These days there are probably few if any lawyers who, locked up at home for weeks and often 24 hours a day, has not pondered about their mental health.

Herbert Smith Freehills partner of 30 years and India country head Chris Parsons was on leave from the firm for a month starting 10 January to “sleep under buses, [do] physiotherapy lying on dust [and] eat in Dhabas” as he walked 42km everyday from Mumbai to Bangalore to raise $1m for Indian widows.

Herbert Smith Freehills India practice chairman Chris Parsons will be walking 1260 km from the Gateway of India in Mumbai to Bangalore in 2015.

Herbert Smith partner Chris Parsons and Oxford Professor and law faculty dean Timothy Endicott will kick off a now-annual lecture series at NLU Delhi followed by five days of lectures at NUJS Kolkata with plans to hit Nalsar Hyderabad next year.

AZB & Partners has been instructed on Bharti Airtel’s $10.7bn bid for the African business of Kuwaiti telecoms group Zain, with Herbert Smith and Linklaters scoring the international advisory mandates for the Indian company’s third attempt to enter the continent.