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Trupti Panigrahi

Trupti

PhD Student

Profile

Thesis title

Dancing Legally

Supervisors

Summary of research

Trupti’s project is examining the peculiarity of Indian classical dances and the scope of their protection within Indian Copyright Law. While the law protects dance-choreographies as a subset of dramatic works requiring storyline, ancient Indian dance literature understands drama as a sub-set of dance, which can be non-narrative. The requirement of storyline thence leaves the innovation in non-narrative forms of Indian classical dance choreographies, without copyright protection. In this scenario, the project proposes to examine the relevance of copyright law to innovation in Indian classical dance choreographies, as well as the important interaction between copyright claims of choreographers and personality rights of celebrities who may have popularised that choreography. The project seeks to understand the scope of fixation of Indian classical dances, both culturally and legally, and to see if they can be protected without any literary counterpart, or if sui generis protection is necessary to address this complex environment and what that might look like.

Biography

Trupti is a qualified lawyer and a law academic from India. She completed her LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law with Distinction from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), after which she taught law in Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, India. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), QMUL as an Arts and Humanities Research Council – London Arts and Humanities Partnership (AHRC-LAHP) Scholar. She was also offered the Herchel Smith Scholarship for the same. 

Trupti has taught subjects like Intellectual Property Law, Regulation of Technology and Cyber Space; and assisted in teaching subjects like Ancient Indian Jurisprudence, Law & Justice in a Globalising World, to law students in India. Trupti also has experience interning under legal luminaries like Late Member of Indian Parliament & Senior Advocate, Mr. Ram Jethmalani, Former Indian Cabinet Minister & Senior Advocate, Mr. Salman Khurshid, in legal organisations like the Law Commission of India, and in law firms with leading IP practice. Presently, along with her doctoral studies, Trupti is working as a Teaching Associate for the Film and Fashion Modules taught by Prof. Johanna Gibson at CCLS.

During her B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), she established the Cyber Cell of Delhi Metropolitan Education which aims at spreading awareness about Cyber Safety Measures and providing free legal aid to Cyber Crime victims. During her LL.M., she was selected to work as a Student Adviser for qLegal where she advised clients/start-ups/tech-entrepreneurs on their commercial-legal issues. She also conducted a workshop on IP aspects of video games for students of Ada. National College for Digital Skills, London.

In recognition of her work in the field of Dance, Sports, Social Service, Adventure Activities & Residential Project, she was conferred with the International Award for Young People-Gold Award (also known as the Duke of Edinburgh Award). She is an Odissi Dancer and has performed in various prestigious National/International platforms. Trupti is passionate about promoting and preserving Indian culture and heritage and has delivered lectures on the same.

Scholarships

  • Arts and Humanities Research Council – London Arts and Humanities Partnership (AHRC-LAHP)

Publications

Book Chapter

  • Trupti Panigrahi, ‘Dancing Legally’ in S. Sivakumar and Lisa P. Lukose (eds), Novel Dimensions of Copyright Law (Thomson Reuters 2022).

Research Article

  • Panigarhi, T. (2021). Imposing liabilities on persons of influence: An urgent step towards public policy measures in India. International Journal on Consumer Law and Practice. 9, 137-157.

Research

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