Jun 23 2015 : Mirror (Mumbai) State's first National Law Univ to come up at TISS Ankita Bhatkhande TWEETS @aanks   Jogeshwari plan junked, and the varsity will start in July this year Maharashtra's first National Law University (NLU) will be situated within the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the academic year will begin in July, TISS Director Dr S Parasuraman confirmed to Mirror on Monday. Faculty interviews for the BA LLB and BCom LLB programmes for NLU were conducted on the TISS Deonar campus last week. Bhawani Prasad Panda, vice chancellor, NLU Mumbai, also confirmed that the institute will start in July: “We were looking for a good space to start with and had many options. Since TISS agreed, we decided to go ahead. We still haven't decided on the academic timeline for students.“It was announced in February that the NLU will be set up on government land in Jogeshwari, but Muslim groups protested that the land had been set aside for a community education hub. “We have given them [NLU] some space and infrastructure but we need some more funds for a bigger building that is proposed and have thus applied to the government for an advance of around Rs 60 lakh,“ said Parasuraman. He also spoke out about issues in TISS that have hit headlines ­ from the allegedly suppressed academic committee review report to the severe fund crunch faced by the institute that has delayed scholarships to several Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students. Besides the NLU, TISS has in the past few months signed several other collaborations ­ the one with Subhash Ghai's Whistling Woods in March being the most talked about and controversial one. Whistling Woods started advertising its courses with the TISS logo, and TISS students criticised the tieup saying that Whistling Woods is an elite institute on a disputed property where only rich kids can go and that it did not rhyme with TISS and its reputation for social inclusion. Parasuraman said that TISS does not make ad hoc collaborations and lays down basic principles that the collaborating organisation has to follow. “Our partnership with Whistling Woods is a mere collaboration,“ he said.“We are a social science institute and they are in the mainstream media. They have some of the most acclaimed people as visiting faculty and thus the students get better exposure with hands-on production, editing, etc. But at TISS, equal opportunity is what we always aim for and a mere collaboration doesn't mean that we will agree to all their terms. We have put some basic conditions before we sign the agreement, which we still haven't. First thing is that they should aim to generate good and sustainable livelihoods for all the students who graduate with the TISS-affiliated degree.Then, they have to give scholarships to all students from low income families and backward communities the way we do it in TISS as per government of India norms.“ In April, TISS was caught in a controversy over its alleged suppression of the academic committee report. Noted academics like Mrinal Miri and Samuel Paul had reportedly resigned from the committee because of its “slow paced working and lack in coordination amongst committee members“. Parasuraman said all the committee members are back and the report is expected by end June. “These people are senior academics.When the media writes something about them without checking facts, people tend to go into a shell,“ he said. “If people want to know the status of the report and other details of accounts and everything, they can always file their queries under RTI and we will give that to them.“ Asked if his resignation statement ­ that he had made soon after the newspaper reports ­ was just a response to the controversy, Parasuraman said: “Partly yes, but I did not say I will resign because of this. My term was supposed to get over in 2014 but as the director of the institute since 2004, I have some things to do before I leave. I am physically tired and I have other things to do like my own research and teaching. The institute will be open to applications for the new director soon and a selection committee will take a call on the other formalities.“ One of the biggest issues that Parasuraman faced in his 11-year tenure was a major fund crunch for government of India scholarships.Several students complained of delays in receiving the scholarships and blamed the institute. Parasuraman said the issue is nothing new: “Delays in releasing funds from the government have been there since the past several decades. Under the government of India scholarship, we get only 15 per cent of the total costs incurred for the two-year master's programme for our students; the institute has to bear the remaining 85 per cent. From providing travel and accommodation for the entrance exams to fee waivers for hostel, food and tuition fees, TISS covers all expenses.“