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India's first AI Policy Academic Council is Formed: the ISAIL Academic Council

Writer: Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law
Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law
Sep 9
2 min read

The Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law (ISAIL) has formally constituted the First ISAIL Academic Council, following governance amendments enacted by the Board of Trustees under Article 1 of the ISAIL Charter.


Pursuant to the Article 1 amendments, the Secretariat has formally elevated the 58 listed Ordinary Members into the tier of Academic Member, constituting them as the First ISAIL Academic Council.


Effective September 9, 2026, the tenure for evaluated members of this cohort, including designated Convenors Hamda Arfeen, Nisha Singh, and Sunil Khemka, runs concurrently until July 1, 2028, unless voluntarily relinquished earlier. For members holding prior three-year commitments, their Academic Membership remains protected until August 31, 2029.

The Society extends its heartfelt congratulations and sincere gratitude to the newly appointed Academic Members of the First ISAIL Academic Council for their continuing association with the ISAIL community:


  • Appointed Convenors: Hamda Arfeen, Nisha Singh, Kailash Chauhan and Sunil Khemka.

  • Rhett.Legal Nominations (Code of Law Challenge 2026): Abhijit Dubey, Aditya Vikram, Armaan Jena, Ayush Awasthi, Divyansh Sharma, Jayshree Sharma, Neharika Modgil, Nishant Jha, Pratyush Tiwari, Rasleen Kaur Dua, Rhea Shetty, Sankalp Prakash Dharana, Satyarth Singh, Shashwat Maurya, Shashwat Singh Rathour, Shivangi Shankar, Shivansh Saxena, Sujay Agrawal, Tushar Shetty, Vignesh Nachu, and Vishesh Saxena.

  • GD Goenka AI Policy Lab Nominations (via Dr. Tushar Sharma): Dheeraj Kumar Shukla and Starwin ET.

  • LegalWiki Nominations: Aniruddh Sachin Bajaj, Jasmeet Singh, Manaswee Mavuduru Pattanaik, Paritosh Garg, and Varshita A.

  • Direct Honorary Inductions: Chirkankshit Bihari Bulani, Kritika Dua, Rajat Upadhyay, and Shreyansh Gupta.

  • General Inductions: Aayush Sood, Akash M Kumar, Alisha Ganjawala, Areena Kausar, Arun R, Bahadur Shah, Chakshu Garg, Dr Tarun Kumar Das, Girish Purohit, Jatin Navin Chheda, Jha Arunima, Joy Bose, Kanwal Gupta, Kavya Sri Arigela, Krishnamurthy Kandregula, Lt Col (Dr.) Mahipal Lather (Retd.), Mathews Philip Valiaparampil, Mohini Misra, NV Ramana Murty, Rahul Bishnoi, Samanvithareddy Bongu, and Sunil Agarkar.


"The Society is deeply thankful for the continued dedication, intellectual rigour, and engagement demonstrated by our academic community," the Secretariat stated. "Their domain expertise remains invaluable to our ongoing deliberations, collaborative exchanges, and the work undertaken within the OpenBharat.net Governing Council (OBGC)."


These members shall also be featured in the ISAIL Global Members Profiles effective immediately (isail.in/globalprofiles).


Appointment to the Academic Council serves as an institutional invitation to collaborative scholarship; continuing association and involvement remain entirely self-directed, with the Society viewing formal affiliation as distinct from an individual’s personal frequency of active participation.


In addition to contributing to research tracks and standardisation initiatives, Academic Council members will continue to provide occasional, voluntary peer mentorship and academic perspective across regional divisions as their availability permits, in keeping with the standards set out under Article 4.

Comments

The Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law is an artificial intelligence industry forum, founded by Abhivardhan in 2018. Our mission as a not-for-profit industry forum for the analytics & AI industry in India is to promote responsible development of artificial intelligence and its standardisation in India.

Since 2022, the research operations of the Society have been subsumed under VLiGTA® by Indic Pacific Legal Research.

ISAIL has supported two independent journals, namely - the Indic Journal of International Law and the Indian Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Law. It also supports an independent media and community initiative - The Bharat Pacific.

ISAIL’s India-centric AI policy documentations, community-centric initiatives, and contributions to AI standardisation in India have been acknowledged by the Council of Europe, quite recently.

ISAIL logo

The Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law (ISAIL.IN) is an artificial intelligence industry forum, founded by Abhivardhan in 2018. Our mission as an independent, not-for-profit industry forum for the analytics & AI industry in India is to promote responsible development of artificial intelligence and its standardisation in India.

Enforcing AI standards in the Indian and Indo-Pacific markets is hard. And yet, ISAIL.IN intends to document data and inputs associated with the market tendencies around three facets of artificial intelligence: its adoption, research around it, and its real-life policy implications across as many sectors as possible.


This is why, the AiStandard.io Alliance, administered by ISAIL.IN, intends to establish an allies of AI entities in India, Asia and the Global South, to develop market-friendly AI standards, with sector-specific, and sector-neutral contexts.

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ISAIL is a registered charitable trust since 2019, under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882.

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