National Law School set up in Tamil Nadu

Inspired by the “National Law School of India” at Bangalore, a similar school is being set up in Tamil Nadu.

Chief Minister J Jayalalitha kick–started the prestigious Rs 100 crore project by laying the foundation stone for the new Tamil Nadu National Law School at her constituency of Srirangam encircled by the Cauvery river in Tiruchirapalli district on Monday.

Participating at a function at Srirangam where a massive crowd had gathered to greet her, she also inaugurated several other welfare projects and schemes worth Rs 240 crore. Jayalalitha said she was “extremely happy” that the school was being started.

The new school will be built on a 25–acre stretch in Navalur Kuttapattu in the Sirangam Talul. She recalled that it was during her previous regime that a “School of Excellence” was inaugurated at the Dr Ambedkar Law University. She said the present regime had taken the policy decision to establish a “National Law School” to further enhance the teaching of law and legal research at par with other international law schools amid the changing global scenario.

The Chief Minister said the state Assembly had recently passed the “Tamil Nadu National Law School Act”, 2012, to help set up this Institution. The school shall provide a quota for Dalits, Tribals, OBCs’ and Minority students as per the “existing rule of Reservation” in the State, besides earmarking a specific number for “Resident Students of Tamil Nadu”.

A number of free goats and cows were also distributed free to the rural poor. Justifying this distribution of freebies, Jayalalitha said that high economic growth rates in the country could make sense only if it enabled the upliftment of the poor and weaker sections by opening new doors of opportunities and incomes for them.
In the same breath she explained that the AIADMK Government’s welfare schemes for the poor were designed to make them “economically self-sufficient” in the long–run so that they did not have to depend on State doles for all times to come.

Referring ot Srirangam being among the foremost pilgrim centres in the country, with the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple there hailed as the holiest of Vaishnavite shrines, Jayalalitha also laid the foundation stone for the Rs 1 crore concrete high–roofing of the entire road stretch from the banks of the Cauvery at “Amma Mandapam” up to the Temple’s main gateway tower (Rajagopuram), to protect pilgrims from heat and rain all through the year. Other tourist facilities here were also being improved at cost of Rs 65 lakhs, while a Rs 5 crore auditorium to promote fine arts will be built in the “Singaperumal Temple complex”.

At the nearby and equally ancient Shiva Shrine, Sri Jambukeshwarar Temple at Tiruvanaikaval, Jayalalitha also flagged off six “battery operated vehicles” to help elderly pilgrims circumambulate its long “prakaras” without hassle, just as she did for the Srirangam Temple in 2011.