Internships for IDIA (INAT) Team

What is the IDIA?

The IDIA (Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access) Movement started off under the leadership of Professor Shamnad Basheer of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) as a movement to eliminate the inequities of education. Some very disturbing statistics reflected a complete lack of diversity, with a majority of the students clearing the entrance tests for these Universities hailing from the upper middle socio economic class bracket. The IDIA team set itself up, first in NUJS, and then in other National Law Schools throughout the country, as an attempt to question and change these statistics. The aim is to provide access to the resources required to crack the entrance exam to students from marginalized communities and regions, who would not be able to get access to them otherwise.

What does IDIA do?

Local IDIA Chapters have been set up in different parts of India. These local chapters have conducted aptitude tests in the respective states, and have started an intensive training programme for those who did well, and those who are interested in pursuing law as a career. A lot of students were found to be initially very apprehensive about their career prospects, but enough information was disseminated in this regard to convince most of them about the advantages of this career choice.

IDIA also selects students for the training program through its exam called IDIA National Aptitude Test which is held every year in several centres across the country.

Last year INAT helped us select some of the most deserving IDIA scholars. 14 out of the 50 scholars trained by IDIA made it to various National Law Schools, including NLS, NALSAR, NUJS, NLIU, GNLU etc. through CLAT 2011.

What Will Interning With the IDIA Mean?

Interning with the IDIA will mean being part of the teaching process for the IDIA scholars and interacting with IDIA scholars and other volunteers. This is an immense opportunity, more so for law students, because the IDIA Scholars are not only exceptionally bright, but also extremely keen to learn about the Law, and understand its various facets. While most students would cherish the process of teaching in itself, the IDIA experience is that much more of a process of self-discovery in that it deals with children who have managed to devise incredibly ingenuous ways of learning for themselves.

This internship presents the opportunity of being part of something extraordinary, something that might change the face of legal education in the country, but will definitely change your paradigm of life.

Requirements

All interns will be expected to help with a wide variety of work. For instance, we require volunteers to help us with registration for INAT which would be conducted on 6^th November 2011 in 16 cities in the country. Volunteers would be required to be available on phone, take calls from students who have queries regarding law as a career, National Law Schools, scholarship provided by IDIA etc. They would be working for a month as a part of the registration team for INAT, helping students get registered for the exam.

Volunteers do not need to be based at any particular location in India - they would only be required to be available on phone and email everyday during this one month.

No specialised experience or training is required and they can feel free to come up with new, innovative modes of reaching out to more students and schools across the country to spread the word about INAT and in turn help us select the brightest students as IDIA scholars.

This would be a paid internship and all interns found to have worked in a committed manner by the end of the stipulated time period will be granted certificates for their efforts signed by Professor Shamnad Basheer, on behalf of the IDIA Initiative.

For further details, feel free to email Diptoshree Basu at dbasu3@gmail.com or call at 09831063675.

Diptoshree Basu

INAT Co-ordinator

Intern with IDIA, Sikkim Chapter

WHAT IS IDIA?

The IDIA (Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access) Movement started off under the leadership of Professor Shamnad Basheer of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) as a movement to eliminate the inequities of education. Some very disturbing statistics reflected a complete lack of diversity, with a majority of the students clearing the entrance tests for these Universities hailing from the upper middle socio economic class bracket. The IDIA team set itself up, first in NUJS, and then in other National Law Schools throughout the country, as an attempt to question and change these statistics. The aim is to provide access to the resources required to crack the entrance exam to students who would not be able to get access to them otherwise.

WHAT DOES IDIA DO?

Local IDIA Chapters have been set up in different parts of India. These local chapters have conducted aptitude tests in various chapters, and have started an intensive training programme for those who did well, and those who are interested in pursuing law as a career. A lot of students were found to be initially very apprehensive about their career prospects, but enough information was disseminated in this regard to convince most of them about the advantages of this career choice.


In addition, the IDIA has been pushing relentlessly for reforming the CLAT. These concerted efforts have resulted in the CLAT Committee agreeing to various affirmative measures—for instance, removing the section on static general knowledge, and legal knowledge completely from the paper. The rationale is to test the aptitude of the students, rather than the knowledge.


WHAT WILL INTERNING WITH IDIA MEAN?


Interning with the IDIA will mean being part of the teaching process for the IDIA scholars. The subjects to be taught include English, Logical Reasoning, Legal Reasoning, General Knowledge and Maths (grade ten level). This is an immense opportunity, more so for law students, because the IDIA Scholars are not only exceptionally bright, but also extremely keen to learn about the Law, and understand its various facets. 


While most students would cherish the process of teaching in itself, the IDIA experience is that much more of a process of self-discovery in that it deals with children who have managed to devise incredibly ingenuous ways of learning for themselves. This internship presents the opportunity of being part of something extraordinary, something that might change the face of legal education in the country, but will definitely change your paradigm of life.


REQUIREMENTS


All interns will be expected to help with a wide variety of work. For instance, they may be expected to conduct weekly classes, act as scribes for practice tests, help in analysis of test results etc. The internship programme will extend to at least four weeks. All students who have graduated from school, and are currently enrolled in a course in Law or are graduates from the same, are qualified to apply. Selections are subject to the discretion of the Internship Cell. No specialised experience or training is required and you can feel free to come up with new, innovative modes of teaching and working.


All interns found to have worked in a committed manner by the end of the stipulated time period will be granted certificates for their efforts signed by Professor Shamnad Basheer, on behalf of the IDIA Initiative.


For further details, feel free to email  at : jwaladthapa@gmail.com, jsphrenthlei@yahoo.co.in or call at 9593981263, 9007643825,

Second IDIA –National Aptitude Test (I-NAT) on 6th November, 2011

With the successful performance of the first ever National Aptitude Test by IDIA (I-NAT) through which IDIA was able to successfully place 14 students from low income background in various National Law Universities, IDIA is all set to conduct the second National Aptitude Test (I-NAT) on November 6, 2011 at 14 cities across the country, for under-privileged and financially weak students interested in appearing in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2012 and 2013.

Last April, IDIA had chosen 50 students, based on their performance in the first I-NAT, for free CLAT coaching and training by IMS, a pioneer coaching institute for CLAT. Out of these 50 students, 11 were able to make it to various NLUs with one student making it to NLSIU, Bangalore with an All India Rank of 45 in the General category. Karthika Annamalai, another IDIA scholar and a Quarry worker's daughter has made it to NLIU, Bhopal.

Every year, Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA) as part of its vision of bringing diversity in law colleges, plans on choosing a few deserving, under privileged and financially weak students, interested in making a career in Law, for free training and coaching for CLAT.

The IDIA National Aptitude Test is expected to be more widespread and bigger this time, with around 19 centres across the country and estimated registrations of more than 1500 students. The cities where the test would be conducted are

New Delhi

Kolkata

Bhopal

Lucknow

Bangalore

Patna

Mumbai

Chennai

Hyderabad

Ranchi

Guwahati

Gandhinagar

Jodhpur

Cochin

The test will be on 6^th November 2011 from 10 am to 11 am ( 60 Minutes) and the questions will be related to basic General Knowledge, Logic and basic English.

All students whose combined income of parents is less than Rs. 40,000 a month are eligible to apply.

Interested students may apply for registration here: idianat2011@gmail.com or call any of the following IDIA volunteers:

Bharat Itagi : +919845442956

Anukanksha Kalkeri: +919845442924

Pranusha Kulkarni: +919164197317

All candidates will be required to send scanned copy of their parent’s income certificate to the above email ID for confirmation of their registration

The seats are very limited and is on a first come first serve basis. Everyone is requested to immediately make the registrations. All selected INAT Scholars will be given completely free coaching by IMS and there will not be any payment for the same.

Also, Please spread the word around and aware as many students you can who fit the category and eligibility for I NAT.

Sensitisation at G S Jangid Memorial School, Jodhpur

IDIA Team consisting of Piyush Kumar, Gautam Nayak and Animesh K. conducted sensitisation in G S Jangid School, a residential school situated at the outskirts of Jodhpur. The principal of the school, Dr. Rekha Sankhla, was very enthusiastic about the sensitization and took an active part in it. She accompanied us to all the class rooms and introduced the team to the students. Although she had no idea about NLUs and CLAT, we could inspire her to believe in our cause after a brief introduction to law as a multifaceted career option in the present scenario. 

The sensitization in G S Jangid School was on a small scale owing to the small strength of students in classes 11th and 12th. Nevertheless, it was highly interactive. The session started with a brief introduction about National Law Schools and moved on to the career options available to a law graduate from these institutes.

The response was overwhelming as students kept on asking question ranging from the pattern of CLAT to the subjects taught in NLUs. The single most important concern by the students as well as the faculty members was with respect to placement. Most of them were skeptical about placement, drawing parallels with the ever mushrooming engineering colleges which promised 100% placements but never delivered on it. It is always tough to convince an unaware crowd, especially with prejudices. However, we tried our best to give them the real picture and emphasized on the fact that one could not be lackadaisical after getting into a law school and it required a hard work before one could grab lofty pay packages. We also informed them that unlike other traditional/vocational colleges, NLUs do not have long breaks in the midst of the academic sessions and attendance was important. We also briefed them about internships which form a major part of the learning exercise in a law school. After an extensive lecture on mooting, conferences and publications, the young faces showed some amount of agreement. The rest is upto them as to the choices they wish to make. 

An aptitude test will be conducted soon as a follow up.

Report Prepared by Piyush Kumar

Join IDIA – Change your life as well as others!

Karthika Annamalai, Ria Shiuli, T. Andalu and Shivandu Pandey are just a few among the many names who are no less than student icons in themselves now!


Brush up your knowledge about the legal goings-on in case you don’t know who they are, these are all those real proud heroes of their lives, who have showcased extraordinary grit and courage to nip adversity at its bud and take life as it came to them! Meet the IDIA Scholars, who cracked the CLAT 2011, and are now in the premier National Law Universities in India. All of them hail from lesser than modest backgrounds, having been subjected to the harshest hardships in life. Armed with nerve-cracking guts in their blood, steering through life’s challenges, they now stand with their heads held high, among those multitudinous well-fed, well-to-do kids, who have made it to the NLUs.  



IDIA is what has brought in all the difference and spark to their lives. We started out as a pan-India student movement in making quality legal education accessible to the poorest of the poor in the country, and now in the second year of our existence, are very much alive and kicking! We have met with tremendous success in our very first year, and thanks to the coverage given by various news papers, be it The Hindu, Indian Express, or the Times of India, we have received widespread applause and publicity. Our good work continues to be appreciated by all the quarters in the legal fraternity till date.


We have had an excellent set of people working with us and the success rate speaks for itself, of their wide capabilities and competencies. 


The present Directors of State Chapters for the tenure 2011-12 are:


1. Aathira Menon – Karnataka Chapter - menon.aathira@gmail.com
2. Darshana Mitra – West Bengal Chapter - darshana.mitra@gmail.com
3. Apoorv Shah – Gujarat Chapter - apoorv.phoenix@gmail.com
4. Prateek Mohapatra – Uttar Pradesh Chapter - prateek.rmlnlu@gmail.com
5. Gowri Harikumar – Kerala Chapter -gowrivrh@gmail.com
6. Rachit Ranjan – Bihar Chapter -ranrachit@gmail.com
7. Srishti Aishwarya – Jharkhand Chapter - silkjutes@gmail.com
8.     Abhishek Kumar - Rajasthan Chapter - abhi.nlu@gmail.com
9.     Jwala Thapa & Joseph Renthlei -North East Chapter - jwaladthapa@gmail.com
10.   Amartya Bag, Sayobani Basu & Vivek Jain - Orrisa Chapter - abag.kls@gmail.com


Not only the State Heads, we also have a wonderful team looking after the National Verticals. Here are their honorary mentions:


1. Research and Policy – Prajna Mohapatra (NUJS)
2. IDIA Disability – Anusha Reddy and Vaishnavi (NUJS)
3. IDIA Training – Sumitra Suresh (NALSAR) and Srishti Goyal (NUJS)
4. Core Advisory and Implementation – Raghul Sudheesh and Arnab Roy
5. Funding – Jhalak Kakkar (NUJS)
6. Admissions and Scholarship – Megha Kaladharan (NLSIU)


Call for Student Directors – State Chapters and All-India Verticals


At the behest of this second year of our existence, we are all set to spring in some fresh blood into our workforce! Now, when this is the lightening speed with which we are moving ahead, why not join us and be a part of history in the making? Why not spearhead the change you so-dearly want to see in the world? We ideally expect our IDIA Directors to possess the following qualities:


1. Should be proactive and willing to take initiative

2. Should be bold enough to take decisions under pressure of time and/or other factors
3. Should possess strong inter-personal skills and should be able to lead teams
4. Should be able to think out of the box and should be innovative
5. Most importantly, should be committed to the IDIA cause and should be able to spend a significant amount    of time on IDIA consistently throughout the year. 


If you think you have the above mentioned qualities, then IDIA is made for you!


We invite applications for the post of State Heads to kick-start new chapters and for following posts in the All-India Verticals:


1. Publicity and Media
2. Website
3. Sensitization
4. Mentorship

Send in your CV and expression of interest to idiadiversity@gmail.com to be a part of our team. Those of you who are interested in being a part of Publicity and Media - All India Vertical; please mail your CV's to raghulsudheesh@gmail.com


We are also looking for people to join the specific teams which already have team leaders listed; so if you are interested in joining those specific teams please email the team leaders directly in their id's listed against their names.

Join our Google Group

You are most welcome to give in your inputs as to how best you can serve our purpose and how best can IDIA be improvised. If you wish to be a part of our Google group, drop in your mails to Shambo Nandy at shambonandy@gmail.com, and stay updated with our new programs and ideas. 


Anything more you want to know about us, visit our website. 

My Past Can’t Tie Me Down says Karthika Annamalai – The IDIA girl who made it to NUJS

I remember a time when I would sit in my neighbor’s house drinking milk that had a cloying smell. My cousin would come running in, yelping with pain and cursing in Tamil between her husky wails. “Let him go to hell,” she would shout. My neighbors would automatically lock her in one of their musty storage rooms, and we would resume our activities as if she had never come.

Her father, drunk with alcohol and staggering between his threats of murder, would stumble in with a heavy piece of firewood in his hand, asking if my cousin was hidden in the house anywhere. As the fat old woman of the house held me close and gave me a warning look not to give the secret away, she responded with a threatening disgust that my cousin was nowhere to be found. My uncle would then walk all around the village, in its sugarcane and rice fields, cursing and searching, while my auntie stood submissively in the doorway. Tears flowed down her face, hot with shame and hopelessness. I would return to their house only once my uncle was either nowhere to be seen or fast asleep. After my auntie would put me to sleep, I would lie in bed wondering what my mother was doing, where she was and if she had abandoned me. My heart was so heavy that my teary eyes would lull me to sleep.

As soon as I would get up each morning, my cousin would wash my face and my auntie would give me curd to eat my rice with. I would then follow my cousin, whom I was very fond of, to graze our cow. He would teach me to pet and feed our cow. Sometimes we would go on small adventures to our neighbor’s mango fields or we would go on top of the village rocks to eat prickly pears, not minding that they were staining our clothes pink and that the small thorns were in our hands and tongue. It was during these times that I would forget that my mother, along with my six-month-old brother, were somewhere far away searching for work. She had to give up being a housewife and look for work to support our family once my father had passed away. When I was bored, I would remember my mother with so much longing and loneliness that I would start to cry.

When I turned three, my mother sent for me. Like my aunt and uncle, she too had found work in a quarry. Our house had four granite slabs covered with mud for walls and stacks of neatly tied woven coconut leaves for a roof. After settling down here, I would walk about the feces covered mud roads with my skirt lifted shamelessly over my head to avoid the merciless sun and the rising dust and smoke from the quarry. Otherwise, I would follow my mother down the steep quarry where I would sit a few meters away, watching her frail body shatter stones with a heavy hammer. I suppose it was during a time like this, though many years later, that a piece of stone hit me on my forehead. Curious and bored, I picked it up. It was crudely shaped like a heart and had tiny specks of gold on it. It is one among the three things I keep on my bed for good luck.  It is a tangible reminder of where I came from.

Two other items that are constantly present on my bed are reminders of my present, and my future: my art supplies and preparatory books.  If not for Shanti Bhavan, I would have little need for – or interest in – these things.

Since being admitted to Shanti Bhavan at the age of four, the hours I spent letting my imagination run wild instead of going for physical training session has resulted in me receiving various awards and titles within my school for outstanding performance in the field of visual art. Now, drawing abstract pictures, being recommended by many teachers and classmates to make posters, and being asked to make cards for various people is a medium through which I express my passion for art.  This is a talent that would not have been nurtured or encouraged had I not attended Shanti Bhavan.

The preparatory books, on the other hand, are scattered on my bed because I am soon appearing for my entry into a law college.  I decided years ago that I wanted to be a human rights lawyer, fighting against the many social injustices that exist in India, more than a handful of which I have witnessed myself in my family and community.  The values instilled in me at Shanti Bhavan – those of humility, honesty, and generosity – have all impressed upon me the necessity to always work to help those who are less fortunate than me in any way possible.  This is where my desire to work as a human rights lawyer stems from.  I also hope that working in the field of law in India will provide me the skills I need to one day alleviate poverty and injustice on a broader scale, hopefully in a political position in India.  Ideally, I will one day become the Prime Minister.

Every item I cherish communicates much about me.  As I reflect on the past 14 years of my life, I realize they are tied to one of my two lives – that of a village girl who grew up in a world of sadness and desperation, devoid of hope, and the other of an educated and confident woman, who was given an amazing opportunity to aspire.  Both of these lives compose who I am, and equip me with the knowledge to one day change the country I live in.

IDIA needs Vibrant Team Leaders to head the Question Papers Preparation Wing

IDIA urgently needs a team that will prepare exam papers for training IDIA scholars this year. The team will consist of those who will prepare questions, as also those who will then prepare exams/tests from the question bank so created. We need a strong team leader to lead the “test” preparation aspect. We also need leaders to co-ordinate the process of preparing questions for:

1.      English

2.     Maths

3.     Legal Reasoning

4.     Logical Reasoning

5.     GK

We need people not only to deliver high quality questions and put together good quality tests, but to do so consistently month after month. 

This will be a paid vertical for IDIA and we will pay per question prepared by you. We will also pay for the time involved in assessing questions and putting together tests.  At this stage, this is only a call for folks interested in taking on leadership positions. So if any of you are interested in being leaders for any of these aspects, please drop an email to <idiadiversity@gmail.com>. 

Please do send your CV to the above email ID and also list out any IDIA activities you’ve done this past year. 

Sensitisation at Government Higher Secondary School, Kattappana, Kerala

The sensitisation session for the XII standard students of Government Higher Secondary School Kattappana was conducted on 3 June 2011. The school is located in Kattappana, a small town in Idukki district, Kerala. The headmaster and teachers of the school were welcoming. We had an opportunity to interact with the teachers of the higher secondary classes before we addressed the students. This was of great utility as we could get a clear picture of the academic as well as economic background of the students. This is the first higher secondary batch of the school and hence the teachers have put great hopes on these students. This school was named the Government Tribal School until a couple of years back but was recently renamed as Government School since considerable number of non – tribals in the area were also looking up to this institution for education. Most of these students are from very poor economic backgrounds and hence are forced to contribute to their family income. Hence many of them work as auto drivers, labourers in pepper plantations, waiters in catering services etc after their class hours and on holidays unlike their better privileged counterparts who spend these hours in various tuition centers and entrance coaching institutes. As we spoke about IDIA, the teachers were happy that new vistas were being opened up for these students as many of them could not even dream of higher education due to financial constraints.

The session for the students began at 2:30 pm. We had 41 students from both Science and commerce batches together, listening to us. A considerable number of students were absent owing to the heavy rains in the district. Taking into account what we had gathered from our interaction with the teachers, we began the session asking how many of them were desirous of pursuing their studies after XII standard. We were shocked to find that only about 50% of the students were desirous of being graduates. Hence the first task ahead was to convince them about the need for higher education. Proceeding further on an interactive mode, it was found that only a microscopic minority had decided upon what career they wanted to pursue. None of the students had even considered law as an option. This was surprising as almost everyone in the class were keen on law and lawyers which was reflected in random questions (which included questions on self defence, murder, various torts etc) which they wanted answered as soon as we entered their class room (and we had a tough time postponing most of these questions for another occasion due to paucity of time!) and yet none of them wanted to be lawyers! This, we soon found, was in-fact due to a few misconceptions about the prospects of this profession.

They were then told about various opportunities available for a law graduate besides litigation which included working with law firms, other corporate firms, NGOs, PSUs and other entrepreneurial possibilities. This went a long way in removing their misconceptions and we found their interest growing considerably. The concept of National Law Schools and CLAT was new to them. They were briefed about the curriculum at law schools which included advanced syllabus, interactive classrooms, moot courts, internships etc. They were also told about the syllabus and question pattern for CLAT. By then we could see the enthusiasm and curiosity growing. We had queries coming up from all corners of the classroom which included the fees structure at law schools. They were disappointed when they heard about the fees structure at law schools. But they were soon relieved when we told them how IDIA could open the gates of Law Schools for them.

We wound up the session at 3:30 pm promising that we would come again to conduct the aptitude test to select students for intensive training. It was a great surprise to find a lot of students approaching us personally after the school hours sharing their hopes about reaching law schools. Many of them were determined and we are sure to see many of those faces in law schools.

Report by Shinsa PM and Telma Raju

IDIA Sensitisation Programme, K.V. Vastrapur, Ahmedabad

The first visit to KV Vastrapur was made on 27th January 2011 by Aditi Sheth, Tridib Bose and Sanyukta Biswas. It was intended to take permission from the principal, Ms. Jamie James for conducting the CLAT awareness workshop for the 11th std students. She permitted and informed us to consult the Physics teacher Vandana who taught physics in 11th std, regarding the date and time of the workshop the legal and subsequent date for legal aptitude test. So to begin with, we told them the future prospective of studying law. Then we told them, the pattern of taking up streams in the 2nd year, so as to let them to know how even science can be an advantage to them. We explained the difference between an NLU and traditional law schools. We told them about the holistic approach towards legal education in NLUs especially adding the emphasis laid on projects, publications, moots, parliamentary debates, model united nations, committees etc. We finally told them about how CLAT and how to go about preparing for it. Then we told them about IDIA project. Its aim to increase cultural diversity at NlUs and efforts to draw marginalized section of students to the mainline. To touch upon humour, I had personally asked them to check good law movies such as To Kill a Mocking Bird and Erin Brockowitch.

The second visit was made on 2nd February 2011 by Aditi Sheth, Sukarn Singh Maini and Sanyukta Biswas to conduct CLAT awareness workshop. The batch consisted of 44 students from science background. The workshop took roughly 40 mins. The students made rather inquisitive and intelligent questions. 22 students showed keen interest in giving the legal aptitude test. We were informed to contact the biology teacher Moushumi who taught 11th std, for the names of those might be interested in giving the legal aptitude test.The test was conducted at K.V. Vastrapur, Ahmedabad on 9th February, 2011. 31 students appeared for the test. 4 of the team members namely, Tirth Bhatt, Shreyasi, Sanyukta Biswas and Vikrant Pachnanda conducted the test. After conducting the same, the papers were checked and 5 students were shortlisted out of which two has scored 23 on 35, two scored 20 on 25 and one scored 17 but got all her legal reasoning correct. When we met these five students in person, three said that they only gave the test to check their aptitude and that they were not interested in law. Out of these three, two also seemed not to have a problem with their income and also stated that they gave the test only to check their aptitude and that they were not interested in pursuing law. The remaining two seemed interesting and also fell within the low income bracket. However one of them has not responded back and the other is not interested in joining IMS although we did asign each of those two students mentors to assist them.

Report compiled by Sanyukta Biswas and Vikrant Pachnanda on behalf of IDIA Gujarat

IDIA Sensitisation Programme at Kendra Vidyalaya, Annanagar, Chennai

The first sensitisation programme of IDIA, Chennai Chapter was conducted in the Kendra Vidyalaya School at Annanagar, Chennai on 5th February, 2011. Mr.Naveen Kumar.M, final year student of the School of Excellence in Law, Chennai addressed the students of the 11th Standard. Around 70 students attended the programme. Mr.Ramamurthy, first year student of the School of Excellence in Law, Chennai also coordinated in conducting the programme. Mr.Naveen started his address by clearing the misconceptions that the young minds had about the legal profession. It was pointed out that ‘Law’ is no more the last resort for ambitious and aspiring students in the present day. The basic set-up of the National Law Schools and other reputed institutions was also highlighted.

The speaker explained about the prospective opportunities that law students would have in the upcoming years. An insight was provided about litigationin Courts, corporate firms and L.P.O’s and also about judicial services. The students who are very keen on the pay packages were informed that as a successful lawyer, one can make money certainly more than what other professionals can earn. The students were informed about the primary goal of IDIA and encouraged to enter into the law schools instead of confining themselves in regular courses. The growth of the Indian Legal system, the lives of great members of the Bar like Palkivala, Chagla were discussed in the course of the programme. A sound message was sent that if our country is to be driven in the right direction as many right thinking people expect, it was possible only with the active support of members of the bar and the bench. Mr.Naveen also spoke about the  scholarships available for poor students and the support that shall be extended by IDIA in this connection.

Further, the opportunities what a law school student could have like attending International moot courts, internships, debates and conferences was elucidated in the programme. Before the concluding remarks, the students were invited to clarify their queries. It was surprising to note that around 7 to 8 students had very interesting and thought-provoking questions. One girl student asked about opportunities for an academician in law schools. The speaker replied that if she gets into law teaching, she will certainly become one among the best law teachers of tomorrow. Most of the questions came from the girl students compared to that from the boys. The Principal and teachers were very accommodative and it is certain that the IDIA movement shall become a big success in Tamil Nadu.

Registration of the IDIA Trust

Friday, the 4^th of February 2011 was a momentous day for IDIA. For this was the day when the IDIA trust came into being, comprising of:

Prof. M.P.Singh, Vice Chancellor, WBNUJS

Justice Ruma Pal, ex Supreme CourtJjudge

Shishira Rudrappa, Founder, Bar and Bench

Shamnad Basheer, Ministry of HRD Professor of IP Law, WB NUJS

The trust deed appoints Prof. Shamnad Basheer as the first managing trustee.

The first meeting of the IDIA trust was held on the very same day at the National University of Juridical Science, Kolkata. The meeting was attended by all the trustees, namely, Prof. M.P.Singh, Prof. Shamnad Basheer, Mrs Ruma Pal and Shishira Rudrappa and also by the IDIA team leaders and volunteers present at NUJS. The meeting started with Prof. Basheer introducing the trustees to some of the IDIA team leaders and volunteers and thereafter each team leader was called upon to introduce his/her chapter and team before the trustees, in order to give them a fair idea about the work that has been undertaken by each of the chapters of IDIA.

Before the commencement of the presentations, the IDIA brochure prepared by Vivek Verma and Diptoshree Basu was handed out to each trustee.

The first presentation was by Diptoshree Basu who leads the Diversity at Home chapter and North East chapter of IDIA, followed by Arnab Roy who presented on the WB IDIA team. Thereafter Kumar Kislay introduced the IDIA Jitholi chapter to the trustees, Anusha Reddy on the Hyderabad chapter and Gazala on the Kashmir chapter. Priyanka Raj and Avisha Gupta presented on the training and question banks being created by IDIA for CLAT 2011. Prajna Mohapatra who heads the research and policy wing of IDIA elaborated on the various aspects on which IDIA has undertaken research and assisted the CLAT Committee 2011 to take decisions and make welcome modifications to CLAT 2011 paper.

After the presentation, Prof. Basheer introduced the other functional chapters of IDIA (such as Karnataka, Rajasthan etc) whose team leaders were not able to attend the meeting . Thereafter, the trustees interacted with the student volunteers and asked questions pertaining to the day to day functioning of the project. Mrs Ruma Pal suggested that IDIA must provide interest free loans to the IDIA scholars instead of providing full scholarships to them, given the current status of funds for the project. She also asked the students whether they have any provision for selecting girls as a part of the diversity objective. Mr. Rudrappa stressed on the need to document all the processes at IDIA so that it is easier for future teams to co-ordinate with each other and conduct all the processes without depending on any particular individual. Prof Basheer assured them that documentationwas being undertaken by each chapter and uniform formats being used by them to make the process more homogenous.

He also put forward the proposal of appointing a full time CEO from May 2011 who will oversee the functioning of the project on an all India basis.

The IDIA team thanks Debanjan Mandal, Sourav Bhagat and Paroma Ghosh of Fox Mandal Associates, Kolkata for their help in drafting and registering the trust.