Indians are silent victims of plagiarism,need to fight back,says Prof Chaddah

Highlighting various cases of plagiarism by well-known persons in their research work,Professor Chaddah said that when erring authors from a developed country have impressive bylines,then the possibility of error propagating is really high. “There are many cases where ideas of Indian scientists were plagiarised by foreign authors. But those research papers do not show up in plagiarism check softwares because of clever word changes,” he said.

Citing the need for a concrete definition of ‘plagiarism’,Chaddah said that the concept of ‘common knowledge’ needed to be explained. He emphasised that plagiarism occurred at various levels,and minor mistakes did not call for punishments.

Calling upon academicians to be careful about protecting the ownership of their ideas,Professor Chaddah said researchers needed to ensure visibility of new ideas by getting them published in journals of appropriate visibility. “Focus on what is new,be original and be confident,” he said.

While the University Grants Commission (UGC) has proposed stringent regulations to check plagiarism in PhD thesis,a few universities have decided to punish students whose research work is found to contain plagiarised content as well.

However,Professor Chaddah said there is no need of anti-plagiarism cells,or any kind of policing. “The need of the hour is to mentor students and encourage them to think what others have not thought before. Scientific publishing is an integral part of students’ training and it must excite them and not unnerve or petrify them,” he said.