{"id":383957,"date":"2026-05-13T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T05:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=383957"},"modified":"2026-05-13T10:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T05:20:08","slug":"from-tech-law-practice-to-academia-vasishtan-p-on-data-protection-digital-sovereignty-and-teaching-law-in-a-changing-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2026\/05\/13\/from-tech-law-practice-to-academia-vasishtan-p-on-data-protection-digital-sovereignty-and-teaching-law-in-a-changing-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"From Tech Law Practice to Academia: Vasishtan P on Data Protection, Digital Sovereignty, and Teaching Law in a Changing Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

1. Kindly introduce yourself to our readers.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am an Assistant Professor of Law at the Tamil Nadu National Law University (TNNLU), Tiruchirappalli. I teach constitutional laws, election law, jurisprudence, law and policy in emerging technology, etc. Currently I am pursuing my PhD from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata. I am an alumnus of the Hidayatullah National Law University (HNLU), Raipur (LLM in Technology and Law), holding two gold medals including the University Gold Medal, and TNNLU [BA LLB (Hons.)]. I was formerly a Tech Lawyer at a renowned law firm, with a specialised Post Graduate Diploma (PGD) in Tech Law Policy from Sai University, Chennai as a full-scholarship recipient before diving into an academic career. I also hold a Master of Business Laws (MBL) from the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) and publish my research work in journals and on Op-Eds on various social issues.<\/p>\n

2. Your academic and professional journey reflects an early and sustained commitment to technology law and data protection. Was there a defining experience that convinced you that this was the field you wanted to specialise in, or was it a gradual evolution shaped by exposure and research?<\/span><\/p>\n

As a last bencher in my undergraduate (UG) days, I have always wished to be part of a niche where I would be able to both exuberate my abilities without being in the race that would demand my full attention and time. I reasonably enjoyed my undergrad law school in experimenting my hand in various activities. Name randomly, and I would have been there, done that. Intellectual Property (IP) and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) fields heavily engrossed my attention. Tech law was extremely niche, especially in the post-Puttaswamy verdict era. I understood I must traverse in the data privacy\/protection trail but lacked quite the resources. My final semester being impeded by COVID was the breakthrough when Prof. (Dr) Ananth Padmanabhan, who was leading the Daksha Fellowship, offering Tech Law Policy Specialisation for select lawyers, interviewed me, validated my style of working and onboarded me into his brainchild Daksha Fellowship. I was never the academically ideal student at my Law School, but Dr Ananth saw something in me in his pursuit to build an excelling tech policy lawyer. I only believed in him, and since then there has been no looking back. The world was holistically enriched with experts from the tech law domain that opened floodgates into a world to explore. I credit every decision and paths I have ever taken since 2020 to him; trusting and pulling me into this domain.<\/p>\n

3. You transitioned from freelancing as a technology lawyer advising start-ups to full-time academia at TNNLU. How did your experiences in practice influence your approach to teaching technology law, and what gaps between theory and practice do you most consciously try to bridge in the classroom?<\/span><\/p>\n

The second lockdown during COVID in 2021 summer gave a second existential crisis as a lot of companies froze their hiring. I believed it to be another 10-month lockdown and LLMs were only open. I competed in the PG CLAT and secured HNLU, Raipur since they had Technology and Law specialisation. I was fortunate to use my tech and policy experience as a lawyer and consequently could top my batch. And customarily, I witnessed every professor motivating me to join academia, alongwith my University Grants Commission—National Eligibility Test (UGC NET) results, TNNLU’s offer had also come in the same timeline. I entered academia to have a temporarily secure career, knowing well, I also loved teaching, fulfilling my arc of giving back to my institution that raised me. I offered TNNLU’s first-ever tech subject through my elective Law and Policy in Emerging Technology. I bring insights that enable a student to be tech-law ready by grasping the subject through the lens of a shifting economy and laws\/policies made in tech arena across the globe. Artificial Intelligence (AI), FinTech, account aggregation, privacy, regulations, etc. I do not follow a routine approach that core courses follow but extend the flexibility of approaching the subject to my students, like how they would ideally work as a Tech Lawyer, advising their clients at a law firm\/public policy think tank. This liberty to holistically and practically answer with a dynamism extends to their examination questions also.<\/p>\n

4. As a PhD candidate at NUJS, Kolkata, focusing on data protection and law, how did you situate your research within India’s evolving data protection framework, particularly in the post-DPDP Act era? What core challenges do you believe Indian data protection law must urgently address?<\/span><\/p>\n

I figured India is handling a cluster of issues raised in the technological era, as the digital realm of governance is essentially a virtual replication of a pen-paper governance, not uniquely revolutionary. The large reason to attribute has been India’s way of building its sovereignty by holding a unionised approach. Here, stakes of securing 1.3B+ population being appallingly high, automatically encourages to conservatively prioritise national security first, before being tech-liberal by nature. I am arguing in my underway thesis that India needs to restructure its social contract theory by recognising its natural model of governance at its core, to onboard itself into a better tech-sovereign. I hypothesise this would allow the Indian citizens to protect themselves autonomously and would also enable India to be a globally-competent digital sovereign, with its data laws at par with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). I argue that non-personal data should also be regulated under the same regulator. Once the social contract model of India upgrades its position to the newest tech-regime, it automatically repositions itself to affirm a new global sovereignty internationally, and can offer greater governance, domestically.<\/p>\n

5. Your academic credentials are diverse, ranging from an LLM in Technology and Law to an MBL from NLSIU. How did this multidisciplinary legal training shape your understanding of technology regulation?<\/span><\/p>\n

My constant need to find a niche incessantly motivated me to keep scouting for new opportunities and fields till I would exhaust my options. I prepared my internships and publications on a wide variety of fields, to alleviate any ambivalence, and to escape my fear of not exploring the unknown worlds yet. Thus, my degrees, publications, and Op-Eds seldom follow a concrete pattern or a particular niche. Fortuitously, little did I know, it honed my skills to be prepared for any future in any field and sponsored my base confidence to step up to any requirement, come what may. My multidisciplinary profile is rather incidental than planned.<\/p>\n

Tech law might sound like a single niche from the outside, but is a universe of its own, binding several vantages of law and social sciences within it. Inside tech law, there is space for anyone, welcoming with myriads of resources and opportunities. It helped me approach tech law with a certain assurance that I would find my place there only in a matter of time.<\/p>\n

6. How did your Daksha Fellowship experience shape your research orientation and professional outlook? In what ways did it prepare you for the academic-policy interface you now operate within?<\/span><\/p>\n

Daksha Fellowship truly dared to build a lawyer, per the exact blueprint, how the internationally-demanded practitioners and doyens of the field aspired to recruit. It accorded the program with bootcamps, workshops, accountancy and journalism courses, etc. to build a highly skilled workforce of tech and policy professionals, so stepping into the international arena would feel like one’s backyard. The program introduced me to highly sought-after individuals and noble luminaries in the field. I had the privilege of being taught by them across various courses, familiarising me how the real world operates, especially coming from a Tier-III Indian city. The highly-responsible environment helps my career and life to be super-comprehensive and all-accounting in tasks I undertake even today.<\/p>\n

7. You have published extensively on Indian federalism, social justice, intellectual property, and privacy law. How do you see these domains intersecting with technology law?<\/span><\/p>\n

The intersection of these domains is the new constitutional frontier. I see technology law as the operating system through which our traditional\/customary legal values are now being re-coded and metamorphosed to its new medium. We are transitioning to the new format of digital federalism where centralising tendencies of digital public infrastructure often bypass State-level competencies. Social justice has reformed beyond affirmative action to algorithmic accountability and ensuring that automated decision-making does not bake historical prejudices into the future.<\/p>\n

The IP era in the wake of AI and tokenised tech systems, offers new challenges to balance between private incentive and public access. The privacy as the universal constitutional guarantee acts as the bedrock for all these intersections. Without a robust data-sovereignty framework, the social contract itself is compromised. Technology does replace these fields, but subjects them to a high-stress test, demanding a [r]evolutionary jurisprudence that is as agile as the dynamism it seeks to regulate.<\/p>\n

8. You have actively participated in and presented at numerous conferences. How have these academic exchanges influenced your research thinking? What value do such platforms hold for young scholars and practitioners?<\/span><\/p>\n

Presentations are better when you begin as a student. It gives one ample time to hone their public-speaking skills and to participate in a critical give-take academic environment, better than our comfortable law school by exposing us to an accountable learning environment, putting our reputation at stake, that we might ideally miss in a silo.<\/p>\n

Participating in confluences forces us to transition from abstract thoughts to defensible clarity. For young scholars, these platforms are indispensable for navigating the hidden curriculum of academia. Beyond the CV value, they offer a front-row seat to evolving legal trends and provide a collaborative space to build the intellectual networks that sustain a long-term research career. Several contacts of mine across fields were indeed networked through conferences. I encourage students to save up the money and present at conferences in person that suit their budgets. Present in every opportunity they could. Most of these conferences occur on weekends, not concerning classroom attendance.<\/p>\n

9. Given your research focus on data protection, how do you perceive the balance between innovation, State surveillance, and individual privacy in India? Are we moving towards a rights-centric or State-centric digital governance model?<\/span><\/p>\n

India currently stands at a constitutional crossroad, experiencing a push-pull dynamic between building its Viksit Bharat 2047 vision and prioritising national security while at it. The challenge is universal. All globally competing data-sovereign nations are struggling to juggle between the dyadic of a liberal global citizenry with maximum autonomy and balancing international State relations without compromises. Given India’s geo-political demographic history, inclining towards a State-centric digital governance model at its nascent stages would supply a rational and logical path till it can afford maximum autonomy to its citizens. This would also fulfil India’s social justice State as complete rights\/justice rely solely on the stability of a State to offer it.<\/p>\n

10. From your perspective as a researcher and educator, how should young lawyers and law students approach specialisation in niche fields? Is early specialisation an advantage, or should it be preceded by broader legal exposure?<\/span><\/p>\n

Niche specialisation should not be a sprint, but a marathon of cultivating a gradual identity. I always advocate for exposure before expertise. A lawyer who specialises in AI without a grounded understanding of the law of contracts or constitutional law is like a protagonist with a cardboard knife. The moment the script fails execution; you would just become the one in a costume getting punched in the face.<\/p>\n

Early specialisation is good but never a safe option. It does offer a competitive edge in a saturated market but risks you into an intellectual down drain. That is simply a high risk for low reward. Niche means you would hold the ability to draw parallels across domains applying any conceptual understanding with every last challenge a field would throw at you. For students, the goal is to be complete. A broad horizontal framework of foundational legal knowledge coupled with a deep vertical dive into your chosen specialisation. Master certain basics appropriately first. Rest would fall into place. Do dare to make mistakes while responsibly experimenting. Every consequent choice, including your instincts, would automatically be scaffolded by your informed control, soon enough.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

1.<\/a> Assistant Professor, Tamil Nadu National Law University, Tiruchirappalli.<\/p>\n

2.<\/a> Student Ambassador, Tamil Nadu National Law University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interviewee: Vasishtan P1<\/sup><\/a>
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