Activities of the Legal Aid Society

This semester the Legal Aid Society has conducted a number of awareness programs in and around the University, as well as outside Kolkata the most notable of them being the RTI Camp at Ranchi between 6th-9th October 2009 aimed at creating awareness about the process of using the Right to Information.The camp was inaugurated by the Deputy Commissioner of Ranchi, Mr. Kamal Kishore Soan, and was a highly successful venture with a turnout of around 500 people right on the first day. Many walked in seeking details and to familiarise themselves with the process of composing and filing RTI applications. The Legal Aid Society members explained the format of an RTI petition and even helped those who had brought their relevant documents to compose their RTI petitions on spot. The District Administration had appointed an Assistant Public Information Officer (APIO) to receive the applications of the RTIs drafted at the camp.

The endeavour received a hearty welcome from the media fraternity which covered the event extensively in national and local newspapers as well as in television channels. This helped spread the word wide and articles in The Telegraph, the Prabhaath Kabar and the Jharkhand Jaagran brought in more people, rendering the camp fruitful to the society at large.

From the 10th – 12th October, 2009, there was also a seminar jointly conducted by the Media Information and Communication Centre of India, the Friedrich Ebert Shiftung, the Jharkhand RTI Forum and the NUJS Legal Aid Society on important topics related to RTI.

The Legal Aid Society has also involved itself in a number of other social issues this semester such as a Clothes and Fund Collection drive for Relief to the AILA survivors and a Survey and Situation Analysis of the Rag Pickers in Kolkata etc. They had also conducted a Legal Drafting Workshop in college and brought out their flagship newsletter "Access to Justice." Here's hoping their list of activities keep on growing!

Noojies' contribution to action against climate change

October 24^th, the International Day for Climate Action, saw NUJS in a different mood altogether. Noojies made their own special contribution towards furthering the cause in the event organised by four NUJS societies - LCAS, Nature Committee, Society for Protection and Promotion of Environment (SPPE), Legal Aid Society and 350.org(which is an international grassroots campaign for mobilizing a global climate movement.)A host of activities were undertaken by the students. The morning ‘350’ formation in the quad, street art at Park Street, and specially, face painting at City Centre surely got the public interested. The amazing painting done by 1^st and 2^nd year girls attracted a lot of people at City Centre and a 'rally' later, the small but enthusiastic bunch of students ended up making it a worthwhile effort!

Enacted!

Contrary to popular belief a Thespian does not refer to a resident of the State of Thespia (God Bless that land), it does, in fact, mean an actor or an actress. That is all there is to it. Or is that so? Sources reveal that the term may also be attributed to a growing bunch of students in NUJS who have taken to gather around in the Auditorium and prance around on stage. There have been two such conclaves to date. Three renowned thespians in Noojie circles, Amoolya, Animesh and Sudarshan, under the banner of the Cult Comm recently conducted Theatre Auditions on the 31st of July. Sudarshan first made the gathering form a group on stage and play zip-zap-boing. This particular game tested one's reflexes. After a while, they tested everyone's vocal skills, the loudness and carrying-capacity of their voices. For this the participants were required to count from one to ten, starting from a stage whisper to a stage shout.  Then Animesh, Amoolya and Sudarshan acted out two short one act plays ("Words, Words, Words" and "Variations on the Death of Trotsky") as demonstration after which the auditions began.

The ones shortlisted out of the appearing 65 were called for the Theater Round of the Auditions subsequently. This round was more entertaining for the participants since they enacted one of the three scripts in circulation. A lot of groans went up towards the end when everyone present had to witness yet another monologue! Though the last few try-outs turned out to be well worth it.

The question on every young nubile mind is, 'What next?'

Let's hope the enthusiasm does not die out and Cult Comm's promise of staging at least one play next semester is grounded in more reality than the State of Thespia.

It Works!

Do you remember how dangerous it used to be to visit the NUJS website? There is a rumour that the dull gold and white-ness had dissuaded quite a few new entrants from filling in the Entrance Examination form. You might look back with nostalgia at the hours of waiting before you got to see your results till the 'Bandwidth Exceeded' page would finally give way to the afore-mentioned beige and white-ness. Of course, you must also remember the virus detectors' going haywire at the first sight of the site (quite like a sneakoscope).

Well... for those of you who still don't know it, the Official NUJS Website, under the (what shall now be sorely missed) wing of Mr.Prabhash Ranjan, is finally in working condition! The website has been updated and upgraded. It no longer gets blocked by the Gibraltar-like calm persistence of 'Bandwidth Exceeded' on the screen when results are released. Nor does one's computer hyperventilate with virus alerts. In fact it looks quite nice indeed! Now jazzed up with some trendy shades of blue, it is quite pleasing to the eye. Not just that, it looks very neat, clean and organized with a refreshing effect of a spring-shower. Too much? Not really! Take a deep breath--- All the links on the website work!!

Well.. stop reading and check it out if you still haven't! It's all right there!

NPL Player Auctions

The NPL is back! After the success of last year’s tournament which saw the Northern Nawabs emerge victorious in a much delayed final, the NUJS Premier League has returned for its second editions. Unlike last year’s tournament where the teams were arranged regionally, the organizers have this year opted to give team owners the freedom to brand their teams as they like. The NPL organisers chose the five captains – Kamaljeet Singh, Dilip Kataria, Shubhajit Banerjee, Adit Pujari and Rahul Sharma – who were given 3000 points to bid for registered players in an open auction, which was held on Tuesday the 8^th of September.

The auction rules were also tweaked this time around, as the captains were expected to buy a minimum of 11 players with their points, failing which their teams would be disqualified. Most of the captains came to the auction well prepared with an idea of the players they were most interested in. While the established old names were highly in demand, some of the captains had been keeping a close eye on the first years playing tennis ball cricket, hoping to pick up a few unknown talents cheaply. As usual, the sequence of players to be auctioned was randomly determined, and with the way things panned out, by the time many of the most anticipated players came on the block many of the captains had severely strained their budgets. Consequently, the prices paid for some players were substantially lower than expected, and the 5^th year Animesh Bisht, also known as RP, was far and above the most valuable player of the 2009 NPL auction. Some heated bidding finally ended with Rahul Sharma snapping him up for 900 points.

By the end of the auction, Dilip and Rahul Sharma husbanded their budgets well to finish up with the largest squads, having made 14 and 13 purchases respectively, while the other 3 captains just managed to fulfil their minimum purchase requirement. All teams now look relatively balanced, and the five captains seemed quite pleased with their new acquisitions after the auction. They also now have the option of recruiting general body members who did not register to be auctioned, upon payment to the NPL organisers. Presently, only three of the squads have found owners, but we hope that when the league commences after the Puja break, Adit Pujari and Rahul Sharma will have been able to tout the respective strengths of their teams to attract viable investors.

NUJS' Got Talent

If the insistence of the judges to remain on stage is any indicator of the success of an event, NUJS’ Got Talent was a roaring hit.

After coaxing every dinnertime passer-by to take part, the number of participants was respectable. The auditorium was taken by a surprise to hold noojies to its full capacity, what after all those barely attended acad lectures! Those who thought they were too cool to take part, decided they weren’t so cool that they’d miss watching it. The one thought on everyone’s mind, while watching the participants- Do they hate themselves?! Them not figuring on the over-enthusiastic judges’ winners list notwithstanding, the 3 girls from the first year stole the show with their er… lawyer rhymes. What were they thinking, you ask? No one has got to the bottom of that. You could hold a debate whether the competition had to be called NUJS’ Got Guts instead; only, it’d be a one-sided one. Many a performance got people wondering about the right of some larynxes to remain in use. Another memorable performance was Khushi’s Kathak on Boom Boom Pow. Pipo’s ninja act thingies remain in memory too, but sources say some among the audience have been found looking up the Oblivio charm.

The fifth years’ imitation of the teachers won them the topspot while Aanchal Dalal sang her way into the second place. Joseph and Rituraj tied for the third place. That Friday evening, LCAS was a happy society.

Posters, Posters, Everywhere!

A new one seems to appear each time you look. And getting more creative all the time. From the innovatively designed printed posters to the imaginative hand-made notices, the Hallowed Walls of this Institution of Excellence are perceptibly becoming a collage of inspired ideas. What with so many events being organised by different groups of students, whether on behalf of Societies or not, notice-board space is a coveted commodity. Every available surface is being flooded with fliers, including trees and lampposts! On a more serious note, it is a sad phenomenon that people have been removing posters even before the event they are advertising is over. We hope this is a short-lived trend. Here’s to the hidden artists of NUJS!

Vernacular Creative Writing Competition

The Library Committee held its first creative writing competition to celebrate International Mother Tongue Day. Fittingly, the topic for the competition was how regional languages are languishing under the shadow of English. A spot of confusion was created when it was discovered that the mother tongue of one of the participating students was in fact English. Kinjal Ghose of the Fifth Year was adjudged the winner.

Creative in Class

The Mag Com held its first Creative in Class (CiC). Given a randomly selected topic, students were asked to submit a fictional entry within the exact time taken by one class. Needlesss to say, the competition was organized and implemented without the knowledge of any teachers. Although the CiC could only be held for the Class of 2012, we were surprised at the level of participation. The winning entry, a short, non-scandalous and definitely non-libellous story, was written by Ankit Thakur. Special mention must also be made of Arpita, Shatadru and Jhalak for their thoroughly creative entries.

Library goes Wi-Fi

Now you may sit coolly at any corner of the library and go surfing the world web. Capture the world in your comp as the library goes wi-fi. Yup! Great relief and reward for students constantly needing access to the Westlaw, Hein-online and other data-bases. In fact, believe it or not, this post was uploaded from the library - no wires at all! Further, the dedicated lease–line for the hostels is just split-seconds away; which means unlimited downloads and a lot more access on a much fast internet.

Annual Day

The Eighth Annual Day was organized in precisely the same way in which the SJA had operated in the last academic half-year: with swiftness and extreme stealth. Hardly had we recovered from the Invicta-Outlawed hangover, and gotten over the postponement of the Annual Elections that we realized that the Annual Day was upon us again.

The event was graced by Mr. R.N. Jhunjhunwalla, Managing Partner, Khaitan and Co. as the Chief Guest. In his address, he congratulated the NUJS student community heartily on their manifold achievements and endeavours and urged them to maintain an adequate work-leisure balance in order to ensure that their juridical potentials got utilized to the fullest. The SJA President then came forth with his annual report, highlighting the achievements of the Student Body in the last six months of its tenure. And the lists were impressive indeed. In the last two hundred days, Ashish and his merry men had ensured inter alia, a fully functioning gymnasium, the completion of the University auditorium and Wireless Internet in the Library in addition to organizing Outlawed, Invicta and the NUJS Debate on far larger scales than ever seen before.

The Awards Ceremony that followed felicitated a diverse group of students for an equally diverse set of achievements throughout the academic year. While Pranay Chaturvedi and Ankur Dalal were lauded for publishing their first book, some won accolades for their Sporting, Debating and Mooting achievements, and some were crowned University Bhaiyya. Animesh and Tanya were adjudged Sportsman and Sportswoman of the year; and Sarbajeet bagged the Best All-Round Student Award. The Magazine Committee, not unusually, won the Best SJA Committee Award for its first time ever.

The cultural segment of the event kick-started with Shameek Sir and Anirban’s (from the LLM Batch) rendition of Bangla rock numbers. Neat Karaoke performances by Kinshuk, Udit and Zorthanpui were then interspersed with Ashish Arun who emceed on in his inimitable style, introducing newer and innovative awardees on stage, such as the Best Class Rep., the Best Office Bearers, and the Best GB Member. Three hilarious short plays performed commendably by Animesh and Sudarshan followed, which had all and sundry in stitches. Alarmingly, even Sayak from the Final Year shared stage time with Ashish in doling out his legendary PJ’s that critics have long acknowledged to be far potent than an mg of Zyklon-B.

However, the show was most definitely stolen by the girls from the Fifth Year with their dance-medley finale, featuring Bollywood classics from over five decades. The medley also featured a cameo by Dore who did a convincing Ranbir Kapoor, jigging to Bachna e Haseenon; and six shaded boys who suddenly entered stage without cue, rhyme or reason, shaking themselves to Emotional Atyachar. It all ended with a bang with all of the Fifth Years running onto stage and bopping away to Deewangi from Om Shanti Om.

The Annual Day was thus the culmination of an eventful year, and made it abundantly clear that the subsequent SJA had a lot to live up to indeed.

Farewell Party

The Fifth Years’ Farwell Party at the BNR Club, Kidderpore saw its usual array of poignant emotion, boisterous revelry and the customary dash of smashed furniture. While the awards ceremony was funny, if a tad on the embarrassing side, and food and wine flowed merrily, the dance floor, unfortunately had to be shut-off early. The Club’s sprawling lawns, quaintly decorated pier and the invigorating Ganges air formed the backdrop to their concluding College party.

Badminton Mania hits NUJS

Following the installation of light bulbs near the green patch in front of the Boys’ Hostel, badminton mania has hit NUJS with a vengeance. Ignoring wind currents and mosquitoes, games have been known to go on till 2 am and many a would-not-touch-physical-exercise-with-a-ten-foot-pole upstanding student of this college has been spotted making graceless swipes in the air.

Convocation and Alumni Meet

The Third Annual Convocation was the first event to be held in our new and most impressively constructed auditorium.

With the Chancellor of the University having unfortunately being called off on urgent business at the last moment, the event was presided over by Hon’ble Mr. Justice Tarun Chatterjee, with Hon’ble Mr. Justice (Retd.) J.S.Verma as Chief Guest. The vibrant Batch of 2008, as well as LLM and M. Phil students were awarded their degrees by Justice Chatterjee, who emphasized in his spirited Convocation address upon the importance of lawyers as responsible members of society. Justice Verma, in his address highlighted the principal challenges facing the legal profession currently and the role that our bright graduates can play in redressing them.

The degrees were followed by the awarding of the Endowment Medals, monopolized by the nerdy duo of Rahul Chatterjee and Nirmalya Ganguly. Later, the newly graduated huddled gleefully in groups outside, taking photographs, interacting with teachers or guzzling on a delicious Bijoligrill spread in the quad. Soon afterwards, it was time for the batch photographs, and no sooner had the cameras flashed that a hundred-odd caps were up in the air.

Convocation night saw the much anticipated First NUJS Alumni Meet at The Stadel, attended by about 75 alumni members, most of whom combined their understandable joy at being back to their alma mater with astonishment at the changes that had come over in the last few years over the place that they had grown to love after five long years. Over delicious food, the Alumni relived old moments, fond memories and gleefully recalled the days when they were younger, slimmer and less responsible.

The old order might change; the auditorium might finally be made; and hostel curfew might have been relaxed: but as that day proved conclusively, there are some things that never ever change.

Saraswati Pujo

The Goddess of Learning was invoked with the usual piety and fanfare by the theist and atheist community alike. Decked in traditional wear and armed with Taxation and Interpretation of Statutes Modules, the NUJS community proved that it did value its Gods, if only for tiding away the incoming end-sems. Apart from the usual community-lunch and the evening Antakshari, this Pujo was notable since girls were allowed to go for the immersion for the first time.

The NUJS Parliamentary Debate

After a one year hiatus, the NUJS Inter-collegiate Parliamentary Debate bounced back king-style, with as many as thirty three teams from various parts of the country, and neighbouring Bangladesh battling it out for top rhetorical honours. After dominating most of the tournament, Team 1 from NLS Bangalore lost a tantalizing 5-4 split in the finals to Ramjas College from DU, with Vipul from NLS topping the Speaker Tab. The Competition had it all: adjudication histrionics, Tab-room drama, definitional challenges, a party on the roof and even a cross-team from DU which came over only for the love of debating. The tourney’s resurrection indicates a healthy renewal of impetus to debating in college which we can only hope is here to stay.

Outlawed 2009

A motley crowd hung around in front of the stage set up in the quad, head-banging as a rock band performed. Another small group of harried looking people hung around near the side entrance of the college, cell phones in hand; these were definitely some of the organizers. A scattered crowd hung around, putting up posters or just laughing and talking, listening to the music being churned out, guiltily thinking they were wasting their time, but knowing full well that this was what made up college spirit. The morning half of each of the three Outlawed days looked and felt very similar to each other, except the Battle of the Bands that happened throughout Day 2.

The three days saw hardly a dull moment. The ambience was set by the fantastic lighting and giant posters put up on the acad block walls at the second college entrance. Blaring death metal made many a Noojie relaxing in the hostels want to kill the performers on stage. One of those times you felt you really couldn’t blame them for staying inside their rooms.

But it was in the evenings that the excitement levels really rose up. The first night saw Bandish performing in the NUJS campus.

A series of unfortunate events prevented Black Lips from turning up for the third and final night of Outlawed. They were sadly arrested for their (er… somewhat… er... lewd) stage antics at a stage show in Chennai, following which they went underground. Some were disappointed that they couldn’t hear the band, some because the arrest did not happen in college. Others who’d been having their doubts about calling the band, given their reputation, heaved a relieved sigh. It also, of course, meant that the SJA was no longer drastically short of funds. The flow of sponsor-money had been more like a trickle.

The gap in the plan meant that the self-styled college band (in spite of Vishnu’s insistence on it not being the college band, but a band made of people who “happen(ed) to be in the same college”, the GB’s spirit of solidarity is such that we just can’t think of it but as the College Band), Unlawful Assembly, would now open for Indigo Children (formerly Superfuzz). It was also U/A’s debut performance, with a fairly scary Joker in the form of Manu Chaturvedi creating sporadic diversions in the audience. The night also saw former Decibel member, Siddhartha Sinha coax his famous strain of Naagin from his guitar.

One of the other highlights of the three day fest was the Amazing Race organized commendably by the LCAS. The inter-college participation only made the event more fun as confusion reigned across the college grounds.

Some other events that saw sizeable participation though less hype were Face Painting, Twister (which made us wonder if Esha Shekhar had bones or was she just rubber), Musical Chairs (in which Vivek Menon came second to a NALSAR guy, but more importantly, managed not to break a single bone!), the Newspaper Dance (won by the team of future MagCom members Vaneesha and Shan after a very tough competition), Tug of War, Arm-wrestling… the list could go on!

Among other things, the Pictionary saw very enthusiastic participation. A high point of the game was when “Forrest Gump” was wrongly guessed as “Run Forrest Gump” due to some miscommunication between the team members which left the remaining participants and audience with tears of laughter. The Eastern Singing competition saw some bathroom singers test their vocal chords on stage. Some performances, like Kinshuk Jhunjhunwala’s, were hailed by all to be excellent. Some others were an affliction for the eardrums.

The cultural events, like the dance performance by a mostly first year team led by third years Abhisaar and Mikey, stole everybody’s hearts as well as the show.

What interested the volunteers and participants more was the free and almost unlimited supply of Mentos mints as they slogged it out at the mad rush of the registration desks. There did seem to be too much to do and very few volunteers, the number of whom surprisingly increased when the time came for purchasing Outlawed T-Shirts at subsidized rates.

All in all, the event was a huge success. Kudos to the SJA for executing the fest so well. We do seem to be improving with each successive year.

NUJS Nite 2009

It was like magic. Little golden lights glittered on the shrubbery, a stage had materialised out of thin air and we wondered at how so much sitting space had been created, interspersed with angeethis that were warmly welcomed by all on the cold 3rd January night. The NUJS Nite, a post New Year get-together between the faculty and students, a modest affair started by the Mess Com in 2008 had turned into a full blown gala this year. Abhisaar led us through the programme smoothly with a little assistance from Kaushik Krishnan. Kaushik, alone, was as good as a Saif-Shahrukh compering pair at a Filmfare award ceremony with his ever witty expressions and inane descriptions.

Shameek Sir, better known as PinkyDa, was brilliant with his imitations of past and present luminaries of NUJS and, for once, we had a teacher having a go at a student, when PinkyDa recollected snippets of his conversation with a fourth year notorious for his PJs. The stage was set on fire when we had the ‘Powerpuff Girls’, Rukmini ma’am and Ruchira ma’am show us the right moves in a display of diplomacy and dancing, both setting their subject of sociology aside for the while. A second round of imitations, this time of the teachers and students by Arnab Roy, left the entire audience in splits. From the mannerisms to the style of speaking, he got it right, time and time again! The teachers good naturedly joined in the laughter at their expense.

A high point of the program was having the teachers tackle some tongue in cheek questions from the students, and the panache with which the teachers gave their replies made the entire exercise all the more interesting. One such Q & A round that had everyone doubling over in laughter was the one posed to the duo of Mr. Pritam Baruah and Mr. Shamnaad Basheer by Abhisaar. Even Dr. Poddar tackled his specific questions with finesse showing us exactly why this good natured soul is the representative of NUJS in CLAT. Special mention must be made of the background music (provided by SidSin and Saurabh Mehta among others) that greeted every new entrant on stage. Anirban Sir was welcomed with the theme song of Sarkar, Pritam and Shamnaad Sirs with Mai Khiladi tu Anadi, and to top it all our Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, Dr. Prof. M.P. Singh came up on stage with the song Singh is King playing in the background! The programme ended with Rohan Sahai mesmerising the audience with three beautiful pieces that he played on a piano forte. He was encored and even given a standing ovation for his enthralling performance.

It was, all in all, an enchanting evening, with good music, dances and lots of laughter. At the start of the evening Ashish, the SJA President better known as Bappa, had recited a few lines penned by him, “Tu ugta hai main doobta hoon, par ravi toh hum dono hi hain / tu padhta hai, main likhta hoon, par kavi toh hum dono hi hain…” thus putting into words what events like NUJS Nite showcase that though there may be differences between the teachers and the students but sharing this campus gives us much to share, to remember and to laugh over.

Mess Uniforms

With a view towards instilling a greater degree of professionalism within the Mess Staff, the Mess Com has now introduced uniforms and name badges for all the Mess Staff. This is seen as part of a larger plan to change the manner in which the Mess Com is viewed by the GB. Not only do these sharp looking suits add respectability, the name-badges have also proved to be a source of much amazement and interest. For example how many of us knew that Chottu’s first name was Pathik?