN BRIEF:-

Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University (DSNLU) is a National Law University located at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India constituted by the DSNLU Act, 2008. It offers 5 year integrated B.A LLB. (Hons.) course to eligible Undergraduate students utilizing the scores of students appearing for the Common Law Admission Test. Integrated LL.B LL.M, PhD and LL.D courses are also conducted by the university. The university has an upcoming campus in Sabbavaram(Vishakhapatnam) with over 150 acres of sanctioned land. Till then the academic and administrative building is located at sector-11, MVP Colony, Vishakhapatnam.

Official Provisional Inclusion Link:-  http://www.gnlu.ac.in/news-inner.php?newsId=96

About The Author:-

Aditi Indrani is a current student of DSNLU and a Campus Correspondent of for the Sake of Argument.

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