National Law School of India University, Bangalore recently held its second stint at Focus India, highlighting India with the challenges faced and the way forward. The full day conference took place at the law school grounds in Nagarbhavi, on 8^th of January.

Focus India kick started with a key address note by Prof. Venkata Rao, the Vice Chancellor of the law school and was followed by a special address by Shardul Shroff, Managing Partner of Amarchand & Mangaldas.

Speaking to Bar & Bench on the conference Shardul Shroff said, “It was a good intensive conference with a lot of high level discussion, but the only thing I was disappointed by was that the students were not up to the level of the discussions. I would recommend better restructuring where the students are brought upto speed, so that they can dialogue with the practitioners. Great efforts put up by the students for organizing this event, it is commendable”.

Speaking about the conference with Manoj Bhargava, Partner Jones Day, he said, “It is a pleasure to be back at the National Law School's Focus India. We're delighted to meet our young talents and participate in the topics proposed by the students. Interacting with young minds and focused experts enables us to think out of the box. Lastly, the students and the school deserve full credit and thanks again for organizing an amazing conference”.

The conference had four sessions in total. The 1^st Session: The Companies Bill – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back chaired by Murali Ananthasivan of J. Sagar Associates, created quite a stir. Speaking on agreeing that the Bill is one step forward and two steps backwards, with Somasekhar Sundaresan, Partner at J. Sagar & Associates, said, “To my mind, indeed, the proposed company law represents one step forward and two steps back because of the extent of proposed powers of the state to intervene, the lost opportunity to keep regulatory overlap to the minimum, and the extent to which the Bill would give the government to be prescriptive”.

Speaking on the Bill being a step forward with Vineetha M.G., Partner at AZB & Partners said, “We have a general concept saying that the Director has to perform certain duties etc. In a lot of companies the Independent Directors don’t play the role they are supposed to, and a lot of questions remain unanswered because most of the times the Promoter Directors make the decisions. When the law puts it on the face saying that an Independent Director has an obligation, it is a step forward”.

The other three sessions were on Mergers & Acquisitions, Foreign Investments in India and Capital Markets chaired by Bahram Vakil of AZB & Partners, Shardul Shroff of Amarchand & Mangaldas and Sandip Bhagat of S & R Associates respectively.