Faculty

Rakesh Haridas Nair is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur. He is UGC-NET qualified in Sociology and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Sociology at Hislop College, Nagpur. He completed his M.A. in Sociology from Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University.

Before joining MNLU Nagpur, he worked as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Symbiosis Law School, Nagpur, from 2023 to 2025. He had previously served there as a Visiting Faculty from 2021 to 2023, and also taught Sociology at G. H. Raisoni Law School, Nagpur. Through these teaching engagements, he has developed experience in introducing students to sociological thought and helping them connect it to contemporary questions of law, justice, identity, institutions, inequality, and social change.

His academic interests lie at the intersection of sociology and law. These include sociology of law, legal and social theory, ethics, migration, technology and society, artificial intelligence, environmental justice, law and sustainable development. He is particularly interested in understanding how legal rules interact with people’s everyday lives, social values, cultural practices, institutional structures, and unequal relations of power. His teaching seeks to encourage students to look beyond law as written text and consider how law is experienced, interpreted, followed, challenged, and transformed within society.

His publications include S-Team Sports Artificial Intelligence: The Legal and Managerial Challenges, a Scopus-indexed work examining the legal and managerial implications of artificial intelligence in sports. He has also contributed to a Scopus-indexed publication titled Analysis of Internet of Things Hydroponics System: Multifunctional Horticulture and Solar Power Applications. His conference presentations have addressed themes such as migrant workers’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, artificial intelligence and law, environmental jurisprudence, sustainable development, constitutional mandates, and the social consequences of technological change.

In addition to teaching and research, Mr. Nair has been involved in academic coordination, examination-related work, external evaluation, student mentoring, academic counselling, and institutional quality processes. He has undertaken faculty development programmes in SPSS for social-science research, LaTeX for academic writing, international law, and curriculum development under the National Education Policy 2020 and Outcome-Based Education frameworks. He is also associated with an AI-enabled fingerprint detector device patent.

At MNLU Nagpur, he aims to create an engaged and inclusive learning environment where students can develop sociological imagination, research skills, ethical sensitivity, and a deeper understanding of the relationship between law, society, and justice.