Ms. Sumedha Ray Sarkar, Assistant Professor of Law at Tamil Nadu National Law University has been selected for the ‘Samvidhaan Fellowship’. Conceptualised by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (‘Vidhi’) and supported by the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives, the Samvidhaan Fellowship is a one year, full-time and paid Fellowship. It is designed with the objective of closing this ‘constitutional principles to policy’ gap, and will support six legal scholars to work sustainably on key issues of Indian Constitutional Law.
Ms. Sumedha Ray Sarkar is an alumna of both ILS Law College, and Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi, and has read for her Masters at Columbia Law School on scholarship. Prior to teaching, Ms. Sumedha has worked as Research Assistant to Prof. (Dr.) Kamala Sankaran at the University of Delhi, who later went on to become the Vice-Chancellor of the Tamil Nadu National Law University in 2016. Ms. Sarkar also served as law clerk to Hon’ble Justice S. Ravindra Bhat while he was at the Delhi High Court, and later to Hon’ble Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman at the Supreme Court of India. Her areas of interest include judicial review, legal interpretation, and empirical legal studies.
As a Samvidhaan Fellow, Sumedha will be tracing the connection between language, education and federalism by conducting a predictive, interpretative exercise on the constitutional permissibility of a link language and its implications for the linguistic federal structure of India. Given the historical trajectory of the language issue in India and the distribution of legislative powers in the Constitution, her project posits that a likely route for the link language is a Central law mandating its use as the medium of instruction, or its compulsory inclusion in the curriculum in primary education. She hopes for her project to contribute to an understanding of the constitutional ramifications of a link language within the unique federal design of India, and begin a more tangible, objective discussion on its legal feasibility.
Read more about Ms. Sumedha Ray Sarkar Here
Notably another scholar selected for the prestigious Samvidhaan Fellowship is Mr Subhajit Debnath. Supremely knowledgeable, Mr. Debnath was associated with Tamil Nadu National Law University as an Assistant Professor of Law for two years. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, Great Britain, and a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, Switzerland. His areas of interest include Law and Society, Constitutional Law, and the Sikkim Himalaya.
Read more about Mr Subajith Debnath Here
*Image Courtesy: Vidhi Legal
