Internship Experience @ Odisha Human Rights Commission, Bhubaneswar: Fruitful Debates with the Chairperson

Your Name, College, Year of Study, Email ID

Swagat Dash, NLU Delhi, 2nd year

Name of Organisation, Location city, Team Strength

Odisha Human Rights Commission, Bhubaneswar, Team Strength-15

Application Process with contact details

Applicants must mail their CV and recommendation letter from the institution they are attending to ohrc@nic.in

Duration of internship and timings

The internship started on 17th December, 2015 and continued till 15th January, 2015.

First impression, first day formalities, infrastructure

OHRC is located in a building called the Toshali Bhavan situated in a prime location of Bhubaneswar city. The red Toshali building also houses various other organisations of the state.

The first day was a day worth remembering. The reason being I was reprimanded by the Honorable Chairperson of the Commission twice.

The first time for answering a question without standing up as it is a common practice in law schools to answer question while you are seated on your chair.

The second time I was reprimanded was because I questioned the efficacy of some test which the Juvenile Justice Board was employing. That made me angry for sure!

Main tasks

1. Attending court sessions.

2. Making briefs.

3. Presenting cases.

Work environment and people

The fellow interns were very friendly. Their presence made the whole internship program a lot better than expected.

The work environment is pretty cool and chilled out. No pressure or strict deadlines.

Best things

The work environment is the best. Further we had a lot of fruitful debates with the Chairperson on various issues.

Bad things

Honestly, I don’t remember any.

Stipend

No Stipend

Biggest Lessons

Human Rights is a filed which law students who are obsessed with with their big corporate dream often ignore. I was one of them until I interned here.

Getting to know the plight of the people by realizing how inhumanely a fellow human being can be treated despite having such strict laws, changed by perception all over.

Any Other Thing

Bhubaneswar is a beautiful city. It is clean, green and one of the least polluted cities of India. But we do not have a Mac D there. 😛

Accommodation

I had rented a flat with five other acquaintances. It was 3 km away from the OHRC building.

The rent for the flat was Rs. 11,000 per month. The share per individual was less than 3000 bucks.

Office Timings

The court commence at 11 am and continued till 2 pm. Although, after lunch we were advised to go through the cases and make briefs but most of us were not that obedient.

Therefore, we used to hangout at different places around the city with fellow interns.