There are several international scholarships awarded to students who want to pursue higher education abroad, but fewer for those who want to pursue higher education and legal research within India.
To provide scholarships on the lines of several prestigious international scholarships, the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) has decided to introduce its first PhD scholarship. It will be called the Dr. N.R. Madhava Menon Doctoral Fellowship. GE, an American multinational, has decided to partner with the university to fund the first batch.
The “Menon Scholar supported by GE India” entails fully funded opportunities, which will include annual tuition fee, monthly stipend, laptop and travel cost for attending a conference. All candidates who are accepted for the doctoral programme at NLSIU will be eligible to apply for this scholarship. The overall sponsorship value is around ₹75 lakh.
Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Vice Chancellor of NLSIU, said, “The fellowship was created to honour and celebrate the role of our university’s founder who pioneered legal education reform in India. This fellowship programme will identify and support PhD research scholars at NLSIU to make an exceptional contribution to legal knowledge and legal education, and to become future leaders in India.”
Prof. Krishnaswamy said that NLSIU seeks to deepen its engagement with high technology industries and research initiatives in Bengaluru to emerge as a world leading research hub in the next three years. In 2019, NLSIU had awarded PhDs to 10 candidates.
Srijoni Sen, Assistant Professor, NLSIU said that all PhD candidates will be eligible to apply, and will be interviewed by a three-member panel, who will assess them on their academic excellence, a compelling trajectory, potential of their work to make a significant contribution in the field of study and alignment to the values of integrity and empathy.
John Thaliath, general counsel, GE-South Asia said that the merit-based scholarship would support three candidates for a three-year duration. The company found this scholarship a “meaningful way of engaging with legal research in India”.