The Law School Folk: The Editorial Board, “Glasnost” of the National Law University Delhi

A name that translates into “transparency”, Glasnost is the student-run newspaper at the National Law University in Delhi. Started in February this year, the newspaper has articles on a wide host of topics, from innovative ways to fight boredom in lectures, to movie reviews, and interviews with alumnus.  In this e-mail interview with Bar & Bench, the Editorial Board at Glasnost discusses the work that went behind setting up the newspaper, faculty response, and the magic of the pipeline.  

Bar & Bench: When did Glasnost start operations? How did you guys set it up? Do you also have a print edition?

Team Glasnost: We started off only last month on the 22nd of February. It is also the day Karl Marx first published the Communist Manifesto, a bit of serendipity there. There really wasn’t much setting up, since we had been talking about the idea for a very long time and were clear with what we wanted. We did research on a lot of college newspapers to help us get a better idea of things. We were against a print edition from the start, because a print edition is too rigid and time consuming to produce, not to mention the unnecessary environmental damage. A web-based platform would allow us to focus on delivering timely content, making it relevant to our readers.

B&B: What is the year-wise composition of Team Glasnost? 

TG: The Editorial board presently comprises of five fourth-year students and one third-year student, plus we have editors who head each section, that includes students from the second, third and fourth year batches. Being an essentially crowd-sourced newspaper, everybody in college participates in the reporting of events.

B&B: You clearly have covered a wide range of topics in a pretty short span of time – How often do the posts go up and how has the journey been so far?

TG: We chose our subjects keeping in mind the shared interests of Law School students and were rewarded with students wanting to write about what they enjoyed. We do not have a target in terms of the number of posts. It has been very exciting so far, It has been very fun learning what goes into running a Newspaper, even if it is at the scale of a college newspaper.

B&B: This article suggests playing the game Mafia to avoid boredom in class – you must be quite a hit with the faculty? What has their response been so far?

TG: We are fortunate to have a faculty who seem to take the content in their stride. We would like to believe that after classes the teachers argue over who gets to be God and why one of them would kill the other. The faculty has been appreciative of Glasnost and some have committed to contributing in the future. 

B&B: What have been some of the most popular posts so far? 

TG: One of our most popular posts has been an interview with an alumnus who got awarded the DAAD scholarship. This shows how the alumni continue to remain an active part of the student community. Another post we would like to mention is a satirical report on the absence of hot water in the hostels. It struck a chord with all those students who were tired of complaining. We did get hot water soon after the article, though the two events were admittedly unrelated.

B&B: Is there any topic that you choose not to cover?

TG: We have a fierce commitment to being an independent newspaper. Glasnost literally translates to transparency and that is our working motto. We will not shy away from covering anything. In fact, we have several articles planned that will raise important issues in our immediate surroundings, such as questioning the diversity achieved in ‘elite’ Law Schools or pointing out the ridiculousness of some University notices.

B&B: What are your plans going forward? 

TG: Right now, we are focused on becoming the primary source of news for everything in College and develop this platform as a space for effective engagement between the different voices on campus, which we believed to be lacking in our university. We are planning on introducing video content and podcasts as well, which will be used to hook our readership.

B&B: Last, I couldn’t find any article on the best place to order kebabs or the quirky new professor joining the campus – any leads or are these in the pipeline?

TG: Those articles are indeed on their way, along with some immediate topics that we’re really looking forward to cover, as we mentioned earlier. And remember, the pipeline is a holy place; never underestimate its power. Keep faith in and pray to the pipeline, for it is the fountain of all that is good and great.

(The Editorial Board of Glasnost currently consists of Bhargavi Vadeyar, Mini Saxena, Siddharth Manohar,Karan Chaudhary, Samith Nataraj and Arshu John)

(Every fortnight, Law School Folk will feature a student-run organisation of a law school. If you would like your college to be featured on Bar & Bench, send in a mail to info@barandbench.com with “LSF” in the subject line)