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 Ideal Prisoner and The Limits of Reasonable Accommodation in Indian Prisons
July 10, 2026
This piece argues that allthough courts increasingly recognise the rights of prisoners with disabilities, those rights remain dependent on prison authorities for their practical implementation. The experiences of Dr. G. N. Saibaba and Father Stan Swamy show how disability accommodations are often framed as humanitarian exceptions rather than constitutional entitlements. Disability should be recognised through equality and solidarity, not sympathy or charity.
Performative Sovereignty: Tension between India’s Digital Governance and Accountability
July 31, 2026
The pursuit of digital sovereignty is often presented as a way to reclaim control from powerful technology companies. This blog argues that, in India, this pursuit makes accountability more difficult. India's approach to digital sovereignty is not solely concerned with reasserting state authority over technology companies, but also with reconfiguring the relationship between the state and private actors. In this emerging model, the state plays an enabling role by providing funding, digital infrastructure, and access to scale, while indigenous private technology companies often retain significant operational autonomy and capture much of the resulting value. The blog explores this dynamic across two domains: the increasing reliance on voluntary, industry-led AI governance frameworks in place of binding regulation, and the expanding role of private actors in functions traditionally associated with the state through the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) model. It argues that these developments may blur lines of regulatory responsibility and diffuse accountability across public and private actors, raising questions about how digital sovereignty is being operationalised in practice.
India’s Anti-Avoidance Framework After Tiger Global: Why GAAR and JAAR Should not be Invoked Together
July 6, 2026
In Tiger Global, the Supreme Court permitted India's statutory GAAR and JAAR to operate in parallel to deny treaty benefits. This article argues that their simultaneous invocation is doctrinally unsound because it allows the Revenue to circumvent GAAR's procedural safeguards through the choice of forum. Drawing on comparative experience, it contends that even if JAAR survives, it must be confined to its traditional sham-only domain.
Reassessing Sovereignty in the age of Trade, Tech, and Climate Change
July 20, 2026
This article examines how sovereignty under International Economic Law is increasingly functional rather than absolute, shaped by overlapping regimes of trade, investment, and digital governance. Using the EU's pooled sovereignty model, WTO non-discrimination principles, and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism as illustrations, it argues that IEL simultaneously enables cooperation and imposes asymmetric constraints on domestic policymaking, disproportionately burdening developing economies. Digital sovereignty debates further expose the fragmentation of global regulatory coordination. The article concludes that sovereignty should be reconceived as layered and negotiated authority within multilevel governance, calling for IEL reform centered on doctrinal clarity, institutional flexibility, and distributive equity.