Manuj Bhardwaj is a final year student of B.A.LL.B at Lloyd Law College, Greater Noida. He is currently working as Chairman of INBA (Section for Law Students). He is an internationally recognized youth leader as he works in the field of Child & Youth Empowerment, he has also worked with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shri Kailash Satyarthi in 2013.

He is involved in various programs of United Nations & its organs like UNESCO for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, he has been invited as a National Speaker to represent State of Uttar Pradesh at International Youth NGOs Summit organized by YouThink in July 2015

He is a Career Counselor too and delivers free career counseling lectures to the students of class 10th – 12th in his hometown. He has attended and  participated in more than 50 National & International Conferences & Seminars on Law being organized by various International & National Organizations.

   1. How would you like to introduce yourself to our readers ?

Firstly a law student and secondly a young social entrepreneur.

2. Was it pre decided to do law or was it by chance ?

Haha!! Well actually father is having a very respectable governmental job and all the maternal side is full of politicians having the red beacons on their vehicles which allure me to do something to have that on mine and I decided to earn the same through  a  more respectable career i.e. Law . So it was decided in Class 10^th only in 2009. But would like to mention that pursuing Law as a career was decided with the idea & determination of having beacon on my vehicle but now it took a different shape of endless service for Nation’s development.

3. You are actively involved in conducting career councelling sessions. How did this idea strike your mind .

In present days the school going students are very much confused about their career and they end up with something which is not of their interest and ultimately they get fail. So I thought that I should conduct career counselling sessions for the students from class 9^th – 12^th , the idea to pick the students from these particular classes is that, as I think in class 9^th a student become more mature because of  the total change in academic curriculum and also the age, so he/she gets capable enough to think about his/her career and can start early, now why up to 12^th , because if someone who is looking for a proper guidance and haven’t mentored or guided till now, he/she still have a chance and a whole year to think and understand which field is appropriate for him/her. Would also like to mention that “It’s never too late to start thinking about your career till you are in Class 12^th”

4. You are working as Chair, INBA, Section for law students. Tell us something about INBA and your initiatives there.

Indian National Bar Association (INBA) is a fantastic organisation with more than 8000 members globally, it’s the only bar association in India having a fully operational Students Section. INBA has 26 different sections and representations in more than 14 countries. INBA Section for law Students was set up in 2014 and till now it has emerged as the most popular and the most active law student body in India. We took the initiative of representing problems of various Law Colleges to Government and helped in resolving them, Major issues of  students from one of the National Law University has been also represented to Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi for which his Excellency directed Ministry of HRD, Government of India for immediate appropriate actions. We also organise various Debate & Essay Competitions in association with prestigious companies like Novartis Pharmaceuticals & Qualcomm Inc. respectively on annual basis and the prizes of these competitions ranges from INR 50,000 to INR 1 lakh which creates a great participation and quality competition and the best thing is that INBA doesn’t charge anything from law students to participate in these competitions, We have also organise Facebook Q&A Session on Higher Education in association with Top Universities of U.S. & U.K. for the students who want to pursue their higher education from these countries. INBA Section for Law Students’ vision is to promote an awareness of justice and the rule of law across India, and helping law students to become a seasoned professional by giving them global platforms to learn & explore.

5. You were presented with “Youth Icon Award 2016” by Take Care India and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam International Foundation on National Youth Day. Share with our readers about your exemplary works in social arena.

Haha!! Exemplary…I leave it on you to judge

I have worked with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shri Kailash Satyarthi’s NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) for more than a year (2012 & 2013) where I was a part of many various raids conducted in different parts of Delhi to rescue Child Labourers working in hazardous conditions, these raids were hard to conduct as there is always a danger of life during the same. I along with the BBA officials have also met over 60 Parliamentarians and have made a representation to all Members of Parliament including the Prime Minister of India as well as the leader of opposition, to develop a political consensus against trafficking and call upon them to seek their support for inclusion of trafficking in the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 2013. Till now I have been a part of Kailash Ji’s Save the Childhood movement & Global March against Child Labour and find myself fortunate enough whenever I contribute to the noble cause.

In my hometown Agra I used to teach underprivileged children and help them in getting a basic/primary level education so that they can at least find some good jobs for their livelihood, till now I have personally taught more than 2,500 underprivileged children in Agra.

INBA also plays a very important role in making me a Social Entrepreneur as with the help of INBA I conduct free legal aid camps which helps the people who need legal help but are not able to spend money for it. It is my aim is to provide free legal aid to all the weaker sections of society.

It’s really a great honour to be presented with the prestigious “Youth Icon Award 2016” that too on National Youth Day which commemorates the Birth Anniversary of Great Swami Vivekananda who is an inspiration to all the young people. I am really thankful to Take Care India & Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam International Foundation for this and it will surely encourage me to continue my social work.

6. You were also awarded as the “Best Social Youth Entrepreneur” by the Government of Bangladesh and Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Tell us something about the summit and your experience there

The Global Youth Entrepreneurs Summit (20^th – 22^nd November 2015) was organised by Dhrubotara Youth Development Foundation (DYDF) Bangladesh in association with Govt. of Bangladesh and Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry to celebrate the Global Entrepreneurship Week at Bangladesh. Young entrepreneurs both Social & Business from more than 100 countries participated in the summit and had discussions on various topics like Global Entrepreneurship, ICT & Innovation, Human Rights & Good governance, Environment & Climate change, etc. Officials from both Government of Bangladesh and Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry participated actively in the summit and I was fortunate to share the Dias with the one of the Minister of Bangladesh Government in the panel discussion on Human Rights & Good Governance. I have represented India through a speech & presentation on the topic Youth Entrepreneurs: Strengthening Indian Economy through “Make in India” which was appreciated by all.

The work I am doing in India as a Social Entrepreneur was very much appreciated by the Organisers and they found my ideas & views of “Promoting Social Entrepreneurship” very interesting and awarded me the “Best Social Youth Entrepreneur Award”.  I have made a lot of friends from various countries like Jordan, U.S., U.K., Indonesia, Kenya and South Africa and enjoyed the hospitality of the Bengali people.

7. According to you what is the role of moots and paper publications in a law student’s life.

Now, that’s a favourite question.

See when you enter a law school you don’t have anything mentioned  under the “Legal work experience” section of your CV which could grab the attention of a lawyer or a law firm to have you as an Intern (to be an Intern is the basic aspiration of a fresher law student). Moot Court Competitions & Research paper publications are something which a law student can start in his/her first year and build his/her CV (which help him/her to get internship and job afterwards). Moot Court Competitions gives a great insight of how & what all goes inside a court room and apart from this it makes you a good public speaker and a good researcher (qualities of a good lawyer & academician) because you have to speak and research a lot while preparing for a moot which is same in the case of research paper. And I suggest all the law colleges to have Moot Trainers to train the students.

From my experience of four and half year in the legal community , a fresher student in the internship selection process is always judged on his/her moot court experience and the number of papers he/she got published and also in Job his/her internships are counted. This creates a simple formula as follows:

Good number of participation in quality moot court competitions & paper publications = Good number of quality Internships = Good Job.

Would like to share with you all that in making me a good speaker and a complete mooter the only credit goes to my friend Sapna Arora who believed in me & trained me. She herself is a fantastic debater & mooter and has won awards on National & International levels in Moot Court Competitions.

8. Your message to our readers

We all are working in different capacities for bringing positive changes in the society, but who will continue this change after we all are gone??

The answer is ……our younger sisters and brothers …The Children. But these days we are having a major problem of Child labour prevailing in our society which needs to be ended.

So my message is simple “Try to stop child labour as you can and save the childhood, let them get educated as they are the one who will continue the positive change”