Shamnad Basheer has won the Infosys Science Foundation 2014 prize in the humanities category today. The former NUJS Kolkata MHRD chair professor for intellectual property (IP), founder of the Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) initiative and the SpicyIP blog, was awarded the prize “for...

Axon Partners and advocate Sai Vinod are acting for former NUJS Kolkata intellectual property (IP) MHRD chair professor Shamnad Basheer in his petition aimed to ease access to patent information through the Right to Information (RTI) mechanism. Basheer prayed for the court to declare that the RTI Ac...

The Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) initiative, which seeks to encourage law students from non-traditional backgrounds to join national law schools, is looking to move into a next growth phase.

Former Luthra & Luthra capital markets head Madhurima Mukherjee has been assisting the Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) legal education NGO in formalising and scaling up operations, since she quit the law firm five months ago.

Shamnad Basheer, the ministry of HRD chair professor in intellectual property law at NUJS Kolkata, has resigned after losing trust in vice chancellor (VC) Prof Ishwara Bhat.

NUJS professor Shamnad Basheer has called for the administration to launch an investigation to protect interns from such cases in future. Basheer, who is the Ministry of Human Resource Development chaired professor in intellectual property (IP) law, wrote in a Facebook post: “I’m urging the NUJS adm...

A Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2012 examinee lost out on a Nalsar Hyderabad seat due to a mistake in last year’s question paper, the Delhi high court has held.

For Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Ed pressure-free times are few but moments of “inordinate” pride are many.

Spicy IP blogger and NUJS Kolkata student Aparajita Lath was sent a letter threatening a defamation suit by the Times Publishing House, for her post that summarised the 19-year-old dispute between the Times Group and the UK’s Financial Times newspaper. [ SpicyIP ] The notice threatening civil and cr...

NUJS Kolkata professor Shamnad Basheer, who is the HRD ministry’s chair professor for intellectual property, argued over two days in his first-of-its-kind academic intervention in the landmark Novartis-Glivec patent hearing in the Supreme Court. Swiss drug maker Novartis had approached the SC in Sep...

Exclusive: The Delhi high court on Tuesday declined to grant interim injunction to pharma major Natco in its case of defamation against NUJS Kolkata professor and intellectual property blog SpicyIP’s founder Shamnad Basheer.

Exclusive: Pharmaceutical company Natco has filed in the Delhi high court against intellectual property (IP) blog SpicyIP, claiming that the website published an article that allegedly contained “false, derogatory and defamatory” statements about the company.

80 Indian law teachers from 32 Indian and three foreign universities addressed a petition to the Bar Council of India (BCI) yesterday, urging the regulator to “consult more meaningfully” with legal academics while framing policies related to legal education.

11 out of 40 students coached for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2012 by the Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA) free coaching program, made it to six NLUs in the first admission lists this year, including NLSIU Bangalore, NUJS Kolkata and NLU Jodhpur.

The undergraduate educational expenses of four out of the 11 successful IDIA scholars are completely covered by the programme.

Eleven students out of 50 trained by the Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA) program have been selected to join various national law universities (NLUs).

Outlook India defended itself against the criticisms in last year’s complaint by NUJS Kolkata professor Shamnad Basheer and two students against Outlook and India Today for publishing allegedly error-riddled and misleading law school rankings. Outlook revealed the details of its complex weighting system of ranking but declined to publish further information, in what the NUJS complainants called a ‘lackadaisical manner’.

NUJS Kolkata has announced the 2011 CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) with radical changes, including distribution through the Indian post office network and the ditching of static general knowledge and legal knowledge questions. Meanwhile, the law school diversity project IDIA has pledged to fund admission fees for all students in need.

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.

The IDIA (Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education) project, conceptualised and spearheaded by Prof. Shamnad Basheer (IPR Chair Professor, NUJS) aims to address the concern of NLUs becoming elitist. IDIA endeavours to help students from rural areas, poor backgrounds, vernancular ...

The law ministry, law firms Krishnamurthy and Co, Trilegal and Wadia Ghandy, CLAT coaching institute IMS and law schools NLSIU Bangalore and NUALS Cochin have pledged financial or other support for NUJS Kolkata professor Shamnad Basheer’s project to increase diversity in the legal profession, which visits poorer rural secondary school students to train and encourage them to apply to top law schools.