The NLS Forum curates pioneering research and current developments in the fields of law, public policy, social sciences and humanities.
Our work bridges academic scholarship, legal practice and
civil society discourse.
We present the University blog and five student journal blogs, where leading scholarship from around the world is edited by our faculty, researchers and students. To submit your work, please refer to the submission guidelines provided for each blog.
The Three Judgments That Matter for AI and Copyright
February 5, 2026
This paper argues that Indian copyright doctrine locates the limit on copyright within Section 14 itself, holding that transformative uses producing works of fundamentally different character do not infringe reproduction or adaptation rights, making Section 52 irrelevant. The paper shows that Indian law excludes transformation from infringement, unlike US law which treats transformation as infringement justified, if at all, by fair use. Applying this to AI, the paper argues that training a model is not infringement because it creates a statistical system, not copies or adaptations of protected expression.
AI in the Everyday in India – A Socio-Legal Workshop
January 23, 2026
The workshopwas held at the NLSIU Campus on 10th January 2026, bringing together scholars across disciples to holistically understand how AI operates and influences the everyday lives of people.
This event was reported by Divyansh Bhansali, Samik Basu, Devanshi Ganta, Avanthika Venkatesh, Nethra J, and Sanchi Deshpande from the IJLT Editorial Team.
Beyond Compensation and a New Dawn for Section 74: Supreme Court and Agreed Sum for Breach of Contract
February 7, 2026
Section 74 of the Indian Contract Act was intended to discard the English penalty and liquidated damages distinction. Yet, the Indian courts had reintroduced it through the requirement of the genuine pre-estimate of loss test. Resultantly, agreed sums under section 74 were confined to providing compensation for loss. This article argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in BPL Ltd v Morgan Securities (2025) marks a decisive break from this orthodoxy. By endorsing Cavendish, the court has recognised that agreed sums payable upon breach in commercial contracts may protect legitimate performance interests beyond compensation for loss, and need not constitute a genuine pre-estimate of loss. The article demonstrates how Morgan Securities departs from Kailash Nath and its predecessors, rebuts concerns of windfall and unjust enrichment, and reconceptualises agreed sums as function of party autonomy and post-breach risk allocation.
The Monetary and Fiscal Mechanism
August 25, 2025
Part 1 of this blog series focused on the distributive aspects of taxation: public goods and the market failure that they address; why it is preferable that taxes be progressive and relative to income and wealth; the political and economic case for taxing capital and redistribution; and the economic and distributive implications of tariffs. This […]